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.

Tags: get growing, Salad, snow