Dulwich grows local

[Alec John Moore]

Hi

Do you grow fruit and veg in you garden or allotment and share or barter it with friends? Do you produce food from neighbours' surplus fruit? Do you keep chickens and share surplus eggs? Do you make cider from yours and your neighbours? apples, perry from their pears or wine from their grapes? Do you gather honey from your bees or do you just grow some salad leaves on the balcony of your flat? Maybe you run a gardening club in your child's school. If so I would like to include you in my photo story on local food production.

If you've seen my thread on Live below the line and my recent contributions to the long running discussion on the ethics of foie gras then you'll have gathered I have a specific interest in food. I'm not just interested in how good it is to eat but also various aspects of food production, distribution and consumption.

In the last few years there has been a distinct increase in the numbers of people growing their own food, eating seasonally and buying locally produced food. So now I am attempting to tell the story of local food in our 'hood.

I have started by documenting the work of Local Greens, the local veg bag people and you can see the story so far here:

http://s1175.beta.photobucket.com/user/AlecLeggat/story/1025

If you?d like to get take part, PM me or give me a call. This is a labour of love that I expect to be doing over the next couple of years at least. Not just because of the seasons but also because I?m doing it part time so plenty of opportunity to get involved.

Best wishes

Alec

07812 150229

[Ukjoncollins]

Hi Alec. I'm involved in various project locally. One of them is The Secret Greenhouse with a few other locals: http://secretgreenhouse.blogspot.co.uk/ and I've got various photos of that up on Flickr which you're welcome to use (so long as this remains non-commercial) http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukjoncollins/sets/72157631306994624/. I'm also one of the many locals that keep chickens.

Cheers,

Jon

[Dulwichmudlark]

Got chickens grow fruit and veg and guess what else I keep lol

[dimples]

hi there , I make jams and jellies out of local fruit foraged from local gardens ,parks and my allotment . I love it ! I suply local shops and have a stall sometimes

. my lovely neighbour prints my labels

(keeping it all local )

I call my jams EAST DULWICH NATURALLY email [email protected]

I started doing it as before the children I worked in the theatre working 12 hours a day and once the kids came along couldnt go back to working like that so found I had the knack of making jam which has kept me very busy and gives me abit of pocket money !

[edw]

I would be concerned about eating fruit foraged from parks and gardens in urban areas unless the soil has been tested. Toxic heavy metals linger in the soil for decades, and plants absorb these contaminants and make them more concentrated.

Don't get me wrong - I think the home-grown movement is a very good thing. But if you're growing your food in poor-quality urban soil, or foraging in urban areas of unknown soil quality, there are very real health risks.

[Alec John Moore]

Hi there UKj, dbk and dimples

Thanks for responding to this. Great to read about what you are doing. UKj, the locally brewed beer in Herne Hill is a wonderful community effort. I hope I'll be able to join in next year. I was aware of you all through EDF and I'll be in touch via PM to see if I can include you in the story. I don't expect there's much going on at the moment but I'm glad I've started the conversation.

Best wishes

Alec

[Alec John Moore]

Hi edw

You make a valid point but I'm not sure how much of a risk it is. I asked Professor Google about this and he pointed me in the direction of a couple of Guardian articles (other newspapers are also available) which put the risks associated with growing your own into context. The article about backyard chickens is well balanced in my view:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/nov/23/urban-chicken-keepers-doing-harm#start-of-comments

and there is probably no greater authority on foraged food than Richard Mabey:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/06/food.guardianspecial4

His article is more of an opinion based on his vast experience and not a journalistic piece with references to sources and opposing views but he does throw away one relevant line when advising where to forage: "Towns are often as good as the countryside, and less chemically drenched."

I'd rather this thread didn't get Lounged since it is of interest to us locals and not intended to be about the wider issues around food security but I understand it may go that way.

On the specifics of growing food on poor quality and possibly contaminated urban soil, I note that Southwark has at least one initiative that encourages foraging which is the planting of fruit bearing trees, labelled as such, on Surrey canal walk.

I wonder if any other forumites know about the quality of London's soil.

[dimples]

thankyou alec for the above .

I would just like to say from my own personal foraging /collecting of fruit is grown organically with no pesticides at all , gardens which also use nothing and crab apples which I never take from below waist level for obvious reasons !

thanks sarah

east dulwich naturally

[LadyDeliah]

Chickens, fruit, nuts and veg :-)

Plus a farm veg and fruit box every 2 weeks.

Never have much surplus though and my apple tree didn't produce anything this year.

[katesonic]

Allotment holder...

Had my first Peckham Pineapple Guava yesterday:).

[Tarot]

Large troughs and pots, on balconies and patios, amazing results with a bit of dedicated effort can be achieved, onions, carrots. beetroot, parsnips, turnips, endless crop plants.

Get a book, get some gear and enter the world of achievement and a benificial new hobby.

You will find yourself looking in the garden section of newspapers, seeds in shops, and trips to garden centres a whole new interest in life will open up to you.

,Pull resources with a friend and share your bounty together

Try it.

[AbDabs]

katesonic Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Allotment holder...

>

> Had my first Peckham Pineapple Guava yesterday:).

I'd be interested to know how long it took for them to fruit. I've got four plants grown from seed, now two years old. Can I expect a harvest in the next year or two?

[katesonic]

Not sure to be honest about seed grown specimens but you'd do well to check out these two web sites:-

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1398/

One of the forumites on the Dave's garden site mentions 4 years.

They'll be worth the wait tho :).

Kate