Project: From Seed to Table

We have been busy getting ready between the showers the last few weeks, now seedlings are growing and the beds are ready. We have a few new things to try this year; I have designed a potato growing barrel that if it works should produce a lot of spuds. We have beatified the garden with a willow arch which hopefully will start to grow soon. We rescued an old tin bath from a skip which will increase pour growing area, trouble is all these raised beds, barrels and baths need a lot of compost. The poor old worms are now demanding overtime rates.

We are running a Community Market here at the Bradbury Courtyard on Sunday 25th March. We hope this will be the first of many, we are offering bacon butties and a tool sharpening service for mower blades and other garden implements along with the usual stalls.

Back to normal after the Christmas break, we are treading water a bit at the moment everything in the garden area is ticking over and we are making plans for the new season. Emma has been making bird feeders and bug hotels with the students along with keeping the student folders up to date. We have also started to construct living willow entrance arch for our garden (photos in the next blog). I know I have said that that we will keep things simple this year as some of the experiments we tried were not a successful as we would have hoped. However the idea’s refuse to stay down and I have designed a new potato growing environment which if successful I will be showing later in the year.

We are also making plans to hold a monthly Seed 2 Table Community Market at Bradbury Courtyard. We aim to have several tables available for local people to sell their excess plants. We are also looking for any local garden or growing related business that may like to have a stand or stands at these events. These markets will start on Sunday 18th of March and run as long as there is demand.

The photo shows the manufacture of bird feeders using seeds and lard stuffed into apples.

Shame we can only have one picture per post, so here is the reindeer that Aaron made for the last blog entry.

Reindeer picture by Arron a Seed 2 Table participant.

It was the night before Christmas the garden was quiet and still, the frost glimmered on the trees and grass, it felt as if it just might snow. Tom stood on guard; he wasn’t going to take a chance that one of Father Christmas’s reindeer would take the last carrots, carrots that Dan had been saving for Christmas dinner. Planted in the summer these carrots have been tendered and loved and are now the perfect size and shape. Along with a few leeks and onions these are the last survivors in the raised garden. Tom had been warned that some mince pies sherry and carrots for Father Christmas and his reindeer should be left out that night and was now worried that the reindeer may take any carrot eating opportunity that might arise. However they were not going to be these carrots. Carrots destined to be freshly cooked only minutes after harvest for this special meal.

Tom and his colleges had been working hard this last few weeks clearing the raised beds and garden areas of old plants, cutting them up and filling the composters so they would nourish the spring crops. The leaves from the surrounding trees have been cleared up so often that they now know the way to the compost bin.

Having a cafe on site not only means plenty of hot chocolate but also plenty of compostable waste, as our wormery has been so successful we have just added a second to help deal with this valuable resource. We had a problem with worms escaping with the last wormery, so forearmed is forewarned and plenty of food was ready for them. Ha Ha the worms had attempted an escape already and were free inside the packaging. This caused a scare because two students had just been told that they would not see any actual worms, after much cajoling and encouragement and being assured that worms are not related to snakes they had agreed to help. This has now set back worm student relations at least two weeks.

Tom now stood watching intently as the frost hardened its grip and thought about hot chocolate and warm fires, he thought how hard it would be to pull up these carrots so frozen in the ground. He thought they would be safe and he could live with the reindeer getting just the tops.

Zero Miles Meal. It’s been awhile since my last entry, I have been busy covering and with other projects, we had network problem with our computers which meant I lost the blog upload 3 times last week I must admit gave up after that. However the computer is fine at the moment....

The cafe produced our first zero mile meal a few weeks ago now, a starter of soup and a ratatouille type dish with salad. All produce grown just a few meters from the kitchen. A big dream of where we would ideally like to go, the realities are a bit different but it is a good goal. The Suffolk Free Press ran a nice story about it last week. I will upload a copy to our web site asap. www.thebridgeproject.,co.uk

Our raised garden beds are now full of winter crops and are starting to fill out and green up again. We had a bit of a late start this year and missed a crucial time in the growing calendar. Next year however will be different, learning from our mistakes and using knowledge gained we will have a flying start in the spring. Plans are already afoot with discussions about the best crops to grow now that we know the limitations and advantages of our planters. We also have a new volunteer starting this week which means we can have more one to one with some of the students.

Growing all our own vegetables is goal we cannot easily make, the kitchens here supply a lot of meals every day. We are however doing our best, as an example the kitchen produced a Zero Miles meal using our own produce.

It is surprisingly difficult to source everything locally, some perverse economic conditions have meant that even fresh food from the far east is cheaper than crops produced only a few miles away.

We are still achieving our main goal. The Bridge project community is enriched by the experience. You can see a positive lifting of the students spirits when they are outside with dirty hands. You can see from the photo one of the students takes it all very seriously.

Is this the world’s smallest perfectly formed tomato? Anyone can grow a giant tomato but it takes a special type of skill to grow one this small just 4mm diameter and perfectly ripe.

On a serious note this nice weather has ripened up the last of out tomatoes, which has been good news for the kitchen as they have just made a ton of green tomato chutney and are now seriously feed up with them and are now looking forward to a few ripe toms. We are having a good autumn clear up at the moment, and the garden areas have started to look fresh again now the old plants have gone to the compost bin where they will do there bit to help next year’s plants flourish.

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Suffolk, so why am I wearing my fleece and why did I have to resist switching on the fire last night. Oh, of course, it’s nearly Christmas, funny how we soon forget all the lovely hot sunny days we had this summer, days when we all had to hide in the shade.

We are harvesting most days now, this is the students favourite job, but they can be a bit over enthusiastic and nothing is safe. Never mind though, a radish the size of a pea is still very tasty.

We have been clearing out the finished crops so we can upgrade the planting accommodation for our winter plants. Our raised planters have been very successful the crops have thrived, some have been a bit smaller than they would have been with more room, bonsai courgette plants if you will. Tomatoes don’t seem bothered they just keep growing.

I was sceptical that our sweet corn plants would do very well grown in containers, they are big plants and need a lot of water and food. However I was wrong they are doing really well, they will never be prize winners but there are plenty of cobs developing with some of the plants over 2 metres tall.

We have had some failures unfortunately our broad beans just would not thrive and consequently have been savaged by pests. My upside down experiments have not been very successful either, this was my fault, not that it doesn’t work there where a few good strawberries and the french and dwarf beans grew very well in the initial stages, the lesson is that they require more attention and careful watering than they received. One winter job is to set up and automatic watering system and have another go.

Proof that gardening is enjoyable and therapeutic, if we ever needed it was clear today, I spotted one of our students working in the garden in his lunch break. Usually the mere mention of lunch or a cup of tea causes an exodus of tremendous speed straight to the social room.

There is not much more to write about today, everything is going smoothly the crops are gently ripening. That is if they get a chance, the tomatoes only have to have a red blush and there is a queue of eager students ready to harvest them.