Filed under: Collecting, Doing | Tags: church street, foraging, fruit, grapes, hackney, local, local food, organic, seasonal, seasonal food, soft fruit, stoke newington
It is that time of the year where I cycle about dumbfounded at the amount of organic seasonal locally produced food going to waste.
If you live in Hackney get your arse down to Sandbrook Road, N16 (just off Church Street). At the north end there is a wall dripping with grapes which I have never seen anyone else harvest. The photo below is from Googlemaps… imagine that whole wall overflowing with the good stuff.
It looks like it got pretty cold last night and some of my bean pods lost all their colour almost cracking open in places.
I decided it was a good morning for a spot of seed saving.
London Permaculture Festival coming up soon – I will be the one wandering around trying to find carrot cake – click on the flyer for more info – see you there then!
Filed under: Doing
my dad just sent me a few photos of his summer salads looking fairly happy growing in polystyrene packing bits… perhaps not my choice of container…
I prefer the big oil cans which all of the fast food places regularly throw up around here… but each to there own and the salad looks happy which is most important!
I get the tops off the oil cans using an old kitchen knife which needs a few bashes with a hammer to get it going and when it gets stuck
Filed under: Doing | Tags: beans, cat guarding, potatoes in bag, raised bed salad, string hanging from tree, tomatoes patio
Back in late march I helped my mum to set up a few raised beds; see post here. Last month I brought over a few cuttings, seedlings and other bits and bobs to which she has added to… the results are below:
Mum with her new raised beds
Potatoes growing in an old plastic bag
Lara on salad guarding duty - keeps the pigeons and squirrels away
Close up on raised bed - note the twigs and trellis at the back for the peas to grow up. From front left clockwise - nasturtium, orache, buckler leaf sorrel, peas, calendula, spinach, lettuce, rocket, carrots and ruby chard!
Tomatoes growing in pots
Beans in a basket growing up string into a tree
Filed under: Doing | Tags: farleigh road, guerrilla gardening, n16, pimp my pavement, stoke newington
Inspired by the ‘pimp my pavement‘ website I have recently been spending time with other residents making mini gardens on the street.
The sun did not shine and we had to flee inside shortly after due to a downpour but we now have two pretty little beds at the bases of the street trees on Farleigh Road.
They were made using lime branches pollarded from other street trees and planted up with flowers and beans which should climb up the tree cages. I propagated the beans myself and the flowers came from Columbia Road flower market.
Filed under: Doing | Tags: beans, companion planting, squash, sweetcorn, the three sisters
I just learnt about the ‘three sisters’ companion planting last week so when my dad invited me over to have a peek at his little corner of an allotment I thought it would be good to give it a go…
One lesson learnt from the day is always carry a proper camera about with you – as you can see below the camera on my dad’s phone is AWEFUL!
…anyway – the three sisters is a trinity of plants which all assist each other to grow… sweetcorn grows tall, beans climb the sweetcorn stalks and squash provides ground cover surpressing weeds and generally being green. I would write more but wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive bit of info here, and there is more info here although it all sounds far more technical and scary than I am really into.
One thing which I learnt from my friend Hedvig from Get Growing is that you need to plant the sweetcorn bunched together in a group rather than in a single line – they need to pollinate each other, which won’t work so well in a single line.
I did not build a mound which seems to be recommended in quite a few places so watch this space to see if it works :-)
