Friday 1st June, 11.30 – 12.30
The Florence, 131-133 Dulwich Road, Herne Hill
Whether you have an allotment, small garden or just a windowsill, everyone can grow their own salad, herbs or veg.
Growing your own food can be fun, it tastes great and you will have a ready supply of fresh food. This hands on workshop run by a Garden Organic Master
Gardener will help you get started, plan your planting and you can sow some seeds in a pot to take away. There will be a question and answer session at the end.
All welcome – including children of all ages who can also sow their own seeds.
Places limited so to book your free place please email info@localgreens.org.uk.
The Florence is a lovely pub across from Brockwell Park and very near Herne Hill train station. http://www.capitalpubcompany.com/the-florence/
The Master Gardener programme is a volunteer led scheme managed by Garden Organic, the UK’s leading organic growing charity.
www.mastergardeners.org.uk

We had an extended dig and sold biscuits for the Five Parks Walkers. But the truly exciting bit is that the bees have arrived! Seb and Caroline spent most of the day getting them settled in. Thanks for Neil for some last minute carpentry on the hive.

We did lots of weeding, particularly in the fruit beds, which were overgrown with grass, and watered the new seedlings. We planted some brassicas donated by Ram (thanks!). We planted some more lettuce. And Andrew and his son and daughter dug over one side of the polytunnel beds, and contributed some very delicious welsh cakes for the biscuit stall.

The phaecelia is in full bloom, just in time for the bees.

The Five Parks Walk is a lovely way to explore the area – http://madforbrockwellpark.com/2012/04/29/five-parks-walk-sunday-13-may/ so if you don’t have plans, do the walk and then stay in the community garden for some digging!

We put up the screen to protect the beehive. It also will ensure that when the bees fly out they are above head height.The bees arrive this week! Seb has been doing training via Capital Bee and has an experienced mentor, Caroline. We will practice ‘natural’ or non-interventionist bee-keeping. The goal is to keep the bees alive, rather than harvesting honey.

Rochelle added comfrey leaves to water to make plant food. It will stew for a month or two in the shed (and make an atrocious smell). Then we can use it.

A local nursery had seedlings in need of a home, so there were lots of kids and parents planting. As we were a bit behind in our planting it was great to have the seedlings, and the kids had fun digging (and the parents, who were bemused by how deep potato trenches need to be).

We also planted broccoli and swede seeds, and did loads of weeding. And Seb and Kate made very yummy toffee and stem ginger cookies to keep us going. We harvested carrots, chicory, and chard.

Trees for Cities has lifted the turf on the area where the polytunnel will go. On Sunday we’ll dig it over and add compost, then they’ll put the polytunnel up. A very big thanks to Ben for all his help.

Come and find the herbs for a seven herb porridge, eaten in Japan for the new year ritual of nanakusa-gayu to invite good luck and longevity for the coming year. It is possible to find all of the original herbs in this country and many of them growing wild. We’ll do our best to find them.

The traditional herbs are:

Water dropwort, Shepherd’s Purse, Cudweed, Chickweed, Nipplewort, Turnip, radish

Free. Places limited. Please contact to book

invisiblefood@gmail.com

Thursday 3^rd May 2012 10.30 – 1 Myatt’s Fields Park

Street Food by Invisible Food is a month by month calendar for foraging in an urban environment including what you can find and way of cooking that reflect cultural diversity in London. It’s about world food, community building, and imaginative, holistic connective work.  The book connects both urban spatial awareness and nature awareness and new recipe creation of world-wild food.

http://projectdirt.com/events/invisible-food-midweek-special-wild-herb-meditation

This is the first of a series of five, one a month April – August which will lead to the harvest feasts in September in Myatt’s Fields, and the Incredible Edible AGM and feast at the Garden Museum in October. Each session will have three aspects:

– share your expertise on growing and tell us what you want to know
– explore opportunities to generate income from growing
– network with others involved in community growing

RSVP your attendance on http://projectdirt.com/group/incredibleediblelambeth. You can also contact us on incredibleediblelambeth@gmail.com, putting ‘workshops’ in the subject line.

On April 28th we’ll be looking at what to sow under three headings: what do the community gardeners want, what are good crops to sell, crops for winter storage.
Facilitator: Fiona Law (IEL member, South London Master Gardener Coordinator, Lambeth resident/grower, horticultural trainer)
Special guest: Natasha Soares, local growing coordinator with Herne Hill/Dulwich/East Dulwich veg box scheme, Local Greens

The Great Clapham Common Compost Giveaway and Pumpkin Seed Sowing Event!

Saturday 28th April 2012
11 – 3 in the by the bandstand cafe on Clapham Common
(googlemaps)

– Bring a barrow, a bucket, a bag or a buggy and take away green waste compost made on Clapham Common – it’s free!
– Plant a pumpkin seed and find out about Incredibible Edible Lambeth’s harvest festival pumpkin competition in October – free again!
– Get gardening and compost advice from the South London Master Gardeners – free!
– Tell IEL and LBL what you need for growing and give your views on recycling food waste for compost

Please come along. It’s a great chance to get growing, meet other local people into growing, and find out about Incredible Edible Lambeth. This is for anyone and everyone – please spread the word!

(click here for more info)

As you know, the Lambeth Growing Hubs project aims to enable the 114 community gardening, food growing, horticultural and wildlife projects in Lambeth to work together to share skills and resources by creating three “Growing Hubs” (in Myatts Fields, in Brockwell Greenhouses and in Streatham Rookery). The Growing Hubs will be places where groups can access training, support and share skills. I’m really excited about this project: there is so much potential for the Lambeth Growing Hubs to be a vibrant co-operative community that will take the struggle out of community growing- simply by making cooperation easier.

Thanks so much for filling in the online questionnaire. This has given us a good idea about what training, support, and resources you (the growing groups) need and where we should be going with the Lambeth Growing Hubs project. However, there is nothing like face to face discussion for getting a really good idea of what the Lambeth Growing Hubs Project should be focusing on first.

On Saturday, we’ll be handing over to you to tell us what you would like the Lambeth Growing Hubs Project to do. I personally promise to make this a really fun participatory gathering of like minded people with lots of opportunities to network and share. The meeting will feature

Introduction to the Growing Hubs Project and to the Growing Hubs
What the online questionnaire has told us
Over to you: you tell us what the Lambeth Growing Hubs should be doing
Joint funding bids ideas shop
Networking lunch (again organic and yummy)

Any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch (my number and details are below). Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you on Saturday

All the best

Giovanna

P.S. Let me know if you’ll be there

Giovanna Speciale
Community and Education Project Officer
giovanna.speciale@groundwork.org.uk
Direct dial: 0208 687 4084
Mobile: 07948 431833

“We’re currently running an initiative to bring outdoor kitchens to London, creating fantastic social hubs for people to get together and share their cooking.

We have paired up two architectural practices with two pilot sites – Spitalfields City Farm and Newham City Farm. Each site will have a bespoke kitchen designed for them, which will then be fundrasied for via Spacehive, supported by the London Festival of Architecture.

As so many architects have been keen to work on this project we’re on the lookout for more sites, and thought Ruskin Park Community Garden could be a brilliant site, as the kitchen could tie in well with your growing activities.”

We’ve invited them to come see the garden, will keep you posted.

Outdoor kitchens brief short