Last year we were chosen by the West Norwood Co-op to take part in the Co-op Local Community Fund as one of three local causes supported by the community. Thank you so much to all of the Co-op members who selected us as their cause!
Last week along with West Norwood Feast and CHM Christ Ministry we were invited to a special presentation to accept the funds from your generous support.
A huge THANK YOU from us to the West Norwood Co-op and their members!
Your support has helped us in creating our West Norwood Map and walking trails. Through your contributions we look forward to offering guided walks in 2022.
With support from the London Community Foundation, we’ve spent the winter growing vegetables with an amazing community of 3,000 people across Lambeth.
Over 100 households, 8 schools, 20 community gardens and 4 Lambeth Estates braved the weather and got their hands dirty growing their own food, many for the first time. Almost everyone shared their seeds with friends, family and neighbours, and helped each other out along the way.
Lots of growers told us the project helped them cope with lockdown: “Great to bring some life to the garden during lockdown”
We also caught up regularly with everyone in our community ‘Grow Together’ sessions. We’ve shared tips, tricks and stories of limp spinach and surprise success in equal measure: “Fantastic project, it has really helped with my mental health”
The connections made with each other has been the highlight of the project. Some amazing partners have also generously supported the project:
Myatt’s Fields Park, and experienced gardener, Fabrice, provided hundreds of spinach, mizuna, cabbage, and onion seedlings. Thank you to him and everyone who delivered these precious and delicate seedlings to our winter growers.
Franchi Seeds, who donated a huge number of assorted seeds which allowed us to provide amazing packages of seeds when finding them anywhere was a challenge!
Alongside the growing, we’ve worked together with local groups to create five new walking trails on two new maps exploring Stockwell and West Norwood . The maps have allowed us to provide paid work for young local people, highlighted amazing community growing spots and taken people to green spaces they might never have known existed.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to grow, share and spread the word.
What’s coming up?
We want to work with more people to support community-led growing in Lambeth. If you have any ideas about how we could do this, we’d love to chat: director@incredibleediblelambeth.org
Following on from the work we are doing on six housing estates in Lambeth (as part of the Mayor of London funded ‘Grow Back Greener‘ project), and work we are doing with Arup on mapping the borough (see Lambeth plots), we held this great zoom event, attended by almost 50 people. Watch it HERE
Here’s a list of the places represented by the attendees:
St Matthew’s Estate (Brixton)
Caldwell Estate
Hillside Gardens Park
Rosendale Estate
Central Hill Estate
Tabard Gardens
Walworth Community Garden (Southwark)
Arup
Lambeth Council
Cowley Estate
Open Orchard
Myatt’s Field South
St Martin’s Estate
Vauxhall Gardens Estate
Calais Gate and Coligny Court
Edmundsbury Estate
Oasis Waterloo
Goldsmith’s College
Food Ethics Council
Bernie Spain Community Garden
Seed Sovereignty/London Freedom Seed Bank
St Leonard’s Church and School, Streatham
Palace Road Estate
AllotMe
Friends of the Earth, Lambeth
Springfield Estate
Notes from the event:
You can find further information on our guest speaker Judy Ling Wong – here and her presentation will soon be able to be viewed separately to the full length zoom event (awaiting link). Our Grow Back Greener Estates draft version of the Template of Engagement can be read here. Please send us comments about this template.
If you’ve identified some land you would like to grow food on (or create a garden to encourage biodiversity), why not get in touch today? questions @incredibleediblelambeth.org.
In the ‘Chat’ there was discussion about pesticide use on our streets – if you would like to opt out of the Council’s upcoming spraying regime, go here . If you live on an estate, you can ask for any neighbouring streets not to be sprayed. If you have not yet pledged to go pesticide-free, please go here today.
If you live or work in Lambeth and are not yet a member of IEL, pleasejoin our organisation today and strengthen our voice for more food growing in the borough.
It’s that time of year again! We are excited to announce the launch of the Blooming Lambeth Awards 2021 – a chance for every grower in the borough to win a cash prize and be recognised for their contribution to making Lambeth a better place to live.
The categories: we have eight categories this year, See below for a full description of each.
Judging and prizes: there will be cash prizes of £150 and £75 for winners and highly commended. Four of the categories will be people’s vote, whilst four categories will be voted by Lambeth food growers. Make sure you read the guidelines before applying. You can nominate yourself or someone you know or a garden you admire.
Each entry should be accompanied by ALL of the following information:
your name and email address
the person or contact at the garden you’re nominating (if it’s not yourself), their email address
the address/location of the garden, school or where the person volunteers
a description of your nomination: min 50/max 200 words – make this as clear as you can – this is what we and the public will read and will help in judging.
your nomination’s social media accounts (if you/they have any): Twitter / Instagram / Flickr / FB page
photos: (min 3 / max 8) maximum size 2MB – make sure these photos are clear and really showcase the category you’re nominating. These are the photographs we will use to shortlist nominations and will determine which nominations are visited. For the People’s Vote – these are the photos the public will see to cast their vote.
Nitty gritty:
you (or your nomination) must live or work in Lambeth
you can nominate once in as many categories as you like
if you are shortlisted yours, or your nominee’s bank account details will be required. We make bank transfers not cash payments. Only nominees will get paid, not nominators.
by entering these awards, you agree to IEL using your images on our social media accounts and website. You agree to waive your copyright. (we will not sell your images for commercial purposes) If you are sending a photo with an image with a minor in it, you must either be their parent or custodian, and/or have their consent, for IEL to use it. Safeguarding is your responsibility here – do not submit any images of minors you do not want publicised.
and finally, it’s a given – in line with our ongoing campaign – no harmful pesticide or herbicide will have been used to aid growth of your plants. We also would love to hear that you have opted for peat free compost.
Why bother entering? There will be at least two prizes per category, with cash winnings of £75-£150 each and, as a winner, your garden will receive lots of publicity and a small framed certificate. Everyone is welcome to attend an events ceremony in October (we are not yet certain whether this will be in real life or online or both!).
The deadlines: the deadline for entering the awards is 30th June.
All IEL voting and visiting of the selected nominations will take place 5th-18th July, when photos will be taken.
The award ceremony will take place online on 18 November (7pm to 8pm).
Here are the categories for this year:
1. Most imaginative growing space in public view (a planter, a balcony, a hanging basket, an unusual container) – This category will be judged by a panel of Lambeth food growers
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
2. Ivor Picardo Award for abundant growing of edibles, this could be in a public or private space. This category will be judged by a panel of Lambeth food growers
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
3. Best school garden – Is your school growing food? Does it have a programme to involve all children in outdoor learning? Has your school developed a wildflower area? Has it planted trees and shrubs to help create barriers against pollution? We want to hear about it! This category will be judged by a panel of Lambeth food growers
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
4. Most enthusiastic young gardener (under 18) – This could be a young person getting involved at home or in their neighbourhood or at their school. People’s vote
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
5. Best volunteer for a community growing space – Young or old, we know that there are so many people giving their time to make community gardens run smoothly and effectively. Now’s your chance to show how you value them and to say ‘Thank you’ to them. People’s vote
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
6. Best resident-led community garden – This category will be judged by a panel of Lambeth food growers
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
7. Best garden in bloom (public or private space but must have a public facing view – eg front garden, therapeutic garden, parklet) – People’s vote
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
8. Best space for encouraging biodiversity – for example: do the pollinators love your patch? or are you growing flowers that attract them? or do you have places for hedgehogs, beetles? or do you have a pond? People’s vote
Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
It can be very helpful in our colder climate to get a jump on the growing season by starting our seeds indoors.
Seeds are amazing things. They don’t need much to get started. You will need some seed compost, containers, a bit of water and a good location in your home with bright, indirect light.
Seed Compost
Seeds come packed with all the nutrients they need to get themselves going, so we don’t need to start with a heavy, nutrient rich soil. In fact, doing so could actually ‘burn’ tender little seedlings. Our seeds will need compost that is light and easy for the new roots to form in and will retain moisture without being too soggy. The basic recipe is 3 parts: one part being a loam (soil) of some sort for nutrients and structure (if using your backyard soil, make sure to pasteurize it first), one part horticulture or builder’s sand to create looseness and drainage, and one part of well rotted leafmould, coconut choir, or heat-treated rice husks to help retain consistent moisture and provide even more spaces for roots to spread.
Whatever seed compost mixture you end up using, please make sure it is peat free. You can read more about the importance of peat to our environment in the Friends of the Earth’s guide: Why peat is good for the climate and nature.
Containers
I like to start my seeds off in recycled containers. The possibilities are endless for this, but the more popular options include newspaper pots, toilet paper roll pots, and egg cartons. Benedict Vanheems of Grow Veg has put together an excellent video on these options as well as a short note on how to plant your seeds in them: Seed Sowing Using Recycled Containers.
Water
When planting your seeds you should make sure to add water to your seed compost before planting. The compost should be damp without being soggy with a consistency much like a damp sponge. After planting your seeds, make sure to keep the soil damp to help them germinate.
Location
Lastly, find a location in your house that is bright with indirect sunlight. Make sure it is in a place where you will see your seeds often so you remember to water them!
Our interactive map and app is now LIVE! Please test drive it over the coming week, then join us for a workshop next week to give us your feedback.
This piece of work is being undertaken in partnership with Arup – but we can’t do it without YOU…. Please read more about the project.
Update:
The trial of mapping existing and potential growing spaces through Arup’s interactive map has ended. Thank you to everyone for their contributions! Arup is now pulling together a report on the spaces found and we will make it available once it is ready.
But mapping our food growing potential is not over yet – and we still need your help! Find out how you can help here.
You may remember reading that IEL received funding from the Mayor of London to work across six estates to design and implement a ‘template of engagement’ for residents to support more food growing and biodiversity.
For the past couple of months, we have been working together with residents across six estates and have designed this template. It is still in draft form – we would welcome your feedback on this document, which we think is an exciting new and transformative way of considering land on our estates – it enables residents to engage more fully with their space, and hopefully will help to create lovely spaces that everyone wants to spend time in.
Spurgeon Estate Secret Garden with their community compost bins
We’ve been encouraging people to create MakeSoil sites in their community for a couple of years now…Currently, there are eight sites in Lambeth – please consider becoming a makesoil site TODAY! Go to MakeSoil.org to find out how.
If we can show the Council that this scheme saves them (and ultimately us) money, then they might invest in community composting all over the borough. This is win win – better for the environment, better for our gardens!
If you would like to be sent a bin design, courtesy of Tim’s Bins at the Community Composting scheme in Brighton (a scheme funded by Brighton Council), please get in touch questions@incredibleediblelambeth.org
