This month we visited two projects: Adi’s Urban Mushrooms and Rosendale Gardens Estate.
Adi’s Urban Mushrooms is a social enterprise, based at the Remakery in Brixton. We met Adi Staempfli, founder, mushroom-lover and passionate advocate for sustainability, and found out about his mission to share the joy of mushroom cultivation. We visited his mycology lab and gained an insight into the fascinating world of cultivating mushrooms. Inside the main growing chamber, we saw Coral Tooth and Lion’s Mane mushrooms, both beautiful, intriguing structures which looked almost too good to eat – although a little nibble reassured us that they tasted as good as they looked.
Adi has worked with several community gardens in south London (including Glengall Wharf Garden, Denmark Hill Community Garden and Loughborough Farm) and has helped them to establish mushroom cultivation areas. This is something that he is keen to develop with other community growing spaces.
Adi offers mushroom products (jerky, tinctures, grow kits), cultivation workshops and foraging walks in autumn. You can find him at local farmers’ markets (Herne Hill and West Norwood Feast) or get in touch to find out more @adisurbanmushrooms/
Earlier in the month, we visited Rosdendale Gardens Estate to find out about how local residents are making the most of the green spaces on the estate.
They are lucky to have lots of different green areas which are being utilised in different ways including a community orchard, communal food growing bed, and allotments for residents without their own outdoor space, We met Tom Palmer, Chair of the TRA, and previous Blooming Lambeth Award winner, Cleave, who has one of the allotments and looks after it very well, growing lots of food throughout the year.
Tom is passionate about wildlife-friendly gardening practices and is helping to create more spaces for wildlife across the estate. He has planted a new hedgerow and is developing long grass fields to maximize their benefit to wildlife and make them visually more attractive for residents. It was great to see how much had already been achieved and hear about their plans to continue developing spaces across the estate.
