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GreenFriends™ UK
Gardening Corner: December/January 2009
"Nature is like a duck that lays golden eggs. But if we kill the duck and try to snatch all the golden eggs at once, we will lose everything. We must stop polluting and exploiting Mother Nature."
From the speech Amma delivered during the Cinema Verite's 2007 Film Festival award presentation ceremony.
Recycling Report for Amma's Programme in London
We have some figures for the waste recycled at Alexander Palace . Amma UK collected 18,060 litres of waste for recycling, made up of 15,180 litres of mixed waste (paper, cardboard, plastic containers and bottles, glass, cartons, paper cups, plastic bags, foil, and cans), 2,160 litres of cooked and raw food, and 720 litres of flower waste.
The figures for food waste are a big concern, as we are sure less than half of this is raw food, which is mainly from the juice bar. Therefore over a ton of cooked food is being thrown out (and we did not collect all of it so in real terms it is more that this!). This means that people are throwing away a lot of their meals so are the portions too big? Amma gets very upset when food is thrown out, so we think that this issue needs to be addressed.
Planning for the New Year
This is the best time to plan for the New Year, as it is quiet in the garden/allotment. We draw up a little map each winter, and spend an evening or two working out what is going to go where. This usually changes by the time it comes to actually doing the work, because there are always unforeseen circumstances arising, but we like to pretend to ourselves that we are fully in control! Ha ha ha!
Most of the books on growing vegetables have something called a rotation in them. This means that you are supposed to grow different types of vegetables one after the other. For example:
Year 1 - brassicas (all the cabbage family)
Year 2 - roots
Year 3 - all other kinds of vegetables
and so back to brassicas in year 4.
This has the advantage of firstly making sure that the pests in the soil that attack a particular kind of vegetable die out. We have never worked this rota thing out, and so content ourselves with making sure we wait 2 years before growing the same crop on the same bed, in the meantime putting as much in the way of organic matter in the soil (manure, compost, green manure, etc).
Storage
We are having a few problems with storage of certain vegetables at the moment, particularly pumpkins. We think that the stems that were attached to the pumpkin were not always properly dried. This has caused rot to enter a couple of them. We spent a mad two days chopping, roasting and freezing one of them (all 14lb of it!) just before we were due to go to Barcelona to see Amma. Amma likes to keep us on our toes! This week it happened again and so it’s pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin and baked pumpkin this week, as we have no more freezer space. We think to overcome this problem that the stem needs to be very, very dry before storage. We are not sure as yet how to do this, but will keep you posted.
Leaf Mulch
Autumn is when gold dust falls from the ever-wonderful trees. This gold dust otherwise known as leaves are a wonderful resource for your garden, so don’t throw them away. We live in a very leafy city and the council have finally realised they can dump leaves on the allotment sites and we will be happy! We have collected over 10 wheel barrows full and either stored them in a covered pile or put them straight on the soil.
The pile will make wonderful compost in a couple of years, if you want it for pots. When you collect it cut it up with a spade and then add water to it, making sure it is soaked through, and then cover. In over a year you will get lovely dark, crumbly compost and it is all free! The rest we have put straight on the beds with no green manure to stop soil run off, and because the clayey soil needs all the help it can get.
Allotment Diary
As we said above it is very quiet now on the allotment. We plan to plant out our garlic soon. This can be planted any time in the autumn for harvesting next summer. Last year we planted ours in December and still got a good crop. None of the books I have read say that winter planting is possible with garlic, but sometimes you can be more flexible than the books say. We are still harvesting spinach, kale and beetroot from the summer.
We do have plans to sort out our compost bins, possibly making a carrot bed out of an old water tank, which we picked up from a skip, and sorting out the dilapidated greenhouse.
It has to be said that on cold wet days the allotment looks a little sad. Maybe it’s just best to look at the winter for what it really is, a dormant state before the mad rush of the summer planting, growing and harvesting. A time for reflection and contemplating.
December 28th UPDATE
"Children, one of our priorities should be to preserve nature." - Amma. The allotment is currently covered with snow and frozen solid. The only reason to go there at the moment is to feed the wild birds who suffer terribly in this weather from cold and starvation. We put out fat balls, mixed seeds and peanuts, and try to keep some water clear of ice as they can also get very thirsty in icy weather when there is no standing water that is unfrozen. We spend about £5 a week which isn't very much when you can help to keep alive many small birds.Happy gardening and see you all next month
- Richard and Kaivalya
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