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…