Are you or any of your friends growing or producing your own food in a surprising way or in a challenging or unusual place? We are looking for stories to feature in our coming Spring Series and would like you to tell us about what you're doing to Grow Your Own! Please tell us what you're up to here and why not write a blog on your 'My Page' - you can add pictures and video there too!

Hello Cottagers,

2 years ago I caught the bug, and have to say there is no pleasure like attempting to grow your own.
Flowers do little or nothing for me, but harvesting potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, toms etc is an unbelieveable feeling.
But living one minute from London Bridge station, on the 4th floor of an old warehouse, I have only a sliver of precarious roof space to play with. I have 3 wormeries and a compost bin into which ALL suitable waste goes. But seeing the gap bridged between food waste and food harvest is magic.
I'd love to attach pictures, but haven't figured it out yet.
Also, is 'cottagers' a suitable term......?

Jo

Hi people,

Hope your all well. My name is Lee Griffiths and I live in an area of Leeds called Holbeck which is in the inner city. The area falls within 10% of the most deprived areas in England, 25% of population have a life long limiting illness, 26% of the population are aged over 65. The area has 4 take away,  3 public houses (used to be 5) and 5 off licenses.

A few years ago the local supermarket closed down since this time there is no where to buy affordable nutritious and culturally acceptable food. For the last 2 years (while at university and working for a charity) I have been working toward setting up a social enterprise in the area. This will be a retail space selling locally grown produce at a reduced rate for local residents (which will join a membership scheme, the members will vote on the board of directors which will be made up  to 60% local residents. Ensuring the business is run by local people for local people). To ensure eventual non grant dependency other income streams will be sought, i.e. a box delivery scheme to Holbeck Urban Village (a very affluent area 5 mins walk from Holbeck Center), produce will be delivered by bicycle trailer. I have never grown myself but this as an excellent opportunity for community groups to get involved, increase social capital, community cohesion, create exercise opportunities and make Holbeck/Leeds more self sufficient by reducing food miles. Growing can also be a benefit for those who do not thrive in normal educational settings

Although I have been working on the project for 2 years it is still in its early stages, in fact this week a feasibility study has been delivered to Holbeck residents by Leeds Youth Offending team, which helped me but also allowed them to ask questions and engage in issues around business. The study also promotes a public meeting which will be held at our local community center (for replying to feasibility study residents are entered into a prize draw), the meeting is to engage local residents and inform them of the business model and hopefully take some ownership. The meeting will be attended by various agencies from local councilor, the PCT and the Rt Hon Hillary Benn Secutary of State for the Environment and will take place on the 7th of March.

The shop will be a community Hub where residents can find out about healthy living projects: growing, cooking, eating ensuring there is access to local produce as well as knowledge about how to use it.

This project is about ensuring that locally grown produce is accessible not just to the middle classes but to all. We need to think in an innovative fashion if we are to reduce food miles and make local food available to all.

I would be most interested to hear from any one who is doing similar projects and if any one would like to attend the public meeting on the 7th of March let me know.

Lee Griffiths
Holbeck Food Enterprise
07709179817

Hi All

My otherhalf and I got started about 5 years ago. We looked at our lives and in the moving in together process had a long think about what we wanted from life. We both work from home so were not tied to an area although we were living in the south east near London. We were inspired by Hugh and a my OH had volunteered at Kerry Alternative Technology centre. As an engineer he had found the challenges of living somewhere that produced all its own power a real breath of fresh air. I had come from a keen gardening family so had a little base knowledge from childhood but was still a novice when it came to producing my own food.

So we wanted it all, land for veg and livestock, water for power (hydro being our choice of green energy) and the magical mystery ingredient that it needed to be flat. I was in a motorbike accident 8 years ago and had ended paraplegic.

Being in a wheelchair added a whole new challenging dimension to our search. We found the perfect place just outside Porlock on the North Somerset coast. We found a watermill which was working but rundown.. I had 5 acres of relatively flat ground, more than enough for a veg garden and some chooks and pigs.

5 years later we are married and living happily off the land. We have joined WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) as a host. We have up to ten volenteers at any one time. We produce over %75 of our veg (potato crop failed last year). We have chickens for eggs and have had three pigs (who now reside in the freezer). We made dried sausage and parma ham as well.

I have managed to find away round most of the problems brought around by my disability. I can do 90% of the day to day garden work. It gets easier as we invest in better paths for wheelchair access.

I have become a pretty mean cook having to provide three meals a day to a variety of changing meal requirements (Vegan to Omnivore). The veg garden has grown from one small veg bed and pollytunnel to 7 beds and a huge pollytunnel. We have changed what was once an ornamental garden into a perennial veg garden with bee and wildlife attracting flowers. This garden also has our waterwheel which has started to generate some of our power although we are still refining this.

Our plans for the next year include replacing one of the dilapidated outbuilding with a green oak timber framed building. We are trying to source all of the wood locally and have it milled on site.

I would like to have bee hives and have contacted our local bee keeper who has offered to teach me all he knows.

We will be doing pigs again from weaner, and trying some meat birds (chickens).

We have enjoyed every step of the way and cant believe how lucky we have been. Our local community is brilliant. They have offered friendship, advice and even help.

I will attach some pics as soon as I work out how. (lol I must be being feeble)

We are not heros but we are trying hard to live locally and give others the opportunity to share in the experience of the life we have found.

Mo

Greetings to all,

This year is going to be somewhat different to most others, I have decided to leave London at last and head back to Sussex, From May I will be relocating to a beautiful woodland with a river nearby and start building my new home: a Tree house.

I will be living in the treehouse for 6 months, surviving off mainly wild food (my only meat source) and a small yet productive veg patch which I am digging this week.

The tree house will be built from a mix of recycled/reclaimed/natural materials and I will have a central heating unit/wood burning stove put together from an old steel drum.

Having studied Archaeology at University, got up to a wealth of survivally goodness over the years (including 3 months on a lovely desert island as a survival expert for chaneel 4) and cut me teeth in some interesting kitchens across the capital, its time to see if we can still live the hunter-gatherer lifestyle (with a little of the neolithic thrown in) in 21st century Britain.

To follow my progress and for more info on the project, please visit: www.huntergathercook.typepad.com

Nick.

Wow you all sound brill, Lee, I hope the project works well for you and wish you all the luck in the world. It really makes my heart sing when I hear about people like yourself who are helping local communities.

Mo, your home sounds absolutley idyllic, I am so jealous. I have a 20' back garden where I am trying to grow some veg and had some success last year. I am trying to convince my hubby we need some chickens but haven't managed it yet!! I would love to live somewhere similar to yourself.

And Nick, good luck matey, hope the tree dwelling goes OK and I will keep an eye on your project

Take care everyone and well done xxxx

Hello all,

I feel quite humbled by some of the stories above.

I share a house with some friends in Hertfordshire and always had my eye on my friend's large back garden but apart from doing pretty flowerbeds they weren't too keen on me cultivating fruit and veg. But this year I got the bug and decided to have a stab at something even if it went horrible. Eventually as I created the veg patch my house mates were won over and are quite happy with what I've done with their garden.

I'd originally tried sharing an allotment with a friend but unfortunately it didn't work out as my friend who owned the allotment wasn't as commited. So I dedicated my time to the little veg patch in the back garden.

I draw much of my knowledge from instinct, books, voluntary work I've been involved in with my local Wildlife Trust and National Trust and tv such as the River Cottage series I've been watching since well since Cook on the Wild Side I guess. It's still very much a learning curb but growing my own has helped me appreciate food more. And even has given me an incentive to come up with different things to cook and generally improve my cooking skills to make the most out of what I can get out of the garden.

This year I reaped the rewards of successfully growing some spinach, chard, dwarf french beans, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, spring, rocket, strawberries and raspberries. I'm still waiting on the butternut squash and broccoli. Fingers crossed. I had a bit of a fight with slugs and had some minor success with beer traps. Will be more stealth next year. But decided from the onset not to use any nasty chemicals.

Would love to rear chickens but haven't manage to convince my housemates to the idea. I'm still working on it. I know one of the neighbours keeps some because I occassionally hear them clucking.

Anyway here's a few photos of my rather small and meager attempt to cultivate my own. Hopefully I'll get better at it next year, it's a work in progress. Oh yes and you do see grow bags. I hope that's not perceieved as cheating or anything. Four things for next year I'd like to have a go at growing. Onions, potatoes, courgettes and carrots. But as you can see space is a bit limited... unless I sneakily expand. Not sure how my housemates will feel about that. I did have my eye on a flowerbed out the front but not sure how well that'll go down.