The New Garden.........

I have had several social media requests for an update on the new garden so I thought a little something would be a good idea in the run up to Christmas festivities. As many of you will know we don't celebrate Christmas here at Venn Towers, preferring to celebrate the solstice and just take time out of our busy lives to rest and recuperate over the festive period. And with that usually comes a whole lot of preparation for the garden, ensuring that we are ready for the months ahead when life with my own space and supporting 41 others usually gets a tad manic. There is also a very new and exciting incredible edible Bristol project I need to tell you about soon, so watch this space for that!!

The aquaponics unit, surrounded by pots of bulbs

Thus far I have really done very little. The garden is completely gravel so there has been a lot of weeding to do and that will need keeping up with as the blighters continue to germinate despite the cold. The aquaponics unit is in place and the fish survived the move, and we are working to make the system more sustainable next year with a solar pump and aeration but I will return to that once we get the equipment. My pots have been weeded and a fair few filled with bulbs so there will be some colour in late spring, and I have bought a bit of bedding to alleviate the grey.

But what has been most exciting is a conversation I had with Burgon and Ball who have kindly agreed to gift me some products to really support the use of the whole space, whilst turning the garden into a really sociable as well as productive and beautiful space. At the weekend we put up the first of these which is a great peg board on which tools can be kept, as well as other bits and pieces which in my life usually end up being flung somewhere only to be found several weeks later, usually a bit the worse for wear!! I also have some of their amazing Flora Brite tools in pink, which should ensure my habit of going through lots of tools is abated because in a tiny space there is no way I can lose those tools. Or at least I hope that is the case! What I am most excited about with this type of product is that it, as well as the rest of the range it belongs to,  the Garden Supplies range, can be used inside or outside, or anywhere in between, so people with balconies or just window boxes, could still use this range. For example I have the herb planters on my kitchen windowsill, bringing the garden into the kitchen.

So that is where we are so far. There will be lots more to come over the following weeks so do keep an eye open for updates and let me know in the comments if there is anything in particular you'd like to know more about.

There's been a little incident....

Firstly I have to tell you I am on a ferry heading to Ireland for Bloom Fringe. It's 2.30 on Friday morning and I'm sitting by a window looking out on darkness. I don't like being at sea. But I'm hoping writing this will take my mind off the journey.

A few weeks ago I looked at the area by our drive and was somewhat concerned at seeing what looked like the beginning of spray damage on the wild flowers and shrubs that I allow to weave their way through the railings that separate the house from the field next door. I don't clear these until mid to late May to ensure there is somewhere for invertebrates and other small creatures to find safety if there's a late frost. For the first day or so I actually wondered if it might be frost damage. 

But then the tell tale sign of the grass around the edges of the field going brown, becoming brittle and dying off alerted me to the definite fact that spraying had taken place, and spray had drifted onto our drive. The blackberries all began to show the mottled yellowing that comes when they start to fight back. The willow herb browned at the roots and slowly turned yellow and faded and soon the entire bank was dying back.

 

Now I'm a pragmatist and I understand exactly why the owners and lease holders of this field decided to spray the edges. Time is precious, man power at capacity and the field is huge, and used by local football teams at the weekends. The area by us is left to grow, and is used by dog walkers and youngsters as a recreation space, but sadly it's also often used to fly tip and looks like a real eye sore. The spraying was undertaken, I believe, to begin to combat that issue. Often we see community payback teams in there clearing the fly tipping but my guess would be that a myriad of complaints led to drastic action.

Obviously I set about finding who had sprayed as well as what had been used. Of course it was a chemical with Glyphosate as its main ingredient, and of course I was told that it's perfectly safe. Apparently the contractor had assured that. 

Now I could at this point give all the names of all the organisations and businesses involved, but that would not in any way help the situation. I'm upset for several reasons, but I'd like to concentrate on one reason that is really dear to my heart and that's safety when spraying.

I have spraying qualifications from my time in nurseries. Each qualification cost a considerable sum to my employer and I took the learning and the tests seriously. Once you start to read chemical data sheets you realise these are not things to use lightly,  and indeed that principle is at the core of all horticultural chemical spraying. Before beginning to consider what active ingredient might be best to use to solve an issue, the operative is tasked with looking at cultural methods that could be used instead. Only when each of those methods have been considered, be it hand weeding an area or moving climber stock outside into the rain to stop red spider mite, should chemical spraying be considered. 

And once the decision to spray a chemical is made, weather, hear, wind speed should all be at an optimal point before the spraying commences. There's no point beginning of it's threatening rain, if it's too hot and plants will scorch, if it's windy, in fact if the wind is over 5mph, meaning the spray could drift.......

So whoever sprayed that field didn't consider the wind speed. It's rarely still across us, as we are at the top of a hill, and the wind whistles down. In fact I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that windy!!

I've repeatedly requested a conversation with the contracted company, who look as if they are professionals from their website, but they are yet to get in touch. The leaseholder has been given my details but I've heard nothing and the owners of the field say they are just the middle man and whilst being perfectly pleasant aren't taking my complaint particularly seriously. I've just asked for a written apology but it's not forthcoming.

And then today I saw this.....

There are so many things wrong with this picture.

No soraying suit, or at least long arms on his top to stop any spray back.

No gloves.

On his phone so not concentrating.

No signage to say spraying is taking place.

Needless to say he refused to speak to me. He was spraying an area of a retail park, so I assume he was a contractor. 

And then it suddenly occurred to me that this is a city/county/country/world wide issue. As less and less land is managed by local authorities so more and more land is looked after by private companies who inevitably will contract out specialist work such as chemical spraying. And how do all those companies know what is expected, in terms of basic health and safety and monitoring of spraying operatives? My guess is that many, if not most, just assume the contracted business is doing the monitoring, providing PPE etc.

But are they? 

Well obviously something is going horribly wrong, but what can be done?

Now whatever my personal feelings are around herbicides and pesticides I am a realist and I understand a need for good weed control in cities, and I understand that cost implications play a part here. Of course, ideally, no chemicals would be sprayed in the public realm, but that's an unlikely target as we stand. But what we do need to do in the first instance is ensure good spraying practice. Perhaps a charter to sign up to, with promises around PPE, monitoring and ensuring good signage. I'd really like to see signage staying in place for 48 hours after sprays in the public realm, if only to ensure dog owners stop their dogs licking anything covered with a spray. 

Surely that's not too much to ask?!?

In the meantime I'll wait to see if any apology is forthcoming......

 

Here we go around the Mulberry Bush.....#greeninggreybritain

Well that was a somewhat chaotic, exciting and life affirming week, mostly spent working in and on Incredible Edible Bristol gardens across the city. I'm going to tell you a bit about one of our biggest, ongoing projects and how we're powering forwards. 

There is a huge amount of work going on in our Bearpit garden. This garden is in a sunken roundabout in the centre of the centre of Bristol. For several years a group of great folk have been working to change the space from lost to loved, introducing cafes, artwork and play spaces to the space, and we are now creating a garden. 

 

 

As if being in a sunken roundabout isn't enough, the space also has some severe social issues. Historically it has been a place where addiction and homelessness have been apparent with large groups often coming together down there. At no point is the aim to alienate this community from the Bearpit, but more to make it feel like a safer, more inclusive space for the rest of the city's population. Introducing cafes, spaces for events, table tennis and skate boarding facilities to the area has made it more of a destination than a thoroughfare. It's become a great place to meet, drink tea and relax.

The aim of the garden is to create an oasis of calm in the city centre, regardless of the fact there are buses, cars and ambulances travelling around the roundabout at eye level in the garden! Rosemary and Lavender make low lying hedges, artichokes wave gently in the breeze, whilst subtlety edible herbaceous borders surround 3 large fruit trees including Bristol's newest Mulberry. Rather than going round the Bearpit, we're now going round the mulberry bush!!

 

There has been a whole lot of controversy around this garden. Many have asked why bother? Many have said what a waste of money it is, as it's inevitable that it will be trashed. There has been some substantial social media abuse. 

Gut reaction has always driven me in these city centre designs, and  the Bearpit has been no different. Whilst all the doubters and haters have been busy we, with our amazing volunteers, have quietly planted the trees, shrubs, perennials and 1500 bulbs. We've put in beautiful seats with planters attached. We've stripped walls of ivy and replaced them with beautiful climbers, and we've created a small nursery area where we are growing for all 37 gardens that we support. We've made a central composting area and one of our great supporters is managing it and introducing a wormery to the space. And slowly an area that a year ago was sad, covered in black plastic and derelict, is beginning to bloom. And all the time the original community, those with hideous issues that have been brought about by family breakdown, mental health issues, addiction, and abuse, are becoming fierce protectors of the garden.

 

When we first began I was asked, "are you making us a garden?" to which the reply was yes, we're making a garden for everyone. Since that first day I have wondered regularly at the facts that whilst all around the garden gets tagged, the garden itself is never touched. There has been no vandalism, no plant loss, however convinced people were that it "wouldn't last a day". And we find the entire community in the garden, sitting on the seats, relaxing as the world goes by.

For me this is just another example of how powerful people are when they just get on with it. Everyone, including me, who has worked on this garden has done so voluntarily, including some great groups of corporate volunteers who always make a huge impact in a day. We've worked in pouring rain, in blistering heat and everything in between, and a community of community gardeners has joined the community of users of the Bearpit. 

Often people ask me why I do this. What would make me work voluntarily for probably 80% of the week? And this is the answer. Working with people, individuals or communities, supporting them to make physical change in their own areas, supporting them to create beautiful, productive gardens in lost and unloved spaces, is an honour. And seeing those people bloom as they make that change is beyond an honour. Supporting good horticulture and upskilling people to learn more about gardens and plants is an honour. And creating change in a city centre, with gardens popping up all over, ensuring good design, appropriate planting and good horticultural practice is not just an honour but also an insight into how the city could look if horticulture was taken seriously. An honour.

The way the Bearpit garden is moving forwards shows it becoming a micro park. A calming area. Somewhere that will soak up water when it rains, buffer noise in the space in which it sits, works to cool the city. But most importantly it's a space for people, made by people, in order to make change, both social and physical. 

This is what I see as 'Greening Grey Britain'. People getting up and doing it!! People making the change they want to see......

Why not join the revolution? 

 

Paying it back......working with Ross!!

Last winter I read a blog that was to profoundly affect my working year. It wasn't a blog about gardens or gardening but a blog about what it's like to find yourself homeless and to work the way through that homelessness, finally finding a home. 

It touched me in a way I was quite surprised by, as it was real and yet there was humour in the darkness. By the time I'd begun to read it Ross, the blogger, was in a new home and we began a conversation on Twitter, with Ross being really keen to firstly get an allotment and then come down to some Incredible Edible Bristol work parties. 

 

At the first work party in the Bearpit last year Ross came and said hi, and told me he'd applied to be on Big Dreams Small Spaces with his newly taken on plot!! I may have said something along the lines of 'oh brilliant' but as with anything like that, it's such a tiny chance of being chosen I didn't expect to hear it mentioned again......

So imagine my surprise when I got a message to say that Ross had been selected! And then my added surprise when he told me he'd put me down as being his mentor on the project, hoping that I didn't mind. 

 

So I took a deep breath, rearranged some stuff and the project began, which you hopefully have seen on Friday evening.

I could go on here about what we did on the plot, what grew and what didn't. I could go on to talk about working with Monty, what it's like to work on TV gardens and how nervous I've been about this one coming out.

But none of that is important. What's important is that Ross, a funny, intelligent guy who's life went a bit wrong, is now back on track. Of course that has nothing to do with me, but what I hope is that the support I gave him in the garden helped to make his life a little calmer throughout what I know was a difficult year as everything settled and he came to terms with a really difficult period in his life. A time which I think may have changed him forever. I hope the few hours spent weeding, the quiet time spent on the allotment, the texts and conversations helped.

Working with Ross has made me realise Incredible Edible and working on the land, can create stability in lives where there is little or where change has destabilised. It's made me realise the power of our inclusive policies, not asking too much and just allowing folk to join in on their terms. And it's made me realise that in the same way as my life changed when I stepped into horticulture, others change too as they change their priorities and start becoming a part of something they believe in.

 

And even more importantly I've made what I hope will be a friendship for life.....

Recently I said to Ross, in a throw away comment, 'welcome to my life'. His response was, 'I only meant to pop in but I think I'm staying for good'.

Another example of how just a bit of kindness can change people's lives, inspiring change through communities from a real grassroots perspective. 

Never underestimate the power of a garden.....

 

Resist and survive.....

In that hot summer of 1976, whilst sitting in the parched lawn in our drought ridden garden, my mum, presumably whilst talking about the drought to a very concerned 6 year old, said to me, "you'll be alive when the oil runs out" and since that moment I have lived my life exploring that statement and what it's effect would be, on both people and planet.

Of course with the technology we now have it's unlikely I will see a world without oil, but it's a moment I've almost wanted to see, and sitting here today I'm beginning to make sense of why.

Frugality has always been my middle name. I've never wanted "stuff" particularly, and even if I do covet gardening tools and plants, I've always found joy in recovering old tools and of course, growing plants from seed or cuttings. A roof over my head, warmth, food and an allotment are my needs and I've progressively found it harder and harder to see the need for much else. Of course that's not to say I refuse gifts or never buy anything, but I'm clear about my ethics and stick to them rather than just purchasing mindless stuff. Over the last few years, setting up an organisation voluntarily this has been useful to say the least!!

But back to the point of this post. 

"You'll be alive when the oil runs out" has never been a statement to me, but more a call to peaceful arms, to look for an alternative way and playing a part in mending the earth from the scarring of industrialisation and humans ongoing need for things whatever the environmental price. To stand up for the planet  above anything else and to work to a different way of being.

Why are you telling us this I hear you say? 

Well I think we're at a point in history where we are on a cusp, a precipice if you like, and we have choices and we have voices. We can follow the Trump/May/scarily right wing and immensely corporate agenda of growth no matter what, or we can ignore it and follow another way.

 

This weekend we have seen the coming together of American tribes at Standing Rock win the first of what will be several battles in the war against an oil pipe going through their sacred lands and below the River Missouri. The battle was won by the bringing together of tribes, mostly of native American decent, but eventually bringing in a new tribe, the American veterans, to the battle. 

To me this gives hope and a really strong message. To move our world forwards in a new way we need to accept that we are all tribes and that to create change those tribes must come together, talk and share their connections, discuss their differences and find a way for mutual respect based on positives, instead of negatives. We must stop being hatefilled, and refuse to listen to that rhetoric, and instead make our own media, our own stories, based on kindness and positivity.

And then I hear someone ask, "but why should we?", and here's my reply.

We recognise that we live in a hate fuelled world. We know the media spin everything to their own agenda. We now understand austerity is caused by the elite few looking after their own rather than everyone. It's easy to get angry, sad and depressed even. 

But that achieves nothing. Changes nothing.

If you turn that anger on its head, subscribe to the idea that a million small actions can turn into a mighty movement for change, and begin to make some small but significant changes in your life and in the lives of those around you, across the world change will be inevitable and people will once again take back control for their own lives.

 

If you then bring that to friends, family and community, joining those tribes through positive actions, change will begin to spread, like wildfire, at grassroots level, everywhere. 

And why? Well I want a better future for my kids and their kids, but not just a better one. 

A kinder future. A future where success is measured in health and well being as much as wealth. 

A braver, kinder world. 

 

Flower Sprouts are a go!!

This morning I popped up to the allotment for an hour, more to get some fresh air than anything, and to pick some purple sprouting broccoli for dinner. It was a bit of a grey, damp morning but as usual I had a good wander around the garden, picked some beetroots as well as the psb and then saw the flower sprouts looked quite healthy so went to have a look.....

And found this..

 

Flower sprouts, otherwise known as Kalettes!!

Now I have to admit I didn't grow these from seeds but bought them at Thornbury Garden Shop, which is one of those garden emporiums that sells loads of plants, including home grown seedlings, seeds by weight and a whole host of things you don't realise you need until you get there! I saw these and having tried them the previous year having found them in M&S at an enormous price, really wanted to try them myself. 

Now I have to admit they have not been well looked after! They were left in their modules for too long, planted out and eaten by slugs almost immediately, we didn't net them until the pigeons had had a go, and I certainly haven't fed them. And for that I can only apologise to these poor plants which are now going to feed us over the winter. Particularly as they are delicious!!

So what do I do with them? Well I just pop them into some salted water, let them come to a boil and remove from the heat almost immediately. They taste between sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli and are in fact a cross between sprouts and British kale, and are not just delicious but also a really beautiful addition to the plate. 

Lots of people are selling the seeds right now, so if you were wondering whether to try them, I would definitely say do so. I'll definitely be planting some along with other brassicas next year!!

The importance of water

When my parents moved into their rural idyll in Lincolnshire one of the first things they decided to do, before they even knew if the house was going to remain standing, was dig an enormous pond. Well, I say they dug it but in reality we went up there to dig it while they looked after my daughter! They were determined to have running water around the garden and the pond was to be the beginning and the end of a stream that linked all the different areas of the garden. Eventually it became apparent that on their Lincolnshire clay it would take more than spades to dig this pond, and mechanised equipment was hired to finish the job, and almost as soon as the liner was in and the pond was filled the change in the gardens biodiversity was there to be seen. Whereas there was always plenty of birdsong, suddenly there were pond skaters, water boatmen and dragonflies, frogs and toads and it felt like the garden was buzzing and tweeting and properly alive. At one point that summer we sat on the patio watching hundreds of baby toads crossing the garden, like an amphibious swarm, heading to who knows where to do who knows what. It was an extraordinary sight.

 

But that pond taught me a vital lesson and that is that water in a garden is important for far more than looks alone. Whilst water is beautiful, and adds another dimension to any design, it's real power is that it brings in nature. 

Now we all know gardening is about controlling and manipulating nature but I've been thinking about this pond a lot recently, and here's why; it turned a garden, a manipulated and designed space, back to a far more natural place. It gave the herbaceous borders and rose garden a feeling of being part of something outside of the space and linked it with the landscape. It softened formal edges and the hard landscaping of seating areas and pergolas. It gave sound to the space, with the trickling of water as it moved around the garden. It felt like a door had opened and let nature back in.

Next year it will be 15 years since we dug that pond and that garden is gone to me, handed on to others. But I want to do the same both in my garden and in my allotment. Increasing biodiversity in that garden made mum a great gardener because she allowed nature in to fight the pests and diseases for her. Along with making compost and adding muck, which funnily was often down to me to barrow about as grandparent duties called, as soon as there was an issue, nature solved it. The house was always full of ladybirds in the winter, hiding in nooks and crannies and ready to rush outside as soon as the blackfly appeared on the roses, and those toads swallowed any slugs before they had a chance of getting to the prize winning delphiniums! And there were hedgehogs that snuffled about in the dusk, eating slugs as they went and leaving the snails for the thrushes to eat for breakfast.

And so my plan is for the tiny pond on my allotment, at the moment choked with duckweed, to be the centre of my allotment flower garden next year. I hope if I clear it out and plant some aquatics in it, that it will bring in the magic that I remember and go some way to reliving the magic of that garden in Lincolnshire. 

 

A Visit to Charles Dowding

A couple of weekends ago we toodled off to deepest Somerset to visit the garden of no dig guru and all round good guy, Charles Dowding. Charles is well known for his no dig gardening techniques, using mulches of different types of compost, including a soil conditioner made from local green waste and home made compost amongst others, as well as cardboard and plastic sheeting. These mulches keep weeds at bay by stopping light, and keep the soil fed with healthy organic matter.

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No dig is a method of gardening that I am more and more determined to make a success of. Of course it doesn't mean you'll never see another weed, but it does seem to mean that perennial weeds such as dandelions and bindweed are weakened, and makes it simple for annual weeds to be hoed out.

 

I went to see Charles' garden in order to find out more about no dig and to see a garden I've always wanted a nose around. However, within seconds of arriving what was most amazing about the garden was that it is full of the most amazingly beautiful and healthy crops. It is a garden worth visiting for its beauty and design alone. It's proof that productive and beautiful are absolutely mutually possible and that food growing doesn't have to be untidy or poorly designed.

 

The health of the plants is, of course, down to the no dig system. Adding layer upon layer of organic matter to the land feeds the soil with beneficial bacteria and fungi and encourages biodiversity in soil flora and fauna. The soil is full of worms, the air is alive with bees, hover flies, butterflies and wasps, and the garden speaks of the importance of healthy soil as the backbone of any healthy garden.At the point we visited in early September, the garden was producing beans, salad leaves, brassicas, carrots, huge celeriacs, beetroots and much more. The fruit trees, fairly new as the garden is only 3 years old, were dripping with fruit, and the greenhouse and polytunnel were full of tomatoes, aubergines and peppers, growing with companion plantings of marigolds to keep the pests away. There were beds with perennial vegetables, full of asparagus, Daubenton's Kale, Oca, Mashua and more. And dotted around the garden and in the front garden were rich flowering plants, bringing pollinators into the garden to really encourage biodiversity.

Charles' partner Steph, in between ensuring cakes, teas, books and veg were available, kept reassuring me that te beauty of this garden, it's health and it's productivity is down to the fact that Charles works from dawn to dusk in the garden, and I left with those word singing in my ears. But it also made me realise that with hard work and the right support all of our growing spaces could be this productive, this beautiful and, in my opinion most importantly, this wonderful for the health of both people and planet. Mr Dowding, I salute you!!

It's worth pointing out that Charles has written several books, all of which are well worth reading and which are available at all good bookshops, or from his website, www.charlesdowding.co.uk.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Cerinthe major Purpurescens 

Dahlia Love

I've always loved bright colours and larger than life blooms. I remember visiting garden centres as a 70's child and sneaking over to look at the dahlias and gladioli whilst the more adult members of my family were oohing and aaring over subtly toned roses and small flowered shrubs, and questioning whether they'd fit in with the pale border, or the pink bed. 

Whilst all this was happening our side of the garden fence, next door I saw the brightest blooms, grown for the house, and asked question after question of our wonderful neighbour about what his plants were called and why he grew them. Jim called them his jewels and that's just what they were, bright, cheery and colourful. Dahlias, glads, marigolds, sunflowers, anemones, chrysanthemums and more. 

"What would you like Sara?" was always asked but there were tuts and sighs when I pointed out bright dahlias, anemones and glads. Even when I asked for Rosa Ferdinand Pichard, that amazing, I think, white and Crimson striped rose, I was told it was gaudy and to look at something else. 

 

And then of course I found Great Dixter!! For a while Christopher Lloyd was on Gardeners World, in those halcyon Titchmarsh days, and I remember a change. An interest in how those borders at Great Dixter, whilst being a riot of supposedly clashing colours, just worked. Books were purchased and plant lists reviewed at my parents, but still the glads and dahlias never appeared.

But by then of course I had my own little plot and I soon learnt that not only are these plants magnificent, but they are reasonably easy once you've fought the snails at the beginning of the season, and they give a great display until the first heavy frosts, both inside and out, as they cut like a dream. What's not to love? 

 

So this year on the new allotment, half of which is being given over to flowers, the dahlias and glads have begun to be grown again, in their own beds where the mix of the different forms and colours startles the eye and excites the soul. Next year there will be more for certain, mixed I hope with bright perennials such as Heleniums, Echinacea and Rudbeckia. 

And in pride of place will be my new Rosa Ferdinand Pichard. Let the gaudy begin!