See more pictures of Art & Gardening Thursdays here
The weather was not great today but Eric and Chris planted chive seeds anyway. We had a planning session and discussed herbs that people can keep on their window sills and how quickly the seeds for these would germinate. We ate our first harvest of mustard and cress and the mustard cleared our sinuses nicely!
Eric sketched out the ‘runner bean unit’ on an A-frame design and explained to Chris his ideas for rhubarb growing. Chris has turnip, sweetcorn and radish seeds on order for next week’s planting. We discussed a recipe for Radish Leaf Pesto, for which you also need garlic, olive oil, parmesan, almonds or pine-nuts and a pinch of salt – apparently you can keep it in the freezer too.
We decided to divide our large compost bin into two so that weeds etc can go on one side and easily compostable and re-useable vegetable waste can go on the other. That way we avoid using compost with lots of weed seeds or roots in it. And planting pumpkin and squash on the ‘weed-compost’ side. Chris is also suggesting red clover as a green manure and as a great plant for bees and insects.
We looked at low-tech irrigation methods that will help in the summer months and decided to try a couple of Olla’s – see The Cottage Peach website amongst others. We also looked at building potato towers, perhaps as a community activity in April. And agreed we need to order seed potatoes for chitting now.
See: How to Grow Potatoes in a Tower
We ended our session with a tasting of a cake that Chris had made from ‘odds and ends that needed using up in the pantry’ – it was pretty good!
Art this week also had a seed theme. We looked at the paintings and drawings of Marianne North (you can see these at an exhibition at Kew Gardens), botanical drawings, photos and drawings of seeds growing and some other inspirational designs. We used lentils and beans to create some art and tried out some ‘painting pens’ we found in the cupboard.
Next Week
Next week we are looking at lambs and the uses and texture of wool.
All are welcome
Gardening 1 – 3pm and Art 3 – 5pm.
All materials provided.
Gardening has been greatly helped by the support of Merton Council Public Health and the Art Club is supported by a small grant from the NHS. We had a newcomer today – they made the bean butterfly – hope to see you all again next week.
