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Oxford 2009!

What a weekend!

Again, many thinks to everyone who came and made this a big success.

Speakers

vp_airpots

VP of Veg Plotting explained her air pot trial to us.  Like many things it sounded like the air pots were good in some circumstances, and not so good in others.  Have a look at her blog for a post with all the details.

emma_q+a

Emma had a Q & A session for everything she has been working on in recent times, including her garden, chickens, book, blog, podcast, and lots more!

Soilman made a video of part of it.

ben_plant_resources

Ben of Real Seeds demonstrated how it was impossible for most GM crops to yield higher than ordinary crops, because they are generally forced to produce some additional product like pesticide, which must in turn result in lower yields.  His picture shows how a normal plant (top) makes use of 1000 hours of sunshine, and the same GM plant has to split this resource.

vicki_hsl

Vicki of the Heritage Seed Library talked briefly about who and what they are and do.

simon

Dr. Simon Platten talked for an hour about his research of UK allotments from an anthropological perspective.  He also brought in his bean collection that he collected from seed swaps across the UK demonstrating just how there is a real biodiversity available for those who are willing to look for it.

tom_saturday

Finally, Tom gave really quite an astonishing account of his work in breeding tomatoes and potatoes.

Seed Swap

Somewhere in between all these presentations we found time for swapping seeds.  Among things on offer were a large collection from the Heritage Seed Library, elephant and other garlic, blight resistant potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, beans, onions, sorrel, and much more!

Lunch

We also took a short break for lunch, and enjoyed omelets, bread, cheese, home grown tomatoes and apples, potato salad, welsh cakes, home made cookies, gluten free apple cake, a home grown cucumber and more!

Sunday Workshop

sunday_workshop

Here are VP, Ben and myself at the Sunday workshop, examining a pile of potatoes.

The workshop was no less intense than Saturday, but we decided we had more or less finished by 2pm.  Lots more seeds and planting materials were available in the workshop, and I hope to make some of these materials in addition to some videos I took available via this blog in the course of the coming weeks and months.

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Thriving Sustainably

Sustainability Community Event all day Oct. 17th in Oxford, England

The weekend before our Oxford 2009 meeting Michael Soth has organized Thriving Sustainably, a sustainability event also in Oxford.  It sounds great to me, and I wish I could go.  If you live in the area, be sure to put it on your calender.

Michael and I briefly discussed the possibility of combining his event with our meeting, but the scheduling didn’t work out.   It’s clear we have a lot of the same goals in common.

Here’s the Thriving Sustainably leaflet with more details of the events planned, and here’s their website.

If anyone can help with donations as well as promoting the event, Michael would like to hear from you!

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Hero or Villain?

Norman E. Borlaug passed away yesterday, the ‘Father of the Green Revolution’.

There’s really quite an extensive Wikipedia page on him and his work.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, as well as numerous other awards.  He’s often credited for ‘saving over a billion people from starvation’.

His methods are also responsible for many people killed by cancers or otherwise sickened by agricultural chemicals, and for putting huge numbers of farmers deep in debt.

He’s responsible for an unsustainable system of high input agriculture, that by some accounts is the single largest contributor to global warming.  It’s undeniably the source of major environmental contamination in many places, and the reason many places in the world are facing a crisis from the loss of topsoil.

Many influetial people assert the gains seen in agricultural productivity would have happened anyway (see highlighted  box in the bottom of this link), without the need of all the energy and chemical inputs, and the current system of agriculture heavily dependent on intensively cultivated monocultures is the cause of many of the world’s most important crop pest and disease problems.

He’s certainly someone who will be remembered!

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Expat Bloggers Meeting in Amsterdam

Last Friday there was an expat-blogger meetup at a local bar.  Better late than never when it comes to posting about it I suppose.

I don’t know how many people reading this are really interested in English speaking expats in Amsterdam, but we did meet some interesting people and their blogs are worth having a look at.

The bar was really crowded!  So crowded in fact, that I couldn’t really move to the other side of the table to speak to the people there.  Maybe another time I’ll get a chance to meet and chat with all of them.  I also intended to bring my camera, but forgot, so I don’t have any of my own pictures.  Some of the other bloggers there did bring cameras, even one person brought a video camera, so you can look on other blogs for the pictures.

As an expat of now almost 20 years, it was strange to meet people who mostly have only been here a few months.  It brings back some distant memories.  In many ways it seems like they are jumping into the deep end at the moment, as the atmosphere of being a foreigner living in the Netherlands is not the best and jobs are hard to come by.  Steph and I had it easier when we came.

Like I said I didn’t meet everyone, but as far as I know, these were the bloggers there that evening:

Amanda of Amanda Blog and Kiss

Andy of Andy in Amsterdam

Angela and Mats of Amsterdamned

John of John does Amsterdam

Haley from Texaantje

Lizzy of Lizzy Goes Dutch

Anita of Greetings from Holland

Hanna of Jandals

Jason of Hanson World

Did I forget anyone?

I hope we organize more get-togethers, the expat community in Amsterdam needs more cohesiveness!

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UK Oxford Get-Together 2009

Spring must be in the air, several people have already asked me what the plans are for an Oxford get-together this year.  Ben of The Real Seed Catalogue has repeatedly expressed interest in attending again, as have several others.

Tom Wagner, well known US potato breeder is planning a trip to Europe in October and said he would try to attend a meeting if it were held during his trip, but he otherwise has a very busy schedule and indicated this was uncertain.

Anyone else is welcome to attend depending on available spaces.

This will probably work in a similar way as last year.  I will make a few posts like this with some ideas, and see what feedback I get.  After a date is fixed, and I know how many places are available, I will ask everyone who intends to come let me know.  If necessary I will keep a waiting list, but I expect to find a place for most everyone who wants to come.  About a month before the date, I will ask everyone to confirm their attendance and give free places to people on the wait list.  I expect we need at least 10-15 people to make it worth while to do this, but I think at least that many will come. My goal would be to keep costs about the same as last year, roughly 15 pounds per person.

Is anyone interested?

My preference would be to do it late August to early September, as this is a good time for most people to take a break from gardening and I sense we did it a little late in the gardening season last year.  There is also a gardening get-together in France on September 20th, the same day we had the Oxford get-together last year, and while it’s not clear yet who wants to attend both meetings, it seems like a good idea to avoid a scheduling conflict.  If Tom Wagner doesn’t end up being available, perhaps we should plan on then?  Otherwise do it in October?

If anyone has other suggestions, we could try to do it in another UK city.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other speakers?  Is anyone interested in giving a talk?

Everyone is welcome to attend!

Comments are open, and all feedback is welcome!

Here are links to people who attended last year, expressed interest this year or I hope might be interested:

Daughter of the Soil
Veg Plotting
Spadework
Fluffius Muppetus
Manor Stables Vegetable Plot
Hills and Plains Seedsavers
MustardPlaster
Joanna’s Food
The plot thickens
A Blog Called Fuggles
Ben – Real Seeds
This and That
Baklava Shed Coalition
Guardian Gardening Blog
Horticultural
Soilman’s Allotment Blog
Kitchen Garden in France
Tater-Mater
Observer Organic Allotment Blog
Frugilegus