Hedvig’s permaculture diploma

The last few months have been filled with lots of doing, and just not much writing.  My garden project is developing so quickly, which is super exciting and the last few weeks have been spent going round different DIY shops to sources a few things, and just getting on with painting the trellis, the shelving unit, transplanting the bolting mizuna, rocket, chard in the tree pit.  We have also got a new flat mate in, which is great.  She is much more into growing and lots of other good things.  We ordered a dumpy bag of compost, and have been happily distributing in the garden, the neighbours garden, the tree pit, mulching the pots, her allotment.  The potatoes are bursting out of their raised beds, we’ve been harvesting lots and lots of salad leaves, the broad beans and looking pretty fine, the calendula is flowering and doing its companion thing attracting lots of beneficial insects.  I have been harvesting chamomile and elderflower and drying that for teas. I’ve been busy in the kitchen as well with my local food project: I made elderflower cordial, been sowing more seeds to replace the stuff that is bolting.  Started getting a veg box from Ashurst (as I’m not working there as often), getting ready to do an infinity order.  The infinity order also involves setting up a food co-op, of sorts, and encouraging the neighbours to get involved. I have also been cracking on with my tools project.  I have made two bags so far, and loving figuring out how to use my machine.  It just feels so positive to be able to use it, and so much quicker.  I have been looking at my pile of ‘to mend/alter’ with greater conviction.   Next project is to make a purse, which involves sewing in a zip and making darts, so that will get new skills and tricks in the bag. The teaching project continues.  I co-taught the Intro to Permaculture for Transition Town Brixton, and I have been running a series of workshops in Regent’s Park for Capital Growth alongside my weekly growing club at Somerford Grove.  There have been other workshops as well, but less permaculture heavy.  Feels like I’m building up my own sets of resources, which is great, and the lesson plans are getting amended all the time.  Like it. I am in the process of creating a new website that will pull together my diploma and present it in a more project-oriented way.  Doing all that stuff has taken away a bit of time, and to be honest, inclination for writing up.  It has been great to get on with projects.  It feels like a summer/winter thing… in the winter is a good time to be writing up and reflecting, and at this time of year I want to be making the most of the longer days and warmer temperatures. But I recognise this means less writing up.  Not a good thing. The herbal project still continues with new version of my deodorant all the time, and I tried the chamomile dye again.  I still use the facial oil every day, and my lip balm.   My flat mate manages an essential oil company so scheming about working together on a little project…. more of that later…May/June has been a frustrating one for ALGs.  After the long dearth of ALGs and then forming two and being part of another, this month was the month when none of the meetings happened.  So it goes.   But one thing for sure, it is going.  Lots going on, and lots more going to be happening.  Good stuff, me thinks.

 empty water bottles.  You thought I was going to say Coca-Cola.  Well, I didn’t.  I know that Coke can be used to clean engines.  That could be quite useful, if you had a car.  I don’t.  But I’m making a garden.  And this is pretty useful to water my seedlings.  And great to spraying water into people’s mouths, ears and kitchens.  Yes, today was a rather serious day full of meetings.

Aren’t they beautiful!  When I went for a rummage in my seed box, I came across these beauties.  A head of garlic that I picked up at the Slow Food Meeting in Torino.  These are a variety that come from Aburzzo and are distinctive because of their pink colour.  The flavour is amazing.  And I we have pickled garlic flowers in olive oil that just tasted amazing. I hope they take…Luckily they aren’t the only variety that I plantd this year, and I also have some shallots in.  Looking forward to it.

Oh yes, the garden is taking shape: the water butt is almost filled up; the log pile was amassed as the chimney has now been swept; the compost bin has been turned; the raised beds built and lined; found some pallets and building and raised bed and shelving; the shelving has been painted.  We are still waiting on the soil and compost, and boy was I cross last Thursday when I called up and the organisation had made another mistake.  If it doesn’t arrive this week, I am not sure what will happen.  The broad beans are growing away in the kitchen and the bathroom.  The Nepalese tomatoes that I saved from last year have come up nicely.  So things are looking good.  Just waiting on that bloody soil and compost.

A few years ago I read a book called ‘Small lemons yellow’, an evocative book about Sweden, cooking and relationships.  It has sort of stuck with me.  Maybe because I don’t read that many books in Swedish, more likely because of the subject matter.  The book re-emerged from my memories this morning, as I was admiring the three lemons that Tristan picked from our tree last night.

My admiration is undoubtedly fuelled from following a local diet, and citrus at this time of year seems like an incredible bundle of much-needed vitamin C and stored sunlight. I can understand why getting a clementine in your stocking at Christmas was so special, or why, as a young child, my mother asked for a crate of clementines for Christmas, because she didn’t like to be told off for eating more than her fair share.

I bought Tristan the tree as a moving in present in August, and it already had a few small green lemons, and now they are fully formed and ripened.  It has been an interesting to watch in amazement as new growth shoots up, hand pollinate the new flowers and learn many of aspects of growing lemons in England including when to harvest them. Last week Tristan and I were debating just the latter and we decided not to do it just then (when you realise that it takes around 1o months for lemons to ripen, you want to ensure you pick them at the right time).

The following morning I saw the photo on my desk in a different way.  It is a close-up of crates of lemons that I helped sort and pack when I was WWOOFing in Sicily in 2008.  I have it up as a reminder of the relaxed efficiency of Peppe’s place, the amazing sandwiches we munched in the lemon grove, the smell of the citrus flowers in the morning, and the Moro oranges that we ravished during the thought-provoking pruning of the olive grove.  All the lemons in the photo that Peppe and Davide had harvested were the same colouring as ours, so I knew it was fine to pick them.

Yesterday, Ian came over to see the new flat and saw the lemons.  He suggested lemon sorbet.  I also like the sound of Meyer Lemon Marmalade.  But I think sorbet will win out.

The Flight of the Conchords-inspired refrain ‘It’s seedy, it’s seedy time’ is going around and around my head.  Understandably as yesterday, I went along to Seedy Sunday in Hove with my boyfriend and a couple of friends (Ian and Peter).  It is impossible for me not to be a little seed obsessed after spending most of the afternoon at a community seed swap, bumping into various people I know and having incredibly geeky conversations with different stall holders, and coming home with a exciting collection of seeds and bulbs.The broad beans and the garlic have to go in soon.  So next step is creating my own sowing schedule following the biodynamic days.   It was really heartening to see so many people that were really into growing and seed saving.  So I’m looking forward to getting sowing.

It is that time of year again: seed time.  This weekend marks the beginning of this years seed sowing.  I spent Saturday at Stepping Stones Farm, in Stepney, preparing for a series of workshops that I am going to be delivering with a friend (Robin).  I also met the wonderful Alex, who we are going to be working with more and more this summer.   We had some volunteers around and a few visitors, so we did a bit of a dry run and taught them seed sowing.  It is still quite early on in the season, so we started off with broad beans, Super Aquadulce, to be precise.

You may know already that I am a great lover of broad beans, and was very excited last year to get great big bunches of them in my veg box.  This year it is more exciting because I will be growing them myself as well.  Broad beans are sown during the cold months: either during the autumn or spring (depending on the variety).  They are part of the legume family and so fix nitrogen, which is a super useful compound that plants need to grow.  Bees also love the flowers.  Are you convinced yet that it’s a winner?  Hope so.

I went to Seedy Sunday (more on that later) yesterday and picked up some biodynamic Witkiem broad beans.  These are renown as being tasty, productive and hardy.   So I am going to experiment, sowing the beans at three different times of the month and see which ones do better.  I will update you on the progress.