Capital Growth – September 2011 Newsletter
Capital Growth News
September 2011
Welcome to September’s round-up of Capital Growth news. The summer may be over but Autumn is on its way full of Harvest Festivals, events, and a fair amount of jamming and pickling. Plus don’t forget to keep your spaces growing with autumn and winter crops and to plant out fruit trees and bushes.
In this issue:
- Pop-up pickle proves popular
- Capital Growth Edible Open Gardens Day a huge success
- Regents Park Harvest Festival – Sunday 25 September
- Capital Growth Networking Event – Faith & Food Growing 26 September
- 20% off from all products at the Organic Gardening Catalogue
- Upcoming food-growing training
Other News:
- Harvest Festivals
- Green East Evening FREE Event
- Growing Communities’ Open Day: How do you grow award-winning salad?
- Funding Opportunities
- Other training
- This month we like…. www.thebiggive.org.uk
Capital Growth News
Pop-up pickle proves popular
The Table Restaurant, Southwark Street hosted Capital Growth’s first Pop-up Pickle event on Monday, 5th September. A committed crew of Capital Growth Spaces stayed into the night and combined their surplus produce to make some delicious pickles, jams and chutneys. This event proved so popular we are considering holding another in the near future – if you are interested email eloise@sustainweb.org.
Capital Growth Edible Open Gardens Day a huge success
Almost 50 Capital Growth community food-growing spaces were open to the public on 3rd September, resulting in the largest opening of food-growing spaces on a single day for any one city in the UK. Feedback from spaces has been fantastic and the bike tours (hosted by the LCC) and walking tours were very popular. See http://bit.ly/
Capital Growth Networking Event – Faith & Food Growing
Monday, 26th September 6pm-9pm @ The Royal Foundation of St. Katharine, E14 8DS
This networking event is open to people from all faiths who are interested in exploring the benefits of community food growing. It will be an opportunity to hear from successful inter-faith growing projects, take part in workshops and meet like-minded people over delicious food and drink. To book go to
http://capitalgrowth.org/
The Regents Park Harvest Festival Sunday 25th September 11am – 5pm
It’s back after last year’s incredibly popular event! Nick Baylif from Blistering Barbeques is returning to take charge of the kitchen, Vincent Talleu, Head Baker form the Artisan Bakery, is back to bake bread and pizzas in a wood-burning stove and Andy Williams, Assistant Park Manager at the Royal Parks, will be bringing his apple press to press fresh apple juice. There will be gardening experts, a scarecrow-making workshop and children’s activities, plus the draw for Capital Growth’s Big Raffle with lots of great prizes! For more information and directions http://www.capitalgrowth.org/
20% off at the Organic Gardening Catalogue
Capital Growth has secured a fantastic discount from the Organic Gardening Catalogue – a huge 20% off all their products on first orders. Some spaces have received their voucher already but if you haven’t please contact spaces@capitalgrowth.org and we will post it to you straight away. For the moment, these vouchers are only redeemable on postal orders and cannot be redeemed online but to browse visit http://www.organiccatalogue.
Upcoming Capital Growth food-growing workshops
Capital Growth training is delivered across 4 sites. All courses are £10 for Capital Growth spaces, and limited number of bursaries are availble. For booking email contact the relevant contact.
- Seed saving and preserving pickles and jams @ Phoenix Farm Hammersmith
Saturday September 10th, 10am – 1pm. Email adminhcga@gmail.com to reserve a place. - Seed saving, and fruit/veg preserving @ The Regent’s Park
Wednesday 21 September, 5.30pm-8pm OR Saturday September 24th, 10.30am-1pm. Email training@capitalgrowth.org - Creating spaces for wildlife (Workshop) @London Wildlife Trust (Peckham)
Sunday September 25th 10.30am-1.30pm. Practical tips on what your food-growing space needs to attract wildlife, including building bird boxes and mini beast hotels. Email chammond@wildlondon.org.uk or call 0207 252 9186 to reserve a place. - Understanding Soil and Soil Life plus Mulches and Leaf Mould @ The Regent’s Park
Saturday, 1st October or 15th October, 10.30am – 1pm. Email training@capitalgrowth.org
Other News
Harvest Festivals (3 venues, 1 day!) and other events
- Growing Kids Open Day & Harvest Thanksgiving. Growing Kids Allotment Project Roding Lane North, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 8LZ. Saturday 17th September. 1- 5pm. Fun-filled afternoon with children’s activities.
- Friends of Abbey Gardens Harvest Festival. Bakers Row, London E15 3NF. Saturday 17th September. 1–4pm. Vegetable games, cake and vegetable sculpture competitions, live jazz, garden tours and kid’s activities. http://www.abbeygardens.org/
- Capel Manor Harvest Festival. Saturday 17th September 2011. 10am-4pm. Lots of activities and events to take part in, including a tug ‘o’ war battle between the city farms! http://www.farmgarden.org.uk
- Green East Evening FREE Event:Friday 16th Sept. 6.30pm – 8pm Abbey Gardens, Bakers Row, London E15 3NF. A summer social evening for garden groups. Meet and network with other gardeners and green space groups. Enjoy a glass of wine and seasonal food, garden tours, seeds and produce, bring-and-buy stall. http://www.abbeygardens.org/
- Growing Communities’ Open Day. How do you grow award-winning salad?Sunday 18th September 2011. Hackney social enterprise Growing Communities will be opening its three urban market gardens in Clissold Park, Springfield Park and Allens Gardens to the public. http://www.growingcommunities.
org
Funding Opportunities
- Keo Films: Looking for brilliant projects to launch a new website with this Autumn. How does it work? You create a quick and easy page. Keo help you promote it for 4-10 weeks to people on the site and your own network. If you reach 100%+ of your funding target you get the money you raise minus a 5% admin charge and 3.4% +20p transaction charge. If you don’t reach your target, you don’t get the money, and you don’t have to pay any charges. http://www.keofilms.com/about-
keo/project - Biffaward: Grants are awarded to projects that provide or improve community spaces, cultural facilities and places for outdoor recreation. Grants of £5000 – £50000 available. Need to match fund 10% of grant, but no deadlines. http://www.biffaward.org/
about/coverview - Team London: Small grants of up to £10000 available for voluntary groups so that Londoners can increase the impact of their volunteering across London across 3 priority areas – cutting crime, improving quality of life and increasing youth opportunities. http://www.london.gov.uk/team-
london/small-grants
Other training courses
- Introduction to Permaculture Courses in London @ The Orchard in the Garden, Hornsey Rise, London N19. 10th-11th September 2011, 10AM to 4PM. Visit http://naturalflow.posterous.
com/ - An Introduction to Biodynamic Farming and Gardening in the City @ Food From the Sky (roof of Thorton’s Budgens, Crouch End). Saturday 10th September, 10am-5pm, £45 for the day (£35 for any Capital Growth spaces) depending on your income including tea/coffee and biscuit. Two free bursary places are available for 2 volunteers. Email: info@foodfromthesky.org.uk for booking and payment or for more info http://bit.ly/nF8ZOQ
And this month we like….www.thebiggive.org.uk
A website deisgned to help donors find charitable causes to support. You must be a UK registered charity to post your project though!
Best wishes (and don’t forget to keep up on all the news on Facebook or Twitter!)
The Capital Growth team
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/capital_growth
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
