Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Growing

  • What’s that? Tooting Foodival… just a month away!

    That’s right. It’s less than a month until South London’s favourite sustainable food festival – Tooting Foodival!

    Over on the Foodival blog, we’re ramping up the announcements – letting you know about all the great things that will be happening over the weekend, and all the great people who make Foodival the glorious local festival that it is.

    Just this week, we’ve announced five local restaurants who are cooking for Foodival… and there will be more to come next week!

    Can you donate produce to Foodival?

    As well as the wonderful cooks, we couldn’t dish up over 600 servings to you hungry folk, without the generosity and talents of all the people growing delicious vegetables, fruit and herbs, who donate their produce to be cooked up overnight.

    If you grow anything, or you know a grower, you can donate to Foodival… every salad leaf counts!

    Add what you’re growing to the map! Share it with your friends. Download some flyers and dish them out to growers all around the area.

    We can’t wait to see you all in just 4 short weeks!

  • Growing for the Foodival

    Are you growing for the Foodival?  Unfortunately so are the caterpillars! They are causing havoc on the local cabbage patches!

    Foodival is TTT’s sustainable celebration of local growing, local cooking and all things food related, taking place this year over the weekend of September 12th & 13th.

    There will be a competition for weird looking vegetables, something on fermentation, a schools cook off challenge, plenty of entertainment, including I am reliably informed a giant pea, as well as the usual features such as Top Tooting Cook and dishes to sample cooked by local restaurants.

    Keep an eye on the Foodival blog for the latest information and keep growing for this year’s event despite adversarial critters! 

    No, not these people … they are donors of home grown veg & fruit snapped at a previous Foodival.  Recognise anyone?  Fancy joining in this year?

    Yes You Can!

  • Annual Tooting Community Garden Open Day Sunday June 14th 11am – 5pm

    All welcome to our free Garden Open Day!

    There’s plenty to join in with:
    > For the third year running we’re part of the Open Gardens and Squares London-wide weekend.
    > Aesop Grimm is telling intriguing stories.
    > We’re linked in with the local Furzedown Festival, and the Furzedown Oak Community Project will start to shape a sculpture.
    > fanSHEN come to the Garden with the June Tooting Field Day: we’ll be cooking on charcoal, and fanSHEN will perform their show The Apple Cart.

    And: you can simply relax, chat and enjoy the space. 

    Timings and details:  

    For more details on the Field Day arrangements for preparing treats to cook, please click here

    We’ll be posting any late news on the Open Day on our Tooting Community Garden pages on Facebook.
    Any queries? Please email us here

    To download the Open Day poster, please click here.

    Here’s where we are
    Off Tooting Common on the south side at 5 North Drive, SW16 1RN:

    We look forward to seeing you!

  • Number 11 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number eleven:
    No.11 #Xmas Tip: save your Xmas veg peelings for some lovely compost and start growing for 2015! #Tooting #Transition

  • Growing, jenga, community energy and wellbeing at St George’s Community Open Day, 15th Nov.

    Thanks so much to St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust for the invitation to have a stand at the Open Day last Saturday – our third year running.
    And thanks to all who came to talk, share ideas, participate in the games for all ages, and sign up to our email lists to keep in contact. 

    We chose three areas of what we do locally to share with visitors:

    • The Tooting Community Garden

    • Sustainable living and wellbeing games

    • Our sister project, the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone

    Some high points included:
     
    Playing with the planet: 
    plotting the sources of common foods on the world map

    Giant jenga, with green living tips

    There were twelve volunteers on the varied activities through the day, and there was a lot of preparation…

    Sometimes action takes over

    …the most valuable aspect of the day was having the time to talk to visitors about plans and ideas.


    Making drinks carton wallets
    Rhubarb on the St George’s Allotment

    Doing the day together as a team was also special.

    TTT and the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone have some great events happening in the next month – see our Events Calendar on the top right of this blog homepage.  

    All welcome!

      

    Plus: we are discussing future projects with St George’s. 
    We’ll share news soon..

  • ‘Growing Tooting’ – the third theme for our stand at St George’s tomorrow


    We’re keen to help more people – individuals, families, groups and clubs, enterprises – grow healthy local food in Tooting. Come and have a chat on Saturday at our stand at St George’s about how we might do this together.

    We’ll be on the 1st floor in the Lanesborough Wing, in the Ingredients Restaurant.

    We are so lucky to have the Tooting Community Garden, where we have enjoyable sessions every Sunday.

    We also want to reach out to more people:

    • who can’t get to the garden on a Sunday, 
    • or who would like to start their own growing space, 
    • or who have a garden and would like some ideas and advice, 
    • or who grow on a balcony and window box and want to be successful  ‘vertical gardeners’
    • and others…

     …and including coming to join us at the Community Garden on Sundays, special project days, or at the Open Day in June..

    We’re calling this 9-month project ‘Growing Tooting’

    Between now and the Foodival in September ’15, we’ll offer and arrange guidance and workshops on many aspects of growing.

    • We’ll encourage people to volunteer and get involved with others locally to look at many practical aspects of successful growing
    • We’ll get to grips with Tooting’s soil and conditions, with home composting and waste reduction, with choosing what and when to grow and harvest, plus sharing recipes and cooking – maybe cooking together outdoors over the summer.

    We’re not replacing the Community Garden – we want to widen the impact of what we are all trying to achieve in there.

    We hope there will be more gardens flourishing in Tooting after these next months – we have some contacts already who have space and potential energy. If you come and chat at St George’s tomorrow, we’ll ask if you have some ideas for locations and groups who would like to garden and grow.

    A successful Foodival will be a great milestone for the project as for the past seven years it has always drawn together many aspects of community growing – gardening and plants, social contacts and relationships, ideas and surprising achievements, enjoyment, fun and teamwork.

    There are many diverse growing skills that we can share in Tooting!

  • Foodival Day One

    A great day collecting fruit and veg at Foodival. Hope to see you tomorrow at Samaj Hall.

  • So Much On At Foodival 2014!

    The 2014 Foodival looks set to be the biggest yet. In its seventh incarnation, Foodival now involves a presence at both the BATCA Funday and Foodcycle (both on Saturday 13th) where you can drop off food donations, have your photo taken in our photo booth and maybe be a late entry for Top Tooting Cook.

    On Sunday 14th at Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High St, the line-up of bands and performers is incredible and we are really grateful for all of their offers to entertain us.  Similarly we are very grateful to the particpating restaurants cooking up your donated produce, the fabulous array of local groups who will be there, not to mention the special input of fanSHEN, Mark Watson and Tooting’s Phantom Knitter.

    Follow these links to head over to the Foodival website for more details.

    We hope to run into you enjoying yourself this weekend in the cultural food village that is Tooting.

  • Three weeks until Foodival!

    Tooting Foodival 2013
    It’s just 3 weeks until the 7th annual Tooting Foodival! 
    We’re beavering away behind the scenes and we hope that your fruit and vegetables are growing well.  Thanks to everyone who has added their produce to the What’s Growing in Tooting map.

    Donate your fruit and veg on Saturday 13 Sep

    If you have spare fruit, vegetables or herbs, you can donate them at two locations on Saturday 13th September from 1pm – 5pm:

    Even if you only have two tomatoes or a sprig of rosemary, bring it along, so that we can offer delicious local food to many people on Sunday. Your donations will be delivered to local restaurants and to our Top Tooting Cook contestants, who will be cooking up a treat overnight, ready for the festival on Sunday 14th September at Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High Street (by Broadway Studios).

    Join us at Samaj Hall on Sunday 14 Sep from 12 noon until 5pm.

    There will be plenty to entertain you – some great musicians and entertainers, games, theatre, craft activities, local stalls, and of course some very tasty food with very low food miles from our local restaurants.

    We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who’s involved so far in getting the festival off the ground:

    And special thanks to the Wandsworth Eco Fund for the grant that goes towards running costs for the Foodival.  

    If you’d like to get involved with Foodival, get in touch.  You can help by spreading the word, telling your friends, family and neighbours.  Or join in by donating food on the Saturday, or volunteering on the Sunday serving food or collecting food from restaurants.  There are still spaces if you’d like to enter the Top Tooting Cook competition and we will be running a final Meet & Make session to get ready for Foodival at Sprout Arts on 10th September.

    Let the countdown begin!

  • Foodival 2014

    This year’s Foodival on the 13th and 14th September will, as ever, be a celebration of locally grown food showing how it’s possible to grow local, eat local and be sustainable while also having fun! Now in its 7th year, we hope this will be the biggest Foodival yet and of course it’s FREE to attend. 

    Here’s how you could get involved:

    • If you like eating, (which should include most!), come along on Sunday 14th September from 11am and try some locally grown and cooked food.
    • If you want to get involved as a volunteer, stall-holder, restaurant, cook or chef, please contact us at foodivalttt@gmail.com
    Vegetables Growing Right Now in Tooting!
    Food donations from 1pm Saturday 13th Sept at Mushkil Aasaan on Upper Tooting Road or at the BATCA Fun Day on Broadwater Road, Tooting

    Foodival celebration from 11am – 5pm Sunday 14th Sept 26b Tooting High Street (by Broadway Studios) SW17 0RG

    For full details please see the Foodival Website.