Cutting the ribbon…

My site at Clissold Park is the oldest of the Growing Communities sites, but today really felt like a ‘cutting the ribbon’ day. We had a great turn out of volunteers (first Tuesdays of the month are Clissold Park days) which meant my usually rather quiet patch was a real hive of activity. We laid porous pipe for the watering system, prepared a bed and planted catalogna lettuce, planted out herbs, dug in green manures, selected a nettle patch and pulled out the rest (more on that soon!), turned the compost and sowed pennyroyal (a creeping mint) by the shed door. We also claimed the long bed by the butterfly tunnel (this is something the Park runs and is well worth a visit now that the butterflies have finally woken up!) which doesn’t have the best soil. We bolstered it up with compost and planted chard - extra seedlings that had no home otherwise.

But the cutting the ribbon moment to which I refer came when we put up the sign at the site’s gate. This has been lovingly crafted by an old school sign-painter. With the sign firmly up, I really feel that the site’s ready to go.

Here are the two apprentices, three volunteers, Ru the grower and that’s me on the far right.

Monthly dressing

This month we pitted the new apprentices against each other, to fight for the increasingly feted title of Monthly Dresser. Ru picked a perfect mix of leaves…

These we split into two bowls, then tossed each with a different dressing.

This time there were four volunteers on hand to do the taste test, plus Ru and I. New rule is that the makers of the dressing can’t vote. It was a tough call, as the apprentices had gone for very similar mixes. But it was Annie who walked away with the title, 4 to 2, with her (now not so) secret ingredient of black current and sloe jelly.

The leaves are still strong enough tasting to warrant a sweet dressing. Try this one, courtesy of Annie, at home:

A splosh of balsamic vinegar
A double splosh of olive oil (use Palestinian for best result)
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp black currant & sloe jelly (”or any old jam, to be honest,” says Annie)

And on the right…Annie’s winning concoction…

Growing growing growing!

Just wanted to give you a little update on what’s been happening at my site…As you might know, if you have been reading this blog, in my new position as assistant grower, I am tasked with looking after the smallest of Growing Communities’ market garden sites. At this site, we have 3 rotations going - two new ones which we have turned over to salad production this year (now that I am on board to give the salad the attention it needs) and one with longer maturing crops such as pumpkins, garlic and chard.

Last week I planted up the first bed with tatsoi ( = a Japanese salad leaf ) and another with wild rocket, both of which I had sown last month. And this week I sowed some salsola soda straight into the earth. This is a bit of an experiment, both the plant itself and sowing straight in - normally we sow seeds into trays at our Springfield site and take them to the various sites when they are ready for planting. But we thought we would give this a try to see what happens…will keep you posted!

All three beds are covered with fine mesh to keep dem pesky birds from causing damage. One thing about this site is that there are loads and loads of pigeons. We are very close to the deer pens and those opportunistic birds are always around waiting for the Park guys to feed the deer (if you look very closely at the picture, you can just about see them in the background). I’m hoping that the deer feed will hold more of an appeal to the pigeons than our tasty young salad leaves…

Harvested from Clissold this week:
1.5kg rainbow chard - this has been growing over the winter and gave us 6 really beautiful bags of greens with colourful stalks to sell at the farm shop, which is where people pick up their veggie bags.

Leaf of last week: Cornet de Bordeaux

Not only is this one of the biggest leaves on our site at the moment but wow, what a mouthful of a name! It’s the escarole type of endive and I just had to resurrect ‘Leaf of the Week’ to show it to you.

It has been a hugely successful crop over the past winter and has continued to grow nicely over the last few weeks of unsettled weather. If you get the salad bags you should have no difficulty recognising it! This type of endive is less bitter than the other types.

Last week was the first day back harvesting on the sites. Now that British Summer Time has arrived (even if summer itself seems far off!), we are back to harvesting on a Tuesday. This means super long days which end in trailer loads of salad bags being cycled from our growing sites to Growing Communities’ HQ, ready to be packed into the veggie boxes the following day.

Spiralling into the growing season…

I’m so excited! The new apprentices started this week. They’ll be doing the same as I did last year – a six month growing season at Growing Communities’ market gardens. It’s going to be fantastic to have two extra regulars!

While Ru showed them the ropes, I worked with the volunteers on a herb spiral. We’ve put this in the forest garden side of Allens Garden where there was a perfect little spot for it. The purpose of a herb spiral is to be able to grow a variety of herbs together, the different heights mean that you can put those that love drier conditions at the top and then plant those that do better in wetter, shadier soils further down. Another advantage is that you can water the whole spiral from the top. Bill Mollison suggests putting a ‘pond’ for watercress at the lowest point, because water can collect there.

Made from old conveyor belt, ours is a very basic design, with the obvious advantage of being easy to fashion into a spiral. We’re going to put the salt bush at the top as it does well in drier conditions. Ru was keen for us to make the spiral extra high so it would get more sun too, but with the height of the fence behind, I think that was a little optimistic… Other herbs that go well on the higher sections include thyme, rosemary and sage. Mint, parsley and chives do better lower down.

We didn’t have quite enough soil to fill it up, so we’ve put in some leaf mould which is just about ready to use. This will settle down a little and then we’ll fill it up with soil which we’re planning to steal from the raised beds around the site, a little bit from here and there should fill it up nicely.

I’ll keep you posted on how it does once those herbs are planted…can’t wait to get them in.

View from the top

Monthly dressings…

So, last year I brought you leaf of the week. This year, I bring you ‘Monthly Dressing’ to make those leaves taste super good. It’s an idea that Ru and I came up with down at the site earlier this year and we trialled it this week.

We each bought in a dressing that we thought would go well with the leaves that are growing at the moment. Though there are not as many leaves this time of year, we are still managing to get quite a few which make it into your veg bags, if you are lucky!

The leaves that do well in this kind of weather are pretty strong tasting, your mustard leaves, rocket, endive and a sneaky wild chicory that Ru’s been blanching ( = covering with dark cloth so that it loses its bitterness). We also threw in some rouge d’hiver lettuce for its looks.

Three volunteers were on hand to help with the taste test. We shredded the leaves to get a good even mix of flavours in each mouthful (maybe could have been finer) and then split them out into two bowls. Then we drizzled the dressings over the top.

Ru had gone for a sweeter dressing to balance the strong flavours of the leaves. He obviously knows his leaves better than I do, as my delicious basil and sunflower seed dressing just didn’t quite cut it. And even I joined the unanimous vote to make his the first dressing to be featured on these pages.

So, what went in his perfect dressing…

200ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
100ml balsalmic vinegar
Pinch of sea salt
Ground pepper
And, the secret ingredient…1 tablespoon of maple syrup.

Maybe my dressing will do better in the summer months…look out for it!

Pre-spring tool care

Today was my first day back working on the site this year. Although I’m going to be looking after our Clissold Park site, this was the day for tool care at Allens Gardens. So that’s where I was. If you think of it like washing dishes then it’s a bit of a massive chore. But if you can think of it as a ritual, a preparation for the growing months ahead, it becomes both therapeutic and symbolic.

At Allens Gardens, like all our sites, we have a fair few tools, so the process of cleaning them is not insignificant, it took all morning and ate just a little into the afternoon, with various volunteers helping out along the way. We started by taking all the tools to be cleaned, sharpened and oiled out of the shed – lining up the shovels and spades, the forks, rakes, the pickaxe and all the smaller tools – trowels, hand forks and secateurs. Then we made up a bucket of warm soapy water. With a hard brush I washed away all the remnants of last year’s digging. Of course we clean the tools every time we put them away at the end of a day’s work, but there’s always that extra little bit that needs a hard scrub to get it off. And the oiling helps to prevent rust and deterioration.

Methodically, I lined up the clean tools to dry as I washed the others. Once that was done, it was time to sharpen, first wiping away any excess suds and water and then working out which side of the tool to sharpen, or both, in case of the pickaxe. On the spades we sharpened the bottom edge. Using a sharpening rock at a 45 degree angle, you can get them pretty sharp. Worth testing this sharpness at a perpendicular angle and not by running your finger along the newly lethal blade! Then it was onto oiling. We use linseed on all the wood and 3-in-1 oil for the metal. You can always use vegetable oil on the metal if you prefer.

And that was it. All that was left to do was to put all the tools neatly back into the shed that Ru had been cleaning in the meantime. A job well done and one that makes you really feel well set for the year ahead.

Season’s greetings!

I’ve not been inactive on the site these past few weeks but the run up to Christmas has meant little, or no time for getting my notes up here. And no time now either, sadly. However, when I was at the site last week, I was visited by some very curious wildlife - at first impression this site feels much more lively than our other two sites.

So, as a little bit of a Christmas present, I leave these common visitors with you!

Always interested, there are a number of robins on the Clissold site - very territorial!

There are so many squirrels, I think it is going to be interesting to see how they interact with the salad next year! This one was particularly undeterred by my presence.

Have a lovely festive break! Here’s to lots of growing next year!

All change ahead…

Hey, hello! I’m back! But not as you’ve known me, if you have been reading this over the last six months, for I’m no longer an apprentice… From this week I am Assistant Grower!

‘What does this mean!?’ I hear you cry. Well, first up, and most excitingly, it means I have my very own site! With all the knowledge that I amassed as an apprentice (though, as you’ll know, I still have a looooong way to go!) Growing Communities decided that this was the best way of continuing its fledgling learning programme. ‘My’ site, in Clissold Park, is the smallest of the three sites on which we grow food for the local veggie box scheme.

Welcome to my site! Here you can see just how small it is. On the right is the edge of the Butterfly Tunnel, which is run by Clissold Park and is open to the public over the summer months.

It’s actually our oldest site but is one that Ru, Growing Communities’ Grower, has been running in a fairly low maintenance way. For the last year or so, it has been getting a once a month visit from a team of volunteers. Unlike the other sites, only longer developing field crops are grown here – pumpkins, chard, garlic, globe artichokes, and the like. These don’t need too much attention and can be picked for the veggie box infrequently.

Now, however, things are set to change. It’ll now benefit (I hope!) from one day’s work a week from me, with volunteers still coming once a month to give me a hand. So it’s out with the slow developing crops and in with the salad. Will just have to see how much I’ll be able to contribute to the fantastic salad bags I hope I’ve given you a taste for over the last six months. I’m so excited to give it a go.

So, my day at the site this week was spent getting a feel for the place, pacing it out, working out how much equipment I will need, how many metres of hose-pipe I need to set up an irrigation system, how many metres of shade cloth I’ll be needing to cover the beds once they are planted up, how much netting, the number of hoops required. And then there was working out how many lengths of scaffolding planks, or other suitable material, I need to repair the raised beds. Lots of hard construction work to be done before the growing season begins next year…

Here, for example, the bed needs to be restructured to get rid of this incredibly thin path - you can’t even turn around in it!

And then, of course, there’s all the mind stuff to work through, including how the new crop rotations will work if we are to ensure the site meets our organic standards… But that, my friends, will have to come next week. See you then.

ps. I totally realise that this site doesn’t reflect any of the changes: a blog overhaul is on its way too….

Weekly stats…
Grower: 1 | Assistant Grower: 1 | Volunteers: 4 (last volunteer day at this site for the year) | Dog: 1

So long…for now…

So. My last week as an apprentice. My last ‘leaf of the week’ just written, even though there are loads more leaves to feed the feature for weeks to come (how I love the diversity of our salad bags!). But it’s time up. My six months of being an Apprentice Grower are over. A good growing season in which, as I hope my posts on this will testify, I’ve learnt a huge amount. I hope they’ve taught you something too.

And, what next? Well, first up, I’m taking a bit of a break for October. A trip or two away, while I ruminate on the next step on this growing path I’ve decided to go down. I should warn you that there are some exciting developments brewing…

So, maybe take a break too, but don’t go away entirely. Check this every now and again. This blog will continue to tell its growing tales…I’ll be back soon.