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Going OrganicBeccles and Waveney Friends of the Earth in conjunction
with Waveney Greenpeace present a Public Meeting and Organic Market with guest speakers,
discussion and organic produce for sale BooksIf you have any items you’d like to share then please let Marion know and she will produce a booklist for us of what’s available in the group. Or just bring anything you wish to loan to the next meeting.
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Leading from the FrontSuffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations (SAVO) is running a series of practical sessions to help organisations and community groups. There are 12 sessions on Tuesday mornings between 9.30 and 12.30 at the
Apollo Centre Halesworth, or Thursday afternoons at the Eye Volunteer Centre, starting 19th
& 7th October respectively. Each session costs £1.00 per person Contact 01473 230973 for details.
Halesworth & Blyth Valley CentreThe site chosen for the Centre is behind the shops between the
Thoroughfare and Cheddiston Street, going down to the river. What you can do
Without your enthusiastic support this project could fail and our local life and community will have missed a great opportunity. RecipeWith only two cucumber plants in action this year, I still seem to have a surplus for fresh consumption. This recipe for pickled cucumbers was given to me by Jenny and produces a long-lasting crunchy pickle suitable for use with salads or savouries.
Thinly slice onion and cucumber and mix. Sprinkle with salt and leave
to stand for 1 hour. Pour off brine, rinse and drain.
Clover Forge Farm - the garden?When we moved in five years ago, I gave myself a five year plan for getting a permaculture design up and running on the site. In that time, over 200 trees, bushes and shrubs have been planted and many of them are already coming into productive maturity. This year, in its fifth year, the design was well and truly tested by the surprising and unplanned amount of off-site employment that came my way. Now, though, the full-time work has ended and part time work returned, and so I can look at the garden to see how it has fared. Zone I has suffered the most. As an area of intense management, it is not surprising that Total Neglect has left it looking weedy and unproductive - but nothing a bit of carpet can’t cure (till next spring!). Even so, it managed to give us carrots, early potatoes and salads - through the weeds. The polytunnel is beyond help and I will have to start again next Spring with a new design using raised beds with the tunnel. I always knew the tunnel was high input and so this is no surprise. But Zones II outwards have fared much better. The orchard, of course, continued to produce an abundance of apples, pears, plums, damsons, cherries, peaches, almonds, elderflowers/berries, blackberries, loganberries and tayberries. The forest garden disappeared under the extreme growth of the ground cover stimulated by the wet and warm weather we had this year. Tall comfrey next to gooseberries caused mildew/mould and ruined two bushes of crops. The comfrey, as a green mulch and fertility enhancer is only a good idea if you can keep it short during damp weather. It really needed to be cut three times this year but of course it only got done the once. But apart from the loss of some gooseberries, the forest garden was highly productive. Summer raspberries did very well without me and the bountiful blackcurrants were enormous even in the deep shade of the undergrowth. I have noticed that Autumn raspberries don’t like the forest garden environment. They need sunlight during the summer to grow their canes and they don’t get it in the shade. Summer raspberries on the other hand are thriving. The pond managed well without me too. Now that it is smothered in reedmace, it requires no cleaning or clearing of algae and the wildlife absolutely love the vertical stems. The perennial veg, like asparagus, perennial kale and artichokes also produced without loving attention and I had a wonderful crop of potatoes off my compost heap that had sprouted from old peelings! Similarly two neglected cucumber plants on the compost heap continue to give me more cucumbers than I can cope with (see recipe). Both black and while outdoor grapes dangle tantalisingly by my head as I rush in and out of the house. Soon they will be ready and have had no attention what so ever over the whole five year period. So it seems encouraging that this site that was designed to be low maintenance can cope pretty well with no maintenance. This bodes well for old age when I may be less able to ‘garden’. I will nonetheless be able to rely on the perennial crops of fruit, nuts, herbs, vegetables that I get established now. Admittedly, one season is not a good test of neglect. Productivity may well deteriorate after, say, five years of neglect…but maybe not if I carefully select the right varieties and guilds, and keep tweaking out unwanted plants here and there? How different from the self sufficiency movement of the 60-70’s when intense hard labour by a few dedicated obsessives was imperative for survival. With access to box schemes, community support, LETS schemes and little piece of land…..we can all become empowered! Cindy
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