Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Growing

  • Open Day in the Garden 15th June

    On June 15th, as part of the Open Garden Squares weekend, TTT presents the Tooting Community Garden Open Day & Father’s Day Fete at the Community Garden, 5 North Drive, not far the Lido. Come and discover for yourself this hidden garden paradise. It’s free, naturally, and there are events for all ages including story-telling, paper making and games.

    Or maybe you would just like to come and experience this reclaimed semi-wild growing space, chill out and picnic or get some gardening advice from those involved in the projects we run with community volunteers and local schoolchildren.   

    There will also be the usual garden session from 11 till 1 for anyone interested in getting involved. 

    All welcome, whatever you fancy.  

  • Six gardens to inspire us

    TTT people have made six fascinating garden visits (well five visits to new gardens, and our garden seems fresh every day). We want to share our impressions of things that excited us in many settings, from diverse and creative points of view, all of which can inspire our growing in Tooting.
    Yes we are only showing snapshots – on another day, and for another visitor, there’d be a different experience.
    Two gardens are in New York, in Manhattan’s Alphabet City – where guerilla gardening began in the early 1970s in a bid to develop community ties and reduce unsafe areas. It wasn’t set up by politicians, but by individuals mobilising together.
     
    Which is your favourite garden; what inspires you to grow?
    Share a comment below this post…
     
    First, the Tooting Community Garden. We have been sowing beans, corn, and more beans – one of our contributions for Growing for the 2014 Foodival. Come and see them at our Garden Open Day, from 1000-1700 on Sunday 15th June, when we’re open as part of Open Garden Squares and the Furzedown Festival.
     
    Bursting out on 21st May

    Sowing on 5th May
     
     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Second, El Jardin del Paraiso in New York City.  Home to the most fantastic tree house (or should I say tree nest) I’ve ever seen. It was great to see so many children enjoying the space and hear music being played (much like our garden every Sunday).
    The tree nest was the result of a partnership with local artists, and

    reminded me of the Furzedown Oak project that we’re part of in Tooting. It really brought to life how art can inspire people’s connection with the natural environment around them and help their enjoyment of that space. http://evpcnyc.org/eljardin/

    Third, Chelsea Physic Garden.
    A paradise since 1673 for lovers of plants and botanical history, right on the Thames near the Royal Hospital (and the Chelsea Flower Show right now). It is very welcoming, and in beautiful condition, with the wow factor of expert planting and interpretation.

    I love the ‘Shelf Life’ project tucked away in the teaching area: growing common shop and supermarket foods in their sales packaging: from aloe vera to guava to wheat.

     
     
    Fourth, Rosendale Allotments in Dulwich. Founded in 1908, the allotment assocation has 480 plots (and a long waiting list). The site lies on a steep hill, and every kind of crop is grown around the gardeners’ benches and sheds – some for relaxing to enjoy the view towards Canary Wharf and The Shard. Thanks to the Site Officers Marco and Sophia!
    The website is full of good growing guidance http://www.rosendale-allotments.org.uk/

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
      
     
     
    Fifth, Sissinghurst Castle, in Kent.  There’s the stunning National Trust garden (really, there were no weeds in the beds), and also a new kitchen garden to reduce the ‘food miles’ of the fresh food used in the two cafes. There are two full time kitchen gardeners – yes we are envious!http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle/
     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Sixth, it has to be the 6th Street and Avenue B Garden in New York City.
    What struck me about this garden was the beauty and variety of the space – it was full to bursting with flowers and plants, grouped closely together. The joy was the exploration along tiny paths and under canopies – each revealing another space – a pond with fish, plentiful raised beds for herbs, wild flowers, ferns and vegetables, a stage for community events, shady secret seating areas for tranquility and reflection, and much more besides.

    I discovered that this site is so loved by the community that it is now permanent, and welcomes 200 children through its doors every week as part of an education program that has gone from strength to strength. Truly inspirational.
    http://www.6bgarden.org/history.htm

     
     
    And:
    As well as coming to garden with us in the Tooting Community Garden any Sunday, another great activity is the wonderful and creative Chelsea Fringe, running now until 8th June.  

     
     

  • Macro & Micro

    Trying to read today’s report from the IPCC about the effects of climate change on our planet, along with a mass of media commentary, feels like swimming through treacle, but the overall message is clear: the climate is changing like never before and with a high degree of certainty, the activities of our species are the major contributor. 

    Watch the BBC’s short animation
    Though that might be evident to some (interested in for example and in no particular order peak oil, resource depletion, unsustainable fishing, pollutative extraction, toxic waste … please go on ad nauseam to yourself), it’s always good to get a reminder of the situation we face.  Human activity is screwing up the planet for humans and countless other species on a monumental scale.
    So here in south London, TTT is one of the global network of Transition Towns trying to take actions at the micro level to turn this destructive juggernaut around.  Not easy and it can seem like a drop in the ocean, but then an ocean does actually come from many raindrops …
    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5nR_h8Rei_2cUVRcVhuY0FaUUU/editOne “raindrop” here was our successful growing & seed swap event aiming to reconnect people to the growing cycle and the possibility of greater sustainability, and we hope that Tooting will be full of fruit, vegetables and flowers as a result.  Congratulations to Caroline Partridge, the lucky winner of one month’s worth of vegetables, generously donated by Abel and Cole.  Caroline happened across the event on her walk through Tooting on Saturday and has since planted plenty of the seeds out in pots in her garden.  We hope you enjoy your prize Caroline!
    Meanwhile, Tooting Community Garden tips for growing potatoes, runner beans and sweetcorn can be found by clicking the picture of all those lovely Foodival growers from last autumn.  Will you be joining them?  Could you grow Tooting’s biggest sunflower?

  • Growing Connections as Spring Arrives

    The clocks are about to go forward and it’s officially spring time!  We celebrated the start of a new growing season by donating and swapping over one hundred packets of seeds with local people on Saturday.  The event aimed to encourage and support people, young and old, in growing food and flowers in whatever space they have.

     
    It was a great opportunity to bring people together. We met some wonderful characters.  Two women excitedly took handfuls of seeds to share with friends and family, and a man, we coaxed in with offers of kale, shared a beautiful tale about how the scent of broad beans takes him back to his childhood in Cyprus.

    Following on straight after Foodcycle,there were plenty of activities to entertain everyone. Heather, from Tooting Library, told stories like Jack and the Beanstalk; Sharon taught us how to make origami seed pots from newspapers; Belinda helped us make flowers out of plastic bags for the story walk on 5th May; and Stephanie wowed us all with paper making from straw collected from the wheat harvest at the garden last year.

    One visitor summed it up, saying: “The paper making workshop was amazing. I’ve never seen paper made of straw! I enjoyed chatting with the gardeners and for the price of a piece of my overgrown mint plant, I left with poppy seeds, wild sweet peas, radish, sunflowers and hollyhock seeds – all grown in Tooting and so all the more special as I know that they could do well again this year. Thank you.”


    People as young as five and as old as seventy five took away sunflower seeds collected from the community garden, to grow at home.  Tooting Community Garden is running a challenge this year to see who can grow the tallest sunflower in Tooting.  All you have to do is take a photo of the sunflower you have grown this summer and post it to our Facebook page.  We’ll announce the winner at Foodival (13-14 September). JT

  • Spring Growing Celebration & Seed Swap

    Keen gardeners and even those with not-so-green fingers are invited to come along to a Spring growing celebration and seed swap, this Saturday 22nd March in Tooting. The event will aim to show how easy it can be to grow your own produce, even if you don’t have a garden or allotment.

    Click 4 Flyer

    Event organizer Jenny Teasdale said: “Anyone can grow food and flowers, whether you have a garden, a balcony or just a windowsill.  We want local people to come along on Saturday to learn about growing, to share their expertise and seeds, and to meet new friends and neighbours.”

    There will also be free activities on the day including story telling, papermaking, flower making and seed sowing.
    You don’t have to be an expert gardener to attend or even have anything to swap. Tooting Community Garden are donating seeds and seedlings, many of which if started now, will produce vegetables in time for Tooting Foodival, the annual festival, now in its 7th year, celebrating locally grown food, cooked by local restaurants and served up free to the community, which will take place 13-14th September.
    The Spring growing celebration will take place in the Mushkil Aasaan community space at 222 Upper Tooting Road from 2-4pm.  We hope to see you there.

  • Spring Growing Celebration & Seed Swap


    All welcome, and all activities are free:

    • Meet the Tooting Community Garden team and local growers in your area

    • Pick up seeds, swap seeds, plant seeds and celebrate growing food and flowers in any space

    • Activities – story telling, flower making, paper making from wheat straw grown in garden, and seed sowing

    • Help us map the green spaces and gardens in and around Tooting
    Don’t worry if you don’t have seeds to swap, just pop in and take some seeds with you to grow, donated by Tooting Community Garden and other local growers.

    And: the Tooting Foodival. We’re also encouraging local gardeners to grow and donate vegetables for this year’s Foodival, which will be on September 13th and 14th.
    The Foodival is a celebration of local growing, cooking and eating – and a lot of fun.
     
    Much more information to come through the spring and summer. Have a look at what we did in 2013 by clicking on FOODIVAL in the top line of this blog page – and talk to us at the Seed Swap about getting involved in ’14.

  • Plenty in the Edible Garden

    Plenty in the Edible Garden at the weekend including this rather sorry looking but unperturbed fox cub!  That garlic should be good for those striving to be crowned “Top Tooting Cook” at Foodival.  Still plenty of time to enter, though judges have already ruled that “Renard du jardin communautaire au gratin” will not be a permitted dish …

  • Community Garden: 20° Sunday morning!

    A dozen helpers came along to the Community garden today (well, two of them were dogs…)

     
     
     
     





    We: finished digging a new plot, sowed 4 different kinds of bread wheat, planted potatoes, cleared up the herb patch, sowed radishes, shifted some ancient logs about to make seats in the ‘secret corner’, spread some top-dressing from the compost heap, admired the wild primroses – and definitely enjoyed the sun, the warmth, and good company of all ages.

     

    All welcome to come along any Sunday: 11:00 to 1:00. The entrance is to the side of  the large house at 5 North Drive, on the south side of Tooting Common.

  • Obstbäume im Görli!

    (The title means ‘fruit-trees in Görli’….)

    On Saturday 6th April I was in Berlin, and was lucky to be able to join a local fruit-tree planting session along with my daughter. Coming in late after all the preparation had been done, we got involved with planting,and with making the timber protection / supports for the trees.

    Nine tall bare-rooted fruit trees were being established in nine big holes – the third annual planting in Görlitzer Park by the organisers: Transition Town Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg: http://www.transitiontown-friedrichshain-kreuzberg.de/so36/obstbaeume and at http://kiezwandler.de 
    Here’s their great vision:
    ‘Berlin 2030: climate-friendly, people-friendly, post-fossil fuels’

    There were over sixty people there of all ages on a very cold day, and the whole setting felt like Tooting to me: doing something practical in a big urban public park in a very diverse neighbourhood, and with a very warm welcome. As in Tooting, you could sense a web of links to other city projects, funders, community groups…

    Pictures by Belle tell the story:

    1 Setting up the wooden posts

    2 Sledgehammering
     
     
     
     
     
    3 Tree protection at ground level
     
    4 Plenty of support
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    5 Delivering a bare-rooted apple tree
     


    Continuing the photos of a Berlin Transition group and friends fruit-tree planting on 6th April:

    6 Firming the new soil
     
    7 Tying on hessian protection
     
     
     
     
     
    

    
    8 Was this the correct tree for this hole?

    
    

    9 Packets of Tooting seeds find a  new home in Görli!
    TTT looks forward to keeping in touch with this great group in Berlin – lots of learning to share…and maybe some exchange visits? Danke!      – Charles

  • Growing in the City – October 8th

    On October 8th we had our TTT monthly open public meeting, focused on Growing in the City – growing plants, food, relationships, skills, connections, enterprises, awareness of nature…

    We looked at a dozen examples of diverse local London garden and growing projects…..
    We discussed what they are aiming to achieve, and what ‘drivers for change’ (urban biodiversity loss, or people’s wish for local food) that these gardens are responding to. We looked at some global responses to the same urban challenges, and made links to the origins and activities of Transition Towns.

    We continued with a planning discussion for the Tooting Community Garden, revisiting its purpose and our own separate and shared reasons for spending time in the Garden, and explored some questions:
    > How complex do we want the project to become?
    > Could we commit to producing salad or herbs for a local restaurant? (A real challenge, because a request from a supportive local restaurant owner was put on the table)

    We’ll summarise the notes of the meeting, and share them. If you would like to be involved with the Community Garden group, come along to 5 North Drive on the south side of Tooting Common (look for us behind the large house) between 11:00 and 1:00 on Sundays, and join our planning get-togethers too.
    Email Adrian at adifalconer@hotmail.com for any more info.
    All welcome!