The Permaculture Convergence

Two weeks ago I spent a fun weekend at Gilwell Park, just outside the City of London, at the Permaculture Convergence. The days were packed full of workshops, diploma accreditations, talks, walks and activities. The highlight of the weekend for me was a visit to Organic Lea, a food growing co-operative based 1 mile away from the convergence. We waked there through the woods taking in amazing views of London shimmering on the horizon. Organic Lea supplied all the food for the weekend, it was delicious, local organic and seasonal. I left the convergence exhausted but inspired and keen to crack on with my diploma. Here are 10 photos of my favourite from the weekend. 

The Gilwell Oak

Jan Martin and Looby Macnamara at Jan’s accreditation event

Joe and little S enjoying the food

Lunch on the lawn

Home for the weekend

Tractors and face paints

Emerging out of the forest

Landmarks of the London skyline in the distance

Organic Lea’s crops, planted to follow contour lines

Organic Lea’s site map

My garden in September

I started keeping this garden diary in September 2013, so this post marks one whole year of recording my garden every month. I find it interesting to look back and see the changes to my garden throughout the seasons and note the progress made and challenges fought in making my garden as productive as possible. I hope to keep up this regular blog post for a while yet. I hope to get a chance to take some picture of my garden in the snow! I wonder if this winter will provide that opportunity? I am grateful to have such a lovely garden that can provide my family with fresh, organic and seasonal produce. I am also grateful that my children get the chance to run around, play in the brook, climb the trees, keep chickens, enjoy playing with neighbours and generally get muddy!

Harvesting Since my last post I have harvested food from my garden as follows; Figs, beetroot, courgettes, loads of tomatoes, purple beans, chilis, one tiny aubergine, lots of runner beans, blackberries, cooking apples, eating apples, a couple of grapes and a handful of yellow raspberries. In addition to this, we have returned from trips to the school garden laden with yet more runner beans, plums, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers and courgettes. The figs are over now, but they have been wonderful this year. The apples tree however have been far more stingy with their fruits this year. We normally like to press our apples for juice or cider, but we didn’t have enough this year to make borrowing a press worthwhile. So we gifted our apples to a neighbour who has promised us a few bottles of homemade cider in return.

Planting. I have sown some winter salads and Pak choi in the greenhouse. I have planted out the red and blackcurrant cuttings that have been taking root since last winter. I have also popped in a few more strawberry plants here and there. I spent a careful few hours planting out winter carrots and beetroot seedlings, such fiddly work. The chickens later broke out of their area and rampaged through the garden, scratching up and eating all but a few of my newly planting winter crops. I was not best pleased and just can not find time or energy to re-plant them.

Thinking. I can feel the shift in the seasons this week. Mornings are darker and beginning to feel chilly. I have searched out the children’s slippers and my dressing gown. We have had a couple of misty mornings. My walk to school was decorated with jewelled spider’s webs yesterday. I do enjoy autumn, especially all the celebrations associated with fires and tasty food. I like lighting the log burner and feeling cosy in the evenings, but we have not had to do that yet. We try to wait until November rolls around before heating the house.

Feeling My daughter’s birthdays beautifully bookend the summer. C at the end of May and E at the end of September. We celebrate Miss E’s 8th birthday next weekend, then autumn is allowed to begin!

Weather stats

Thursday 18th September 2014

A foggy morning becoming brighter as the day goes on

Sunrise 06:43 Sunset 19:13

High 23 Low 15

 

Twelve Principles for twelve months – September – Produce no waste

Plastic packaging is a pet hate of mine and unfortunately it is often what fills the majority of my household bin.

September is a month of abundance. The trees are raining fruit down on us by the bucketful. This is wonderful as long as you can manage to keep up with the deluge. Often I pass trees that have dropped all their fruit and it litters the floor beneath them, rotting on the ground and feeding only birds and wasps. I totally understand that September is a busy month and the task of harvesting fruit can fall to the bottom of people’s lists. But it always breaks my heart just a little.

I am as guilty as anyone, this year I have completely neglected to harvest one of our plum trees. The fruit ripened while we were away in Cornwall and it needed immediate attention on our return. My attention was also needed elsewhere (as always) so this year we have not eaten a single homegrown plum. I am trying not to make the same mistake with the cooking apple tree. I am collecting the windfalls and bringing them into the house, where they sit in a wicker basket and slowly turn brown, then are fed to the chickens. My intentions are to make wonderful crumbles and puree but again real life is getting in the way. I hate this waste but I accept that life is so full currently and sometimes I just have to prioritize what is most demanding of my attention on any given day and ‘let it go’.

Reflecting on this has made me more forgiving of the wasted produce I see at the community allotment and school garden. Cucumbers left to rot on the vine, courgettes grown monstrously huge and bolted spinach everywhere. At our first new school year gardening club this week, we spent a good hour harvesting and sharing out vegetables amongst the children. This felt good. So many people don’t have enough to eat, not only in far off impoverished counties, but also in our own neighbourhoods. Wasted food seems like a terrible sin. I think often gardening projects concentrate on the growing of produce and make the mistake of neglecting the harvesting, processing and eating side of the equation. I intend to do what I can to address this in the gardening projects I am involved with.

This month’s principle ‘Produce no waste’ is a difficult one to excel at. So I am going to aim for ‘produce a little less waste’ I am going to make a meal plan for the week each sunday and shop accordingly. I am going to try to buy foods with less packaging, I am going to try to cook the correct amount of food and use up any leftovers the following day. I am going to keep on recycling all my kitchen waste to the chickens or into the compost heap. And lastly, I am going to try not to waste my most precious resource of all – time.