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Food Growing Bloggers Get-Together in the UK

I recently contacted a handful of fellow bloggers in the UK suggesting we might organize some sort of event and get together. There was enough interest to make it seem like it would be worth trying to organize something, so I’m posing the idea to everyone else. Since I am not from the UK, and don’t live there, my ability to plan something like this is very limited. Please help me out here with any suggestions or corrections!

As far as I’m concerned anyone with an affinity for food growing gardening or allotmenteering would be welcome, together with friends and family. I’m going to include some links below of UK food growing garden blogs I am aware of so their owners will notice this post, but if there are any others please let them know too. It’s not the intention to exclude or forget anyone. Visitors from other countries are welcome too!

I was thinking about the following:

It seemed like Oxford would be a good location. It’s central to bloggers in London and Cheltenham, as well as some other places. It’s also a nice area, with lots of things to do. Possibilities I’m aware of include visiting the botanical gardens, as well as some boating. I’m sure there are lots of other things, and I hope others have suggestions.

Since I’m coming from Amsterdam, it’s better if I stay a few days. I’ll probably come for a long weekend, with Friday and Monday as travel days. I expect most people in the UK will come only for one day, so we should designate either Saturday or Sunday for the main event. On the other day, if anyone is around, we might make informal plans for other activities. Does anyone have a preference between Saturday or Sunday for the main event?

A couple of people have expressed some concerns about spending a lot of money, so I suggest we try to do the main event for little or no cost. Perhaps on the other day we might do something a little more expensive.

Is anyone interested in doing a ‘pot luck’ lunch or dinner? This is where we all bring a dish and share food with each other. This might give us a chance to taste what other people are growing in their gardens. Coming from Amsterdam I might be limited on what I can personally bring. No one should feel like they need to bring anything special, and supermarket food is fine too. It would be a chance to show off if you want to.

A pot luck might be a lot of extra work to plan, because we might need to make use of kitchen facilities to store food in a refrigerator or some way to heat up food. We could try to do this as a picnic somewhere, or maybe rent a narrow boat or boats which each hold 10 people and come with a small kitchen. Does anyone living in the area want to volunteer the use of their house or kitchen for a pot luck? Does anyone have any other ideas for a venue?

What about dates? Since we might visit each other’s gardens, and we might share some of our fruit and veg, perhaps it would be good to do it at a time like September? How does this suit everyone else? What does everyone think about the weekend of 6/7 September or the weekend 20/21 September?

Please let me know if you’re interested in coming, and how many other people might come with you, either in a comment or email. I don’t honestly know if I should be expecting 3 or 300 people.

A Blog Called Fuggles
Daughter of the Soil
Fluffius Muppetus
Horticultural
MustardPlaster
Soilman’s Allotment Blog
Spade Work
Veg Plot
Vegmonkey and the Mrs.
Fork In Hell
Fresh as a daisy
Growing our own
Manor Stables Veg Plot
Nomegrown
The smallest smallholding
Souper Allotment
The plot thickens
At last I’ve got my plot!
Allotment 81
Allotment Lady
Allotment plots 5 and 29
Clodhoppers
Dave’s Allotment
Down on the Allotment
Duck Dinner Dash
Flourish
Hoe Hoe Hoe
Liz’s Organic Allotment blog
Losing The Plot
Malcolm Smith
Matron’s blog
Mike’s Allotment Diary
Moonbells Allotment Diary
My Allotments
My Tiny Plot
Observer allotment blog
One Man and His Dig
Our Allotment Venture!
Pumpkin Soup
She Who Digs
Sunningdale Allotments
The Allotment Underground
The Pellon Allotment Plot
Joanna’s Food
Wiggly Wigglers
Vegetable Heaven, UK

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Why Bother?

Regular readers will know I am a fan of Michael Pollan, and he has just published a new article in the New York Times Magazine.

Pollan has really done a lot to educate all of us about the truth of where our food comes from, how it’s made and to promote locally sourced foods.

Honestly, in recent months I’ve had some issues with some of the things he’s said. On one hand he has advocated not eating any thing your great grand mother would not recognize as food, and on the other hand has offered advice on how to buy foods from the supermarket. In fact these two ideas seem very contradictory to me, because the vegetables and other supermarket foods are very different from what our ancestors ate.

With this recent article, my opinion of Pollan has dramatically improved again!

In this recent article he stresses the importance of living a lifestyle with a low carbon footprint, and argues having your own vegetable garden and growing at least some of your own food is an important part of that! He so rightly points out we have to go far beyond the low energy light bulbs Al Gore suggests, and make a complete break from the cheap energy, consumption oriented economy of today. Words cannot describe how happy I am to see him emphasize what we as consumers shouldn’t buy, rather than what we should buy.

Now I hope he goes back to what he said about not eating anything our great grandmothers wouldn’t recognize as food, connect this with home vegetable gardens, promote heirloom fruits and vegetables and preserving biodiversity through saving your own seeds!

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Foundation Progress

In a recent post I mentioned I am redoing my house foundations.  The permit application process is nearly complete.  Stared items are still pending, but expected in the next few days.  The application consists of the following:

  • Architectural Drawing of the Houses
  • Asbestos Survey
  • Test for Ground Contamination*
  • Test for Ground Stability, where they send a probe some 20+ meters into the ground to look for the beginning of the stable ground layer.
  • Pile plan, where a technically oriented architect uses the building drawings together with the ground stability tests to determine how many of what type piles need to be placed, together with their pattern.
  • Archaeological study waver, where the city determines (hopefully) an archaeological study is not needed under my house before starting the construction.*

After the application, a building inspector will come and do an inspection.  This could be very superficial or very involved, I’m not sure yet.

So far no asbestos or toxic materials have been found yet, but not all the test results have been returned.

The new piles will be about 22cm in diameter and 21 meters deep!  The ceiling clearance on our ground floor is only about 2 meters, so they will have to drive them in segments.  They will be made by driving a hollow casing into the ground, filling it with concrete, then removing the casing (I think).  In total, 19 piles will be needed.

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Kitchen Garden in France

Here’s a new food growing blog, located in southern France:

Kitchen Garden in France

Ian: I tried to leave a comment for you today, but was unable because I am not a Blogger member, nor do I have an Open ID. You also don’t seem to have any other contact information on your blog. I would suggest changing your settings to allow everyone to leave comments on your blog, or there will be some people like me who don’t have any way to leave you a message.

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Food Growing Blogger Get-Together

Kate of Hills and Plains recently posted a suggestion of a get-together in Australia.  If anyone thinks they might be interested in participating in something like that, you should certainly have a look at her post.

If any readers find themselves in Europe and would like to meet me, and perhaps get some seeds or plants from me, please send me an email.  Certainly if you are visiting Amsterdam, we should try to get together.  Depending on the circumstances, I may travel within Europe as well, particularly to nearby countries like Belgium, Germany, France and the UK.