Leaf of the Week: Red Veined Sorrel

This week saw the first major cutting of a new leaf we are trialing on our Clissold site – red veined sorrel. We thought we would give it a try this year after reading about it in Charles Dowding’s Salad Leaves for All Seasons – he calls it blood-veined sorrel. It turns out, as he said it would, to be less vigorous than the broad-leaved sorrel that we normally grow. And to be honest, both Ru and I are not terribly impressed with its flavour, nor its texture. However, it is a rather fine looking leaf…

…and, thrown in amongst the other leaves in our salad bag, I think it does rather well.  Annie, one of last year’s apprentices who turned up this week for the packing (thank-you Annie!), singled it out from the trough as ’such a beautiful leaf.’

To quote Dowding, it has ‘powerful citric acid bite’ and so its rather low yields turns into a bit of a benefit, as you don’t need too large a quantity in your salad bowl. Like all sorrels, it is perennial, so if you are growing it at home, you won’t have to sow it every year, unless you want new tender plants…

This is…Precious

If you come to Allens Garden on a Tuesday afternoon, chances are you’ll meet Precious. And if you’re very lucky, you’ll hear her sing as she works.

She’s our longest standing volunteer having been coming to Growing Communities for over a decade!

She loves the welcoming atmosphere of our growing sites and that things are under control here. For her, it is a place to catch up with things that are going on around the area and is “a wonderful reference point” for the growing she does in her own space nearby: “If I have questions I can find some answers here,” she says.

Despite her long standing, she doesn’t consider herself an experienced grower, as she didn’t grow up with gardeners in the family and only started growing food in her 50s. We think she’s being too modest!

One thing she’s not so keen on – the raised beds! She thinks ground level would be better for back ache. And one thing she would like to do more – turning the compost.

In the rest of her time, she is very involved in a community garden project where she lives and they grow food. This is the main reason for her long-term commitment to Growing Communities. The project, started in November 2006, is run by the Peter Bedford Housing Association, a charity for disadvantaged people.

Add this to her connection with the North London LETS scheme and her involvement in her Quaker local community, and I’d say we’re lucky she gives us her Tuesday afternoons. They just wouldn’t be the same without her.

Delightful sights on the Wild Side

We had all just buckled down to harvesting after lunch, when Ru called out from the Wild Side, ‘you should all come see this!’ And rushing there, we saw, almost miraculous in the afternoon sunshine, a veritable host of butterflies dancing on the valerian. I had to share these pictures with you, though they do no justice to the delightful sight.

If we’ve identified them correctly, these are painted ladies. Apparently there is a big influx of them this year and they are very convivial, so you’ll see them in wondrous numbers. You might be forgiven if you thought, like me, that they might be monarchs, a very similar looking butterfly. But monarchs don’t usually pitch up until later in the year, and not, normally, as far east.

The valerian they are feasting upon was one of a bunch of interesting edible plants we put into a rockery. It’s an abundantly flowering, sweet smelling plant, but rather bolshy and has pretty much crowded out the others we planted with it. We harvest the young shoots late winter-early spring for our salad bags.

This is…Chiqui

Just back from the States where she was managing an organic market that was all about local, sustainable and the small scale, Chiqui was super exited to chance upon Growing Communities. ‘This is the logical extension of the work I was doing over there.’

What do you like about working here?
Everything! Particularly likes ‘just being’ with the plants and how hands on it all is. She also likes meeting such a diverse bunch of people who are all into working together on a community project. ‘Being outside, being in touch with the seasons, the cycles…so cool.’

What don’t you like?
There’s nothing she doesn’t like about coming here. ‘I love it, I just wish you needed us more days!’ (Could we get a better advertisement?!)

What do you do in the rest of your time?
When she’s not working with us, she’s a potter by profession and also does some volunteering with Pogo Cafe.

Volunteering since: April 2009

And Chiqui? It’s short for Chiquita, a nickname from when she was a kid. We think it should be short for Chicory, but then we would, wouldn’t we?

This is…

My new feature for 2009 is to be a focus on the wonderful volunteers that come to our sites every week and help us to grow salad. After all, we are called Growing Communities and so far I’ve given you mostly growing…

I’m not going to call it ‘Volunteer of the Month‘ because I reckon that makes it seem like a title, and, at the risk of sounding cheesy, they all deserve the title every month. Rather, my aim is to give you a sense of the people who work with us, no accolades or awards, but an acknowledgment of how much we appreciate them.

First one coming up shortly…

Preparing for treasures

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were harvesting the jerusalem artichokes on our sites. Well, this year, we have allocated a rather sizeable section at Clissold to the lovely vegetable. The piece of land we’ve chosen doesn’t get too much sun in the summer months, as the nearby trees cast too much shade when in leaf. Really, it’s not worth growing salad leaves there. And artichokes are pretty low maintanance (hoorah!) and can handle the shade.

As we had garlic growing in the area until just last week, we had only planted up a small area with the tubers themselves and planted the rest into pots at Springfield, where they’ve come on really nicely.

You can just see the artichokes growing on the edge of the green plastic, which is what I covered the ground with after we lifted the garlic last week

This week, the garlic gone (oh lucky members who got a bunch of the delicious stuff!), I transported 15 artichoke seedlings across to Clissold in my trailer. Here’s one hanging out…

And here are the rest, waiting to be planted up by Ru and Chickie, one of our newest volunteers. You can see how much more they have grown being in the glasshouse!

Here they are being planted out in this moon-shaped bed. Rather a generous spacing, as we don’t have quite enough plants. But I’m hoping they’ll benefit from not being too crowded…

As a bit of an experiment, we’ve planted a climbing French bean near one of the artichokes – which grow tall like sunflowers. Don’t know if anyone has tried this at home, but we thought we would see how the artichoke does as a support – kind of in the style of the three sisters. If you’ve any experience of this – do let me know!

Overwhelmed by beauty…

Just had to share the fantastic range of edible flowers that go into our salad bags with you, as it’s been some time since I raised the subject of eating them.

This week we picked calendula, pansies, heartsease, daisies, sweet cicily and  woodruff.

Every week I am as delighted as I was the first time I found out that we put  a flower into each of our salad bags – a sweet, precious task.  To all you box scheme members out there – eat them! That’s why they’re in the bag! And everyone else, grow them! It’s a wonderful way of attracting beneficial insects to your garden while brightening your salad bowl…

Growing season a go-go

April’s been a whirlwind of a month, as I’m sure all you gardeners out there will agree! Hardly a moment to spare for sharing my growing tales with you all.

Traditionally, when the clocks change at the end of March, we move the harvesting back to a Tuesday from the winter timetable of Wednesday morning, there now being light enough to get it all done before dark. However, this year’s field of applicants being so good, we were a little behind on the selection of our apprentices…a very real indication of the growing interest in the exciting world of urban agriculture. This meant the first week’s harvesting remained on the Wednesday morning. And that week saw Ru and I picking and then packing 260 bags of salad between us. Seriously hard labour, I tell you! The harvests leapt from just 40 bags in the middle of March to over 200 in a matter of weeks! We just managed to get down to the Climate Change camp in central London, where the ‘Farmers’ Markets not Carbon Markets‘ stall had our very own salad leaves on sale…

Selection made, the following week we were joined by, not two as we had intended, but three new apprentices. One apprentice has been allocated to each of our urban market gardens – Allens Gardens, Springfield Park and to my own site at Clissold Park too. I’m very excited that Sophie will be joining me every week over this growing season.

We also had two wonderful visitors from France – doing a three week internship with us. A terrific spike in numbers to get the salad picked and packed.

Over the winter I’ve been deliberating over what element of the sites I’ll bring to you as a regular feature this year…2007 was Leaf of the Week, 2008 I gave you Dressing of the Month. So what’s it going to be for 2009? Well, I’ve finally settled on something…watch this space, it’s coming soon.

Grabbing the nettle…

Had a wonderful bit of nettle soup this evening! It began with the weeding of the hedge that runs along the length of my site at Clissold Park. All very tender growth at the moment, but come a couple of months’ time and it’ll be big enough to give you a good sting every time you walk along that edge of the garden. Michael gave me a hand weeding it out, pulling up the roots as much as possible without disturbing the logs that sit further under the hedge giving safe haven to wildlife.

Having spent the earlier morning turning the compost, many of the nettles found their way onto the heap (amongst its many wonderful properties, nettle is a fine compost activator), one patch was left for the butterflies (Andy, the butterfly man at Clissold Park gave me much rebuke last year when I was pulling out the nettles – some species totally rely on nettles for laying their eggs – so keeping a patch in a sunny position is really important) but the rest- a goodly amount – came home with me. And tonight we made it into a delicious soup served up with freshly baked soda bread. Fine fare in all its local seasonality!

Try this at home…

Chop one onion, 3 medium potatoes and 3 cloves of garlic. Cover with water and bring to the boil. Add a a veggie stock cube and cook till the potato is soft. Add a good amount of nettles (our soup had about 4 fistfuls – make sure you wash it with gloves on!) and cook for a short while longer. Blend. Serve with a swirl of fresh cream and salt & pepper to taste….

The colour is nothing short of miraculous.

Back in the swing…

It’s been a crazy old month this February, it really has. I had a sudden and irresistible opportunity to leave this wintry island right at the start of it. So while my poor salad leaves at Clissold Park (and some of you!)  languished in the icy cold, I flew south to Cape Town. There, in amongst visiting family, friends and working, I chanced upon a fantastic food growing project called Soil For Life. They are all about getting people to grow food in their own gardens. (Quite like my own project Get Growing then, which we launched the day after I got back. Yes! It’s been crazy!)

From Cape Town, I went up to Kenya, where I was blessed with the chance to visit a tree nursery and plant one myself in the beautiful red soil. More highlights were the amazing nutrition gardens and seeing an abundant vegetable garden tended by a woman in her 90s. Wonderful advertisement for the healthy goodness of this food-growing work!

Now firmly back in London, my site at Clissold Park is open again. My first week back saw me scraping up all the snow that was still accumulated down the side of the butterfly tunnel.

Tried desperately to resuscitate the poor wee chard plants that hadn’t really had a chance to grow before it got cold. We’ll just have to see if they survive.

And we’ve started harvesting again – a good 40 bags of salad a week are making their way into the Growing Communities veggie bags. If you’re a member of the scheme, hope you get a chance to taste the delicious mix – there’s some wonderful daffodil garlic in there too, if you were wondering what that tasty grassy stuff was…

Don’t forget to check out my own project – our deadline for entries is this Sunday…more on that soon.