This is…Martin

Martin’s been coming to Allens Gardens pretty much every week since he turned up to volunteer two years ago. And if he doesn’t come to work for the day, he always tries to make it for lunch time…

Why do you like coming?
I love gardening, it’s great exercise, good company and great craic*.

And what do you like doing most?
I started off doing lots of the growing stuff – weeding, cropping etc. – but now I’ve taken a ‘visiting gardener’ role: tidying the yard, the ‘art direction’ of the site, so letting in the light, cutting back the elders, building the netting over the fruit trees…I tend to ‘garden’ the site and let the growers focus on the food growing. And I enjoy it. Strangely I am not so into growing veg but it is nice to be around people who like growing organically.

Anything you don’t like?
No, nothing. All positives.

And what do you do in the rest of your time?
I work at Games Monitor (which is why it’s so important he gets a rest from the computer monitor!)

Something else that Martin brings to the site is his passion for the robin, and I’ve loved how much he has taught me about this territorial, vociferous yet eloquent bird. He spent a long time taming it to take food off his hand, coming to the Allens Gardens regularly with his film canister of yummy maggots, so that it became totally familiar with him.

The day I interviewed Martin (8 Sept) was the first time he had seen it again in a long time – it spent the summer gadding about with a lady friend – so he was delighted that it was in such good shape.  He tells me that it is moving towards winter mode, so is being friendly again to its potential source of food. Cheeky opportunist…

Amongst his other talents, Martin’s also a keen photographer. This is one of his photos.

* craic is Gaelic for what we get up to at lunch time…talking sense and nonsense at the same time…

Rip out? Leave in?

This is the time of year when you have to make some difficult decisions when you’re growing salad – should you rip out a bed of beautifully producing leaves in order to make way for the new crop that will see you all through the winter? Leave it in much longer than now and the new crop won’t have time to establish itself before the cold sets in.

The red-veined sorrel is one such tough call. We’ve got the corn salad hardening off at Springfield, champing at the bit to get planted, yet the sorrel has really only just come into its own, becoming more vigorous, and beautiful, by the day.

But one has to be ruthless in this salad-growing game – come out, this week, it must.

We’ll leave a couple of rows of the sorrel at the end of the bed of newly planted corn salad, just so we can see how it fares over winter. A small concession, that might, it must be said, have some emotional ties attached…such a pretty leaf…

This is…Zanna

Zanna is a fellow Zimbabwean, which means I’m always doubly delighted to see her. This week she came down to Clissold to help me out while Sophie is away. Studying sustainable development, her interest in working with us goes beyond the pure health benefits of getting away from her computer for the day…

Which sites do you go to?
Last year I was mostly at Springfield but this year I have been coming to Allens Gardens, which is only 10 minutes from where I live.

What do you particularly like about volunteering here?
I love being outside, spending time in a beautiful space near where I live, doing something productive and meeting local people. It makes me more rooted in the area, where before I had no connection to it, I was just a commuter. Also Ru (the head grower) is incredibly generous with his knowledge. I also love lunch time. All the different ages is a huge positive. Gardening at home is very solitary.

Is there anything you don’t like?
No  (we like that!)

Anything challenging?
Harvesting salsola! No, really, I like to do a different task each week, something I haven’t done before. And you get lots of support from people if you get stuck.

What do you do in the rest of your time?
I’m taking a part time masters in sustainable development, specialising in environmental management. I also work for an NGO that promotes social justice across Africa. Volunteering at Growing Communities I feel more aware of the food supply chain.

Volunteering since: February 2008

This is…Julie

Like Chiqui, Julie’s been volunteering at Growing Communities since April. With no experience, apart from growing herbs on her balcony, she totally enthuses about her Tuesdays spent with us. She’s a regular at our Farmers’ Market on Saturdays and comes to Allens Gardens because she wants to be involved in the practical side of the things that she has been interested in for a long time, agreeing with us that the local economy is vital.

What do you most like about volunteering here?
It’s really peaceful to be outside and getting the fresh air…I feel like I’m not in London. London can be an assault. I’m in a different head space here, which feels really healthy. It’s good to have contact with nature. I would like to be able to give more time than I do. And the jelly & ice-cream!*

What don’t you like?
That’s not come up yet. The work is quite hard, but I don’t mind that.

Tell me something that you’ve learned from working here
Well, it’s confirmed what I thought, that organic growing is not easy. I’ve been learning things bit by bit, taking in things slowly.

And what do you do in the rest of your time?
I’m developing a research project on public services, valuing care services against privatisation.

* This was a first-time treat today, with apprentice Ida making special vegan red-currant jelly from the berries left over from last week.  We’re hoping it’s sparked a new tradition in super yummy puddings on a Tuesday…

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!