The Plumpton College Rural Pathways group spent a frosty but beautiful afternoon recently with us at the Lewes Community Allotment making bird boxes with Jim from the Monday Group The students learnt new skills, about helping wildlife, and we saw some great teamwork on the other tasks too.
Sarah Rideout, Allotment Coordinator, January 2017
Allotment coordinator Sarah Rideout facilitated a planning meeting last week on a frosty Wednesday morning. We were there to discuss what we wanted to grow at our allotment this year and what extra activities we'd like to do. The St Nicholas Day Centre were kind enough to host the meeting in The Sanctuary, which is well named, and was delightfully cosy, although we were careful not to slip on the ice on our way over to it.
There were seventeen of us in total, including all of the St Nicholas clients who attend, some community allotment members, Flourish sessional worker Felicity Ann and St Nicholas support worker Eleanor.
Sarah mentioned the exercises they'd been doing at the last allotment session to help show how to get the blood moving if people feel cold. Some of the exercises included shaking, rubbing and patting hands. Felicity Ann said she'd done star jumps at the bus stop afterwards!
Sarah talked about how important it is to wear the right clothes at the allotment, particularly at this time of year when it's so muddy and cold. Waterproof coat, old warm things and sensible footwear all help keep people warm and dry.
Then we got down to the business of planning what we wanted to do and grow at the allotment. Sarah had brought lots of books, Felicity Ann had printed off funny pictures of fruit and veg that could be cut out and stuck to planning pages. We had glue, pens and scissors, and people took turns to cut, stick and write.
The most popular choices were strawberries, peas and different kinds of potatoes. Also lettuces, tomatoes, sprouts, parsnips, spinach, beans, leeks, apples, squash, pumpkin and a 'pizza' bed!
There were some interesting and unusual suggestions too, such as water chestnuts, plantain and aubergines. Emma suggested that perhaps, if the conditions at the allotment weren't suitable for all those to grow, we could bring them up in a dish, so people could taste them.
Also on the wall were possible extra activities we might be able to put on at the allotment. Options included:
People were encouraged to put a sticker on ones they were keen on, and to add more ideas if they thought of any.
Then we stopped for some welcome tea and biscuits.
Finally, whilst some people drew pictures of wildlife you might find at the allotment (such as Hollie's fox), others did pictures showing the sorts of colours of plants they'd like to see in the beds.Some did an activity matching plant drawings against drawings of the sun, soil and water. The point of this was to encourage thinking about what are the best growing conditions.
Also, Felicity Ann worked with members of the group, one at a time, demonstrating how to safely open and close tools - specifically secateurs and folding pruning saws. Some of us found it particularly tricky to keep our fingers away from the saw blade when closing it.
All in all, it was a lovely and very useful morning. Many thanks to everybody for their contributions.
Emma Chaplin
We had a special January session with a group from Bluebell House Recovery Centre, cutting willow from the bed at Baulcombes Barn. The willow has to be cut by March. Here's some more information about growing willow.
The Bluebell House group could stay later than a usual Wednesday morning session, so they brought lunch with them. And secateurs! Owena provided the gloves and we headed out to the willow bed - in wellies - it was very muddy.
First of all, Owena needed to strim back some brambles to make it easier for us to cut the two types of willow growing in the bed, so most of the group left her to it and carried on walking beyond the willow bed in order to go and see the horses and pigs.
We didn't see the hens, because they are are shut in at the moment, because of the risk of them contracting avian flu from wild birds.
Nicola was keen to see Buster, and so we went to the horse field, via the pigs and the yard to fetch a wheelbarrow, so some of us could clear up poo from the field.
The younger pony Frankie came up to the wheelbarrow to see what was happening, but then put his ears back. This is probably because he didn't know my face. Horses (and sheep) can recognise human faces.
Oscar was brave enough to approach Buster. Buster is a friendly pony, but this was Oscar's first time touching a horse. Nicola supported and encouraged him and he did really well.
Then we headed back to the willow beds. We laid a tarpaulin on the ground to put the willow once cut, because the ground was so wet. Then some of us cut the willow, others sorted it into piles of thin, medium and thick stems. Some bits were too short and wispy to use, so they will be burned.
After some hard work, the group headed back to the cabin for lunch around the wood burner to warm up.
We all felt it had been a good day. It was lovely to welcome new people as well as those who had come before. People tried things they hadn't done before, such as going right up to a horse.
With the willow cutting and sorting and even navigating muddy slopes and climbing under fences, we worked as a team and got a lot done. The fresh air did us good too, as did the company of the animals.
The willow will be ready for weaving in six weeks.
Emma Chaplin
The Flourish project began in September 2015, and one of the first things we did was to set up a three-day apple course working with a group of supported interns from Plumpton College. This took place at the beautiful Community Orchard in Ringmer. This is scheduled as an annual course, and we were pleased when Plumpton College said the year one group enjoyed it so much, that this autumn (2016), they wanted us to run the course for both Supported Internship classes.
So on 26 and 27 September, Flourish project manager Emma Chaplin and apple expert Peter May hosted two different groups at the Orchard for a day each of learning about apples; picking, grading, weighing and storing them ready for day two, juicing, of the Flourish apple course, which will take place at Stanmer Park in October hosted by Brighton Permaculture Trust*.
*Brighton Permaculture Trust "work with nature to sustain achieve a sustainable lifestyle". They are extremely knowledgeable about apples, have their own orchards, organise a huge Apple Day event every year and run lots of apple and fruit related courses. They also have apple pressing and pasteurising equipment.
Emma welcomed the groups at the Orchard on both days and talked a little about Flourish being a Lottery-funded project, managed by Common Cause Co-op. Everyone was shown where the toilets were and asked to wear a name label. Emma then said one thing she felt about apples (that she likes crumble!) and invited the group to introduce themselves one at a time with something they like or dislike about apples. On the first day, quite a few interns said they weren't keen on apples. On the second, most of the group liked both apples and apple juice - with several saying they particularly like cider!
Then Peter addressed the interns, explaining that the Orchard growing season has been different from last year, and the apples are two weeks behind in terms of ripening.
The interns asked if each group could pick different varieties, so that they could compare the taste of each once they are juiced at Stanmer Park in October. Peter said that would be fine - the first day would be picking Ashmead's Kernel, the second, Red Falstaff.
Peter gave a tour of the apple store and the Orchard. He said the Orchard has rich soil from when horses grazed here in the past. He explained the differences between a tree nursery and an orchard. An orchard will feature lots of apple varieties which are grown to last for years.
When the Orchard was being planned, he explained, each bush apple tree was planted 5m apart, with 7m between rows, to allow the trees room to grow. They allowed 10m for larger varieties.As we walked round, he pointed out several trees that are leaning, and said that is partly because they grew so vigorously and strongly the roots couldn't keep up - plus the added factor of the wind. He also mentioned that the Orchard also has some pear trees as well as a new quince and some plum trees.
"You have to think about thirty years' time when you're planning an orchard"
He then talked about his career, and how interesting an apprenticeship was - trying various jobs in different departments, learning new skills, getting a sense of what worked for him. He explained that working for a commercial orchard might include working with equipment or in glass houses or polytunnel indoors.
"What employers are looking for", he explained, "is enthusiasm and lots of energy and for people who are prepared to work outdoors in all weathers"
Peter said that pesticides and chemicals are not used on the trees in the Orchard so many of the apples are lumpy and bumpy - unlike fruit you get from commercial orchards.
Some interesting apple facts that Peter pointed out:
He offered members of the group different vintages of juice, from various varieties of apples picked in previous years. One intern said it was "Like drinking liquid sunshine".
Then the group were shown safe lifting and handling techniques, and they began work - with one group picking apples, one group grading them, with others taking them to the apple store in the wheelbarrow.
After lunch, the groups made up several 'orders' of apples, as if for a shop, using weighing scales.
Peter then showed the group how to hang small cement weights on the ends of the boughs of some young apple trees, a technique which bends the branch down and encourages the tree to produce more fruit.
Peter finished the afternoon off by demonstrating how to graft a new apple tree.
Next stop, Brighton Permaculture Trust to juice, bottle and pasteurise the apples - and taste the juice of course.
Emma Chaplin, Sept 2016
Flourish sometimes invite specialist trainers to work with our groups, as a way for them to learn new skills and for us to use our natural resources - in this case Owena's willow.
Owena Lewis tells us about an excellent willow weaving session run by Sarah Lawrence at Baulcombes Barn
On Wednesday 28th September, four members of Bluebell House attended a willow weaving workshop run by Sarah Lawrence at Baulcombes Barn, Hamsey.
Sarah taught the group how to weave a Catalan tray. She introduced everyone to the willow baskets she had made and the Catalan trays. She spoke about the history of these willows, which she planted at Hamsey. One of the participants had actually cut the willows in February 2015, since when they had been stored in the stable.
I had soaked them in a water tank for ten days before the workshop. On the morning they were taken out of their ‘bath’ and laid out under a tarpaulin to stop them drying out.
As Sarah had prepared hoops for each person, they could start weaving immediately.
Starting was a little tricky as the willow struts across the hoops were hard to keep in place. When the participants had got the struts in place they were then able to weave their platter.
Sarah advised people to use the thinner pieces of willow as weavers, because they were easier to bend around the small structure.
While people were weaving Sarah told us various stories about willow.
She explained the meaning of ‘Sally Gardens’ being a willow bed.
She also told us about the dance ‘Strip the Willow’.
‘The cut willow rods were stood upright in a stream until their leaves started appearing - then the bark was looser and could be stripped off easily, producing the white willow rods needed for selling dairy produce.’
When the platter was finished, the ends of the willow were trimmed.
Sarah then showed us how to make a hoop by coiling the two willows around. One participant successfully made one in the last ten minutes! These hoops can be used to make more wreaths or Catalan platter.
Participants were introduced to some of the language associated with willow work.
Butt: the thick end of the willow
Tip: the thin end of the willow.
Taking out the Spite: easing the bend in the willow.
At break time there was a reluctance to leave the weaving!
Everyone seemed pleased with their efforts.
This is a short video made by Louise Hill-Hottinger about Susannah, one of Flourish's service users at Lewes Community Allotment. Susannah is going to Plumpton College in September 2016 to begin their supported internship programme.
We'd been having lot of lovely sunny weather, but on this morning, the sun hid from us and it was a bit breezy, with an occasional shower. But Allotment Co-ordinator Sarah had set up the tarpaulin to enable partial shelter, and we got the fire going in the firepit no problem.
The group from St Nicholas Day Centre arrived with their support worker, plus some members came. We were pleased to meet a new person, Mary, who wanted to see what we do.
Common Cause director Topsy fired-up the recently repaired bread oven. As she did this, Sophie sent the group to pick and pod peas, so we could make pea bread (literally, bread dough she had brought mixed with fresh peas! The idea had come from something Sophie had seen about ancient bread recipes using peas). Allotment member (and bread maker) Susan helped make the rolls.
Some people picked edible flowers with Sarah for the salad, plus some herbs for some potato salad. In the meantime, Sophie showed the group how to make two kinds of fritters - one from grated courgette, and one from grated carrot and parsnip. In both cases she asked the group to help her mix the veg with flour, eggs and salt and pepper to season.
Topsy put the bread rolls into the oven and Sophie started frying the fritters in oil over the open fire. She also made a chard omelette. Emma worked with some of the group to mix fresh herbs and dressing into the potato salad, carrot and parsnip salad and green salad. We added the flowers to that and they looked beautiful.
More visitors arrived. We were delighted to welcome friends and family of the St Nicholas clients, as well as other Allotment Members.
Lots of people brought food to share including a pizza pastry, a tray of wonderful cupcakes and a moist beetroot and chocolate cake.We all enjoyed our delicious shared lunch and the weather even perked up!
There were about twenty of us in the end. It was a lovely event, and wonderful to see everyone enjoying themselves.Thanks to Sophie for an excellent job under challenging circumstances and for some delicious food. Thanks to Topsy for excellent fire-tending, and to Sarah for organising everything. And thanks everyone who came.
Emma Chaplin, Project Manager
Read more about Flourish here
Nine regular Lewes Community Allotment clients attended a special plant and wildlife-themed art session that Flourish organised to take place on Wednesday 20 July. This was run by Ruth Baker, a local watercolour artist.
The art class was held at the St Nicholas Day Centre instead of our allotment, because of the extremely hot weather. This was useful in terms of spreading out and being able to change water frequently.
Things we learnt
Some people had tried watercolours before, but not with a trained artist.
Ruth started by explaining about the three primary colours - red, blue and yellow. Participants painted a shape of their choice in each colour, using water to add tone.
We then put dots of two primary colours next to each other and merged them to make secondary colours. All results were different depending on how much water was used, but the lovely thing was that there was no wrong results!
We used a water dropper, and people developed skills and confidence using watercolour paints and brushes.
When people felt a bit more confident about mixing the colours, we went on to paint colour was boxes and flicked red dots onto one, then drew green lines down from the dots to make simple but effective flower pictures. On the other box we painted a darker wash in a hill shape - again, all were different, but all were right, which felt good for all.
This was a very good exercise in building people’s confidence of choice (shapes, amount of colour/water, sizes) and those who were hesitant to start were much happier to put the brush to paper by the end.
People helped each other with changing water, cleaning plates, squeezing paint etc.
We went outside at break and had a look at things that could be painted another time.
Ruth spoke about her painting, how long it takes, how she sells work, showed examples and postcards, to give an insight into life as a painter.
People showed a lot of interest and asked lots of questions. Everyone enjoyed the session.
Words and photos by Sarah Rideout, Lewes Community Allotment Coordinator
Wed 29 June 2016We had a special event for our Wednesday allotment morning group (which includes clients from the St Nicholas Day Centre in Lewes, as well as other allotment members). There were fifteen of us in total.
Community Wildlife Officer for Sussex Wildlife Michael Blencowe came along with a bag of tricks to help us hunt for and identify bugs on the allotment. He also did a walking tour looking for signs of summer, and told us a bit about his job.
Michael's TalkFirst, Michael told the group about the history of the landscape around us, how the South Downs came to be as we know them now, with the variety of wildlife that we now have. Grazing sheep have played a part in it - but millions of years ago, Lewes was under the sea. The chalk under our feet is made up of the crushed bones of long-dead animals - including dinosaurs. He showed us pictures to help us understand.
Because this was a summer visit to our allotment, Michael said he had hoped to show us butterflies and hoverflies - but the cold, breezy weather meant there weren't many to be seen.
Michael gave out plastic tubs and spoons to everyone to pick up insects. He also showed us about his new toy, a glass tube or 'pooter' he had brought along for sucking up bugs for us to examine. We all felt a bit horrified at the idea of sucking up a bug and swallowing it, but he said that didn't happen :).
He talked about different habitats for insects - there are lot of insects in long grass, and in the nettles. He had a net he wafted in the long grass to collect insects.
These he tipped into a white tray on the table in the shelter, and everyone picked the bugs he'd caught with their spoons and put them in their tubs. Michael then sucked them up in his pooter so we could identify them. We saw a hopper (Michael explained how amazingly far they hop - if we could do the same, we could hop from the allotment to Lewes!), wood lice, flies and a brown-lipped snail.
Rather to our surprise, Michael leapt onto the compost heap and wafted his net in the nettle bush behind. The bugs he caught, he then tipped into a tray in the shelter. Everyone scooped them into their tubs and he sucked them up again in the pooter. We saw an ant, flies, and more snails.
Michael showed us what he explained was another new toy - a fold-out 'beating net' - which looked like a big, square umbrella.We pretended it WAS an umbrella for this photo:
The beating net is for finding insects who live on leaves in the trees. He held it up under a tree, banged the branches, and various insects fell into the net.
He then tipped these into the tray for identification as before. We spotted a young harlequin ladybird and a pupating ladybird, some beetles, plus some flies.
Michael answered questions anyone in the group had.
We then released all the bugs we'd caught.
Then we did a walk around the allotment to look for signs of summer. Michael admired our new lovely new shed.
The signs of summer that we all spotted and recorded on our walk were:
Then we went back to the covered shelter for a drink.
Michael talked a little about his job and what he likes about it. He said:
"To do my job I need to be able to engage with different sorts of people, children and adults. As a little boy, I spent lots of time in the wild. You have to like working outdoors - there is a lot of walking - which keeps you fit - but you have to like that."
Michael said he doesn't work alone, he sometimes works with Park Rangers and National Park Rangers, which he enjoys.
Much as we've loved our old shed, it's very old and getting past its prime, so the great news is that we've been putting up a new shed at our allotment, which is going to be brilliant. We've grateful to Lewes Town Council for their support with this. Here it is going up last week
If you're interested in finding out more about what we do, we will be running a number of open events over the next few months.
Farmer and therapist Owena Lewis will be offering taster sessions on her smallholding at Hamsey.
If you might be interested, drop Emma an email flourishlewes@gmail.com
Our regular open sessions at the Lewes Community Allotment take place on the last Saturday of every month from 2-4pm, from March-November. We're based up the Nevill.
Meet co-ordinator Sarah Rideout, have a tour of the allotment, see if you might be interested in coming along regularly to spend some time outside, learning about gardening and growing food in good company.
Contact Sarah on flourishloap@gmail.com
Sheep facts
Pig facts
Hen facts
Pony facts
Wednesday 16 December
It was a blustery day. Various tasks were done, such as planting corn salad (above), and weeding.
Then we stopped for a fire and a Christmas feast. The weather felt a bit mild for just before Christmas, but that didn't stop us having a wonderful time and enjoying the cracking fire. People had come along with food to share. There were delicious sausage rolls, a beautiful pumpkin from the allotment, some wonderful pumpkin scones, vibrant red cabbage slaw and mince pies galore! Bisi had made some blinis with rosemary from the allotment and smeared them with cream cheese.
Sarah, sporting an excellent penguin hat, toasted pumpkin seeds over the fire and added tamari, which is a kind of soy sauce. They were very tasty. We also had marshmallows that we toasted on hazel twigs.
We finished the morning and the feast by singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas and we do indeed wish EVERYONE a merry and peaceful Christmas and a very Happy New Year from Flourish.
Sarah's regular Wednesday morning LOAP allotment drop-in will be back in January 2016.
EC
It's always a pleasure to welcome Michael Blencowe from the Sussex Wildlife Trust. Recently, he visited our Wednesday morning group at LOAP, the allotment, to talk about what creatures do in winter - such as hibernate. He showed us how to create tightly-packed tubes that insects can use in the winter. We also moved our lovely new hedgehog house to a quieter spot in the allotment.
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