Thrift is the best way

The WEA Organic Gardening Course in the shed

I recently attended a great course run by the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, aimed at helping us make our projects function well – on less resources!

We have done well with generous support from individuals, businesses and organisations working in the community.

The latest act of generosity has arrived on the back of a tipper truck, from a building site run by Leadbitter Limited. Taking down the hoarding around the construction site in the centre of Cardiff, they offered the posts and boards for us to use at the allotments.

Allotment holders are always delighted when someone is generous enough to supply free materials and the Taff plots and our neighbours will make good use of this material from Leadbitter – thank you for helping us out.

On the Federation of City Farms course, we all learned that the future of funding projects could become more difficult and that we need to learn what our grandparents would have fondly called thrift and foraging. It’s also about calling upon the skills of negotiation, bartering and a touch of talking your way in with people who can help you.

We heard some great examples from an orchard project in Abergavenny and a youth project in Rhondda Cynon Taff, where people have asked and received.

Back at the Taff Community Allotments, we are already thinking ahead to our plans for next year. Work is underway on our box beds, using the scaffolding planks donated by Generation Hire. We are also hoping to source some free rotted wood mulch, which will make a great soil conditioner.

Meanwhile, the new Workers Education Association accredited course on Pests and Diseases is under way. Tutor Aisling Judge has a ‘full house’ of with 12 willing students attending the sessions at the allotment shed on Tuesday afternoons. The recently completed Organic Gardening course proved a hit, with everyone learning lots.
One good pointer from Aisling is to ask the farms we source our manure from about whether it can be called organic or whether they use any treatments on the pasture land.

Allotment star wins award

Fanwell Tandi, right, at the Housing Hero Awards

Popular allotment holder Fanwell Tandi has spoken of his delight after winning a prestigious award.

Fanwell, who lives in Riverside, Cardiff, has been involved with the Taff Community Allotment Group for the past two years and has been the chairman for the past 18 months. His enthusiasm and leadership and help for other tenants resulted in his nomination as a Housing Hero at the Welsh Housing Awards 2012.

He attended the ceremony at the Vale Resort Hotel in Hensol, Vale of Glamorgan, with staff from Taff Housing and his guests, son Clever Tandi and tenant and Taff allotment holder Jayne Palmer.

Fanwell has been involved with the Taff Community Allotments at Leckwith since February 2011 and he has attended gardening training courses, assisted other tenants with work on their plots and helped maintain the community growing areas on the site.

During one of the worst summers on record, as other gardeners gave up hope of growing anything, Fanwell showed leadership and support to other tenants. He helped them re-plant seeds, gave his enthusiastic help and was an inspiration to others.

Commenting on his Housing Hero Award he said: “This was indeed a night to remember for many years to come. I am very pleased to receive the award.”

Elaine Ballard, Chief Executive of Taff Housing, said: “It’s brilliant that Fanwell has been recognised in this way. He is one of life’s ‘quiet leaders’ who shows people nothing is impossible. He has encouraged others in tough times and celebrated their achievements with them. We’re honoured to have been there with him on his special night.”

Scholars in the shed

The courgette relish has proved a hit

I am pleased to report the allotment training sessions are going very well, with a good turn out each week enjoying the practical course work with tutor Aisling Judge.

The new training shed has proved a real hit, with participants laughing and enjoying the course enormously. It has quickly become a base for learning key skills at the allotments. The current Organic gardening course is drawing to a close and will be followed seamlessly by the Pests and Diseases course.

What is very pleasing is seeing how much more confident the tenants and residents are. They are quite literally walking out of the training shed and using their new skills and knowledge on the allotments, which is terrific to see. And there is a great cameraderie too, with everyone getting on and supporting one another.

Meanwhile, the feedback from the sample jars of courgette relish from Inner City Pickle has been great. They have got people talking and proved to be a big hit. The relish was a topic of conversation among the plot holders at the recent group meeting, where we reviewed what had been achieved in a difficult growing year and began to plan for 2013.

The arrival of 6-8 tonnes of quality manure has been met with excitement by the tenants. We’ve spread some and the rest is being transferred to the manure bin. There are patches that will really need at, as the extensive regeneration of the soil on the site in the spring site wasn’t as thorough as we’d thought, with two lower lying patches not as productive or draining well.

Good partners, relish and shed laughter

Tenant Esther Patricio’s Zimbabwean maize defied the wet summer!

It’s been one of the most fascinating months so far on the Taff Community Allotment Project, with so many things going on. We look back on our first full year of cultivation at the Leckwith allotments and we can be proud of what we’ve achieved, against such a poor season of weather for growing.

As autumn shifts into the early part of winter, we have turned our attention again to training, with another successfully attended Workers Education Association accredited course getting under way. This time, we’re delighted to host it in our new training shed – a fine 12ft x 12ft structure, basically kitted out with chairs, tables and whiteboard and very cosy and full of laughter during the course. We even have a tenant in a wheelchair able to access the course, with a ramp into the shed.

The tutor, Aisling Judge, has everyone enjoying themselves as they learn – with the allotments outside the door acting as both inspiration and training ground.

Elsewhere, the fantastic support from our contractors and partners paid off in a different way at the Community Housing Cymru Public Relations Awards. The promotion of their input helped us secure the Successful Partnership category. Stories in the South Wales Echo, trade press, this blog and elsewhere impressed the judges. Just to mention them all again – thank you to GKR Maintenance, Leadbitters, mi-space, Cosgrove and the Probation Service for all their contributions.

The Probation Service were down at the allotments this week as part of a feature on their best work in Cardiff. They took photos of the footpaths, fencing and beds they have helped tenants with this year. We’d like to particularly thank Rob Robbins and Sam Holt for all their hard work coordinating the Probation sessions, which made such a massive difference to the project.

We’ve just had delivery of sample jars of courgette relish from Inner City Pickle, a local business that works on the food markets in Riverside and Roath. They look great, with specially printed labels for Ty Enfys, Riverside Play Centre and City Temple Homeless Project.

Next year, we hope to develop the relationship with Inner City Pickle to hopefully produce more jars of tasty treats, which they can either eat or possibly sell to make some money and raise awareness about their own projects. Check out Inner City Pickle at: http://www.innercitypickle.co.uk/index.html

On another positive note, our group chairman Fanwell Tandi has been short-listed for a Housing Hero category at the Chartered Insttute of Housing Cymru Awards. This is a black-tie event at the Vale Resort Hotel near Pontyclun. A world away from Fanwell’s days on the allotments, but great recognition for the journey he has made as an allotment gardener and ambassador for the project.

Looking back on this year, the tenants think that luck was on our side, with late planting and raised beds saving us from the worst of the wet weather. We produced some epic runner beans, great Charlotte potatoes (one of the few varieties to succeed) and succulent mange tout. But the late fruiting strawberries were probably our showpiece – the plants have produced abundant crops long after other plots have harvested theirs.

The beneficiary projects of the Community Growing Space area – Ty Enfys mother and baby hostel, City Temple Homeless project and Riverside Play Centre – have received good quantities of free veg and fruit from the site. That’s been a pleasurable outcome from the project.

A four-legged friend is discovered

Our latest addition to the allotment

Tenants at the Taff allotment project are delighted to find we have a friend in the war against allotment posts – our own frog!

The pond has only been in place for a few months and we didn’t expect any inhabitants until late autumn or the spring. But tidying up a damp, weedy spot on the site, we disturbed the frog in the photo.

On recent inspection, we found we had damsel fly larvae, water boatmen, snails and pond skaters – but the frog is the key to a happy, healthy allotment.

They are brilliant at consuming slugs and other pests and the tenants were pleased by our discovery.

In other news, the giant maize contest continues between Fanwell and Esther. Both tenants are from Zimbabwe and they are delighted to find their home-grown maize has been a hit, despite the dreadful summer weather. This has also puzzled other seasoned allotment holders, who are more used to the smaller, sun-loving sweetcorn plants.

Fanwell’s, at last count, was somewhere in the region of 7-8ft tall – more Triffid-like than maize! Esther is also proud of her runner beans (which Fanwell planted!) which are producing a very healthy, late crop.

We are also now working with the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens on a produce-weighing scheme, with some super hi-tech rechargeable scales, which we can accurately weigh everyone’s harvest on.

The giant courgettes from the New Foundations Home Education plot tested the scales, along with their tomatoes, sweetcorn and other produce.

Another training course will be starting later this month on the Taff plots, Organic Gardening and Pests and Diseases. We will welcome back our excellent tutor Aisling Judge, who ran the Practical Gardening course earlier this year, with tenants and residents delighted with their new-found knowledge and skills. Many thanks to Aisling and the Workers Education Association for setting up the new course.

All in all, we are finishing the growing season on a positive note, with lots to celebrate, after a shaky start.

Summer produce proves a hit

The sun came out this week, so after a couple of hours tidying up the Taff allotment plots, we harvested some vegetables and strawberries and took some photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/taffhousing/sets/72157631063236786/

This was a selection of the produce that we took down to the Ty Enfys mother and baby hostel, where they recently cooked up a potato and cheese bake with fresh spuds from the allotments. The comments about freshness and taste showed that good, local produce is healthy and different.

We’ve just planted up a second crop in the community growing space in the corner of the site – thanks to Fanwell for turning over the soil and planting up the seeds – they include salad crops and herbs, which we hope to harvest in a few weeks time.

The tomatoes in the raised beds appear – touch wood – to have dodged the blight that has hit other allotment sites in Cardiff and we’re hoping for a late crop of Tumbling Tom and Minibell tomatoes now.

The late flowering strawberries just keep on coming to the delight of everyone and the tenants have been taking the runners and potting them up to create new plants for next year, which is great.

We’re also hoping to get involved in another gardening course in the early autumn, giving tenants and residents even more skills and knowledge to use and develop their plots.

 

Allotment produce turned into tasty treats

 

Allotment veg served up at the play centre

Vegetables from Taff Housing’s Community Allotment Project have been harvested and served up at three local projects.

The idea behind the Community Growing Space on the allotmens at Leckwith was to provide fresh, local produce to cook up for healthy eating sessions at Ty Enfys, Taff’s mother and baby hostel, the Riverside Play Centre and at the City Temple Homeless Project in Riverside.

All three received bags of three varieties of potatoes and onions and shallots to cook up.

At Ty Enfys, they got busy in the kitchen and produced some really tasty treats.

Dawn Harrington, who works at Ty Enfys, explained: “We made a potato salad and a cheese and potato pie with the other lot of veg. They were absolutely lovely potatoes!”

At Riverside Play Centre, they cooked up some potato wedges and other meals for the children who attend the centre, aged from 5-15 years.

The ‘hands on’ approach by staff means the children get to help out with the cooking and learn about the health benefits of fresh food.

Pictured above is Play Leader Helen Griffiths with some of the vegetables delivered to the centre.