Lottery grant kick starts a new era
Bath Organic Group
BOG has won the lottery! Our jackpot of almost £10,000 came in the form of a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards For All programme, a 20th birthday nest-egg that is already being ploughed into a dozen vital improvements in the community garden. Together they will provide an opportunity for a wider range of activities and greater efficiency in a number of jobs that are already being done. All this, together with the new toilet to replace the senile treebog, and the imminent arrival of chickens on the plot, both separately funded, mean that we are now startby February when the amphibians ing a promising new chapter begin mating. (Cost £4,000) in the life of the garden — just reward for the hard work of the Any time now three large pallets of band of volunteers who turn up throughout the year to keep recycled metre square plastic panels will be delivered to the plot together the place going. with a load (5 cu m) of topsoil. This And because of those volunwill signal the start of a frantic weekteers doing a lot of the work end (September 11-12) of activity to relay the main paths, making involved in the changes, the capital cost of all the works will them safer, more weatherproof, and wheelchair accessible. be covered by the grant. The pathway will also provide a Here’s the plan: wheelchair ramp to the new compost
Safer pathways
The new pond
The original wildlife ponds, handdug in 1997, are little more than overgrown puddles now, but all that will change when Steve Pritchard and a mini digger get to work expanding and joining them to creating one new pond. There will be new staging and arrangements to make it easy and safe for groups of schoolchildren to use it for pond-dipping. It will also be a valuable contribution to the garden’s biodiversity. Steve will be looking for volunteers to help with the work this autumn, so that the new pond can be completed
toilet. A turf-cutter will first scalp off the turf which can be stacked to make loam. Then the interlocking panels will be laid, backfilled with topsoil, and sown with grass seed. Within a very short period the paths will look exactly as they did before but with a firm and level foundation. (£2,000)
Earth oven
BOG will soon have an earth oven just like the one at Broadlands. Liz Clarke will be building it, either just to the south of the children’s covered area or near the old greenhouse.
Autumn 2010 It will need to be covered to prevent the rain eroding the surface, but a plan to use some of the spare Onduline roofing which was left in the orchard has been vetoed because those sheets have become a very successful nesting site for slow worms this summer. Other roofing materials are being sought. Apart from the fun element the oven will help cut the £80 a year gas bill — though no-one is suggesting the oven will be lit every time someone needs to boil a kettle. (£500)
Teaching tent
A large (6x4 metres) polypropylene frame tent with a door and windows is being bought to provide a temporary classroom. It just fits between the bower and the shelter, and will be erected as required. (£500)
New equipment
There are loads of tools in the garden but not enough good quality ones. Clapped out tools and equipment will be dumped and new stuff, including some personal protection equipment and new wheelbarrows, will be bought. The clear out will also be an opportunity to rationalise some of the stuff that has accumulated in the steel shed.(£500)
Apple press
A brand new apple press has already been bought and is in use, replacing the original one which had developed a serious fault in the mechanism. All is not lost with the old one however. The group running the comContinued on page 2 Sue Kendall‘s impression of what the new pond will look like
Rest of the news The big birthday party in pictures How we got here — a potted history Seeds: how to collect them and swap them Chickens come home to roost Simi bakes for Bath
A dream realised
Accessible to everyone
Bill Brown’s dreams are coming true. Very soon there will be chickens in the garden, housed in a large brand new coop and run immediately behind the new composting toilet (they won’t mind). The venture has been financed by Bill, who has held a torch for chickens ever since his family kept them as part of the wartime Dig for Victory campaign. The chickens will probably be a mix of rescue chickens and bantams. Volunteers to check on the chickens and collect eggs will be recruited soon.
Hooray for the new toilet. No longer a tree bog, this splendid new building - probably the largest on the plot, has all the facilities you could want with enough to spare for a very small barn dance, and it is fully accessible by wheelchair, or will be once the path to it is rebuilt. That accessibility feature, means we will be free to get involved in many endeavours in the future which were previously impossible. The new building and equipment was made possible by a significant grassroots grant from the Quartet Community Foundation.
Once upon a time...
A very simplified (not to scale) idea of where the new elements will be in the garden. The earth oven could be sited near the greenhouse
We are all history, but in a positive kind of way. Using the Flickr website you can now see pictures from the past 20 years of BOG activities and spot the evolution of the gardens and the unchanging fashions of BOG regulars. One jacket seems to have been a constant presence throughout the 20 years — a fitting symbol of sustainability, and long may it continue. Many of the pictures have little information and any help in adding to them would be useful. I have more to add and will scan and upload them one wet afternoon in the near future. If you have photographs you’d like to add to the archive — you can have them back after scanning — or digital images that can be emailed, send them to me (Geoff Andrews) at the address on the next page. It’s best to subscribe to Flickr.com (which is both free and safe) and then go to Zagora1, but you can also search for Bath Organic Group within the site.
Lottery grant details Continued from page 1 munity orchard in Broadmoor Lane, Weston, is paying for a repair to the old machine in exchange for occasional use of it. The final cost of the new press was marginally more than the grant. (£500)
For training
The garden has been around for a long time now and so have a lot of the people we rely on to pass on knowledge to a new generation of
organic gardeners. This money will be spent to help pass on those messages by running a course of instruction.(£500)
Education aids
Identification posters will be laminated.(£264)
Members’ pack
The cost of design and artwork for a new pack. (£200)
Tables and chairs
Two trestle tables and 10 stacking chairs. (£400)
One she made earlier: an earth oven by Liz Clarke, similar to the one we will have in the garden.
Get ready now for the big swap
T
his year’s
Seed Swap was its usual splendid affair with over 400 packets of seed available to swap. Hopefully you will now put next year’s event in your diaries but even more important than that is to get yourself organised now to save this year’s crop of seeds. It is an easy and satisfying process and need not take up much space in your garden.
If you are new to seed saving and are wondering about the difficulties – remember peas, beans, lettuce and tomatoes are a doddle. Carrots and beetroots are easy, but not until the summer after you didn’t eat them.
But don’t think you have to leave those half dozen leftover carrots in the middle of your best bed. They could be moved in the autumn to an out-of-theway “going to seed” corner. At the last Seed Swap 33 of you completed a questionnaire. The results were really interesting and useful.
Without exception you all enjoyed the event and the majority felt that February was the right time to hold it. Interestingly, and rather sadly, only just over half said they routinely saved seeds. Sad because seed saving is so easy and satisfying. As those successful crops come to an end, remember to leave enough seed to dry on the plants – there’s always peas and beans you’ve missed. That’s seed for next year and seed to swap – just remember to label it and keep it dry. Also the number of packets of seeds brought to swap varied hugely from 65 to two. Sue and I think that we may need to introduce a slightly different system next year rather than the free-for-all we currently have. If more people saved more kinds of seeds, each year there would be an even greater variety on offer at the Swap. Seeds, including unusual ones, were what was most appreciated about last year’s
event – followed a close second by meeting people, and a decent third by ‘cake’, always a Seed Swap feature. If you have any comments about the Seed Swap we would
be delighted to hear them. So HAPPY SEED SAVING for the rest of the summer.And put Sunday February 13 in your diary for next year’s seed swap. Peter Andrews
Peter Andrews and Sue Kendall are offering
A SEED SAVING WORKSHOP To help you on your way this autumn – come and pick our brains.
Sunday 19th September at 2.30 Cost £2 (to include tea and cake) Venue: to be announced
For further information or to book your place phone Peter Andrews 01225 319117 or email info@eco-logicbooks.com
How to turn one ripe tomato into next year’s plants. Just don’t try it if it’s an F1 type. They don’t come true
Growing Green good value It might have been the weather — the only nice day in a cold wet bank holiday — though it is more likely that word is getting around that Growing Green is the best value day out for the May Bank Holiday week, but whatever the reason, this year’s event was the most successful ever raising £270 for our funds. Next year’s event will be even better because of all the Lottery funded improvements.
Half empty BAGS wrapped up Bath Area Gardenshare (BAGS) is no more. The project to link people with unused garden space and those on the allotments waiting list didn’t take off in its second year as we had hoped, and in August it was agreed that we would close it. BAGS was a co-operative effort between BOG, the allotments society and Transition Bath.
In 2009 about a dozen pairings were made and some of these will continue. But newspaper publicity, a stall at the Ready, Get Set Grow event in February, and a stall at the Spring Flower Show produced little response. Everyone on the allotments waiting list was sent an email inviting them to get involved but it produced no effect. So by late summer it had
become obvious that it had no long-term future, and Jane Yates and I, who had been running the scheme decided to wind it up. A project by the two universities to get gardeners to use the wilderness backgardens of student lets in Oldfield Park is in its early stages and John Lucas, who lives in the area was an early adopter. Geoff Andrews
How we got here
cutting a long story very short
I
on January 6, 1990 when the first sods were cut somewhere near the eastern border of the garden. Or did it? Something like Bath Organic Group does not spring fully formed into life, it just grew – organically – out of ideas that had been in the air for some time. John Brooks had been running BLOB, Bath Local Organic Buyers for some time beforehand, selling organic produce froma nearby farm. From that a public meeting of people interested in promoting the ideas of organic gardening was held. But perhaps that was just the conception and the birth really was the day the first spade went into the ground, and that was on that dull January day in1990. The plot at that time was a lot smaller than it is now, just the ground between the main entrance and the public path to Victoria Park. The allotment plots there had been left to go to weed because no-one was interested in cultivating them, and they were infested with couch grass and various other perennial and persistent weeds t all began
that made cultivation in the beginning a long-running nightmare. There was difference of opinion at that time (nothing changes) whether to compromise organic principles by using Glyphosate to clear the ground so that they could get the garden off to a flying start. But short cuts were rejected in favour of hard slog and clear consciences, and very slowly the insurgent weeds were forced back over more and more of the territory. Not that they have gone away. Bill Brown points out some bindweed that is still giving trouble:
‘Weeds are the professionals and we are the amateurs at this game. They never stop working, and even now they are just waiting to take this space back. They never give up.’ The first cultivated plot was quite small, partly because of those weeds, and also because there were other pressing tasks, like clearing the eastern boundary and creating a hedge there. Then, over the following years more and more of the plot came into cultivation and the first polytunnel was erected where the bower now is. Passing louts did their best to spoil the party by setting fire to it shortly after
Tim’s photo of the first day on the plot in January 1990, and 20 years later, the three prime movers today, Bill Brown, John Brooks and Tim Baines, photographed by Simi Rezai at the birthday party in June and its salvaged ribs now forms the basis of the bower at the centre of the garden. The western half of the garden had become a community orchard, but over time that was absorbed by BOG to create today’s rolling acres.
And some personal recollections of that journey from Verona Bass I was fairly new to Bath when all things ‘green, gardening and allotments’ came to be a newly cultivated interest. I joined the Bath Environment Centre as a volunteer
in April 1997 soon after I first started making sense of my new allotment on the Abbey Green site. All these interests meshed, and as time went on I realised
that many of the people interested in contributing to the care of the environment overlapped. I served on the Allotments Committee for a time, finding it bizarre that we should be discussing such earthy and mundane matters as potatoes and planting schemes in the august surroundings of the Guildhall. But that is how Bath is, and as a new recruit to ‘growing’ I found myself marvelling that I should be sitting cross-legged on some rough ground off Victoria Park within sight of sublime classical architecture, listening to a well-spoken young woman giving a group of us an idea of how she had set up her vegetable plot. She was trying to de-mistify it for us, and that was under the inspiration of an unassuming person called Tim Baines. The tea tent at the first Growing Green in 1997, the year Verona joined BOG — it rained a lot
That particular moment stuck with me, because I realised that anyone who has a mind to, could try cultivating plants. The Bath Organic Garden took shape, steadily being developed by volunteers co-opted and quietly enthused by Tim and others. I can’t name them all, because I wasn’t a regular then. I know I turned up once while the ground was being cleared of its virulent crop of grass and weeds. I was amused by a veteran called Bill, holding up a long strand of couch grass and declaring : ‘This is War!’ I noted how it progressed, and visited from time to time. The Environment Centre, where I volunteered, shifted from Milsom Street to South Vaults, Green Park Station, and eventually it became Envolve. Our links continued, and somehow permaculture, green groups and BOG were intertwined. BOG members had a stall on some Continued on page 6
Our beautiful birthday party
A tropical sunny day, sensational food, good music from Gabrielle — if you weren’t at the BOG party in June you missed a great event, but you can recapture it all in pictures and video on the CD that Simi and Serpil made, for just £2.50 — and boost our funds at the same time
September 4
Farmers’ market Trading Hut clearance sale
See the advert on page
September 7
Development Group meeting
Community garden 11.00
September 11-12
Path relaying
Work group replaces paths throughout the garden
September 19
Seed-saving workshop
2.30 See the back page for details
September 26
Harvest meal
Community Garden 1.00 — bring food to share
October 2
Farmers’ market
October 9
Development Group meeting
Community garden 11.00
October 23
Apple Day at the Farmers’ market
Events to be arranged.
November 6
Farmers’ market
November 9
Development Group meeting
Community garden 11.00
November 27
BOG AGM
St Mark’s Community Centre* 1.00 - 3.30 —bring food to share
December 4
Development Group meeting
Community Garden 11.00
December 18
Christmas farmers’ market
February 20
Seed swap Sunday
2.00 at St Mark’s Community Centre* – bring seeds and cake to share. See the back page
Community garden matters: Tim Baines 28 Ashley Avenue, BA1 3DS 01225 312116 timjbaines@yahoo.co.uk Membership/rotas/visits Sheila Blethyn 9 Winsley Road Bradford on Avon BA15 1QR 01225 866150 sheilablethyn@yahoo.co.uk Trading hut/farmers’ market Pauline Magrath 8 Beech Avenue Bath BA2 7BA 01225 Not the chair Peter Andrews 19 Maple Grove, BA2 3AF 01225 319117 zen20627@zen.co.uk
Newsletter and picture archive Geoff Andrews 30 Oldfield road * St Mark’s Community Centre is in St Mark’s Road, Widcombe, a three minute walk from the bus station. Bath BA2 3NF 01225 484422 g.andrews@mac.com
Recollections
Continued from page 4 Saturdays under the arches of Green Park Station, when the first Farmers’ Market became established. Bath Environment Centre pioneered Farmers Markets, under the management of Sarah May. At the organic garden space real progress was made when the ‘tree bog’ was constructed. It was difficult to manage without a toilet nearby. The group who worked on this made a big contribution to the well-being of the people who came. Again, this was leading the way. Compost toilets are accepted more readily now. I remember how good it felt when the orchard was first planted. By now I was more involved on a practical basis. There was something viable here; I enjoyed the company and had meanwhile also picked up practical experience as a Wwoofer (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). There was a moment I was reprimanded by Tim for exposing the roots of saplings, before we were ready to put them in the soil. ‘ Of all people YOU should know! ‘ Indeed I should have done, and I’ve been meticulous ever since. We may be laid-back but we are ‘plantspeople’, and we nurture them. It’s a craft, a passion. There’s an enthusiasm in working together and being actively
by Verona Bass
engaged with soil and plants, which I have rarely encountered elsewhere. I also like the way that we mend and make do with recycled things. All sorts of discarded stuff, useful and otherwise, finds its way there, in the guise of being a donation. The rough willow and tarpaulin shelter was an important bit of improvisation, and it has since become a hub where people hang out and chat over tea and cake. Always there is emphasis on the ritual of tea, the bonding mechanism of the nation, to which foreigners have to be introduced willy-nilly. There have been all sorts of interesting cultural cross-overs with temporary workers. Often children are found messing about with watering cans or doing their own thing, being tolerated. Schoolchildren are encouraged and given a chance to explore in structured workshops. The Square Meal Project [May 2008] was an attempt to enthuse the public to get growing with food shortages looming. The Roots Theatre group put on a show in 2009 using the BOG garden as their set, imagining life in the future, and the past, with ‘cultivation’ of one sort or another being crucial to man’s survival. There is a convivial Seed Swap meeting in February; there is the
annual Growing Green Day on the first Bank Holiday in May. Increasingly it felt that BOG was a fraternity to which I belonged. It had its highs and lows. Some time ago Tim became disenchanted when it seemed that he was always the central reference point for questions. He felt that it was a ‘Community Garden’ and more people ought to take responsibility. He tried to move on in order to facilitate this. Of course, many of us have seen that he takes on more projects, [eg. Broadlands orchard, and the old University Research station or ‘The Bathampton ‘Lost’ Plot] and he enthuses yet more people in that quietly determined way of his. I don’t know at what point Peter Andrews became Chairman, but his genial leadership has done a lot to maintain the notion of BOG and the running of the garden. There are many people who could be named as crucial in the setting up and the development of this little oasis near Victoria Park just off a busy main route into Bath. I hope that they will all be acknowledged one way or another. The ethos of this special community garden is that it is allinclusive and that everyone has a role. I believe it is a symbol of the zeitgeist of our times, and it has indeed become a Demonstration Garden.
Time to give Sheila a hand For years Sheila Blethyn has been organising the rota of co-ordinators for the Tuesday and Saturday sessions at the gardens. When no-one is available she steps in and does it herself — regardless of the inconvenience and the 20 mile round trip from her home. Recently that has happened far more frequently, and Sheila would really appreciate some new volunteers taking on the job from time to time. It’s not onerous, you meet some really nice people, and you’ll be helping one of our staunchest workers. CALL HER NOW.
You know her cakes, now learn how to make them Bog member Simi Rezai has just started a small business baking seasonal cakes and teaching Persian, vegetarian and gluten- free cookery classes. The courses are held either in Simi’s own kitchen in Great Pulteney Street or in your own home. And if you need a really fabulous cake for your party, book club, school, or office, Simi’s Kitchen will deliver to you in central Bath. Regulars at the community garden know Simi’s prowess with cakes well but you can also buy Simi’s Kitchen cakes in Tea Time Cafe (opposite train station), in the cafe in St Michael’s Church, at Prior Park Garden Centre Cafe, and in The Kiosk by the Lake, Prior Park (NT). When they are available Simi buys fresh fruit & vegetables from the BOG garden to use in the courses and the cakes. She says: ‘Iranian cooking uses very simple ingredients which are treated individually before being brought together in the dish. The cooking methods are simple, slow cooking where the flavours have a chance to mingle and infuse together. ‘Almost all dishes can be served with or without meat.’ She offers special discounts for BOG members. Please call or email Simi for cakes, courses or to share your recipe on: Address: 10 Great Pulteney Street | Bath | BA2 4BR Telephone: 01225 789 554 Mobile: 07814 704 799 Email: simi@simiskitchen. co.uk Web: www.simiskitchen.co.uk
Dig out your veg recipes Simi is also collecting recipes for distribution with the sale of produce at the Saturday market. the idea is that customers will be able to use the produce to create more adventurous dishes, and it will make life easier for volunteers who are often asked advice. Next Saturday Market is 4 September.
Top tips for Co-ordinators
Phuong Thinh kindergarten under construction in 2009
A legacy that is making a long term difference
When Bob Cottle, Pauline Magrath‘s brother, and a veteran BOG member, died in 2006 he left a legacy to the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation. Four years later that gift has been turned into a kindergarten for the children of a deprived village in Vietnam. Phuong Thinh is a remote poor commune in the Dong Thap Province, a densely populated
Christina Noble Children’s Foundation
The Christina Noble Children’s Foundation is an international partnership serving underprivileged children to help them achieve their potential. In Vietnam and Mongolia they concentrate on protecting children at risk of economic and sexual exploitation, providing basic care and educational opportunities. The programmes include: emergency and long-term medical care, nutritional rehabilitation, educational and vocational training and job placement. This is accomplished within the context of the family and the community whenever possible.
agricultural area separated by canals. It had only an old two classroom school, so many of its 750 children aged 1-5 were denied pre-school education and many others travelled long distances to school in neighbouring communes. Even those who managed to find a space in the existing school had to brave frequent flooding of the building . Because of the poverty throughout the region many young children were left to fend for themselves during the day while parents sought agricultural work. To meet this challenge, the Foundation undertook to construct two classrooms complete with toilets, kitchen, electricity, plumbing, fencing, courtyard and equipment to accommodate an estimated 100 children aged 3-5 years old. This was completed in February 2010. Pauline would very much like to continue this connection through a BOG activity, with the proceeds going directly to the children of the kindergarten and welcomes any suggestions.
Here is a checklist of things you need to know before your first duty: 1.Bring your Mobile Phone. 2.Bring 1 litre of semiskimmed milk (organic if possible ), biscuits or cake. Assume 10 helpers. Tea, coffee, sugar, squash are in the Tin shed. 3.Open the gate to the lane. If you don’t have a key make sure someone (usually Pauline) will be around to unlock it for you 4. Unlock sheds. 5.WELCOME NEW VOLUNTEERS AND VISITORS. 6.Get helpers to sign in the garden diary. 7. Allocate jobs. (or delegate ) Help newcomers to do their job with the help of an experienced volunteer. 8.Make tea about 11(kettle takes 20 mins to boil) 9. Take some tea and cake to the trading hut when open. 10. Make sure everyone takes a share of the produce. 11.Wash up (or delegate ) 12. Check garden for tools. Sort into place, in shed. Turn off gas! 13.Lock up both sheds, replace keys in correct places.
General information
Membership forms are in the steel shed in a plastic box. First Aid box is also in that shed Tip up chairs against the rain. A BIG THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP TODAY. Tim 312116 • Sheila 866150 • Pauline 464697 • Kate 311699
n o s a e s f e l o a d s e En c n a r clea Every Saturday in Sept 10am to
12noon at the Trading Hut Composts and fertilisers 20% discount, everything else 10% Produce table for surplus fruit and veg.