Spring 2012 Harvest feast in pictures
...and what shall we do about the bower?
Also in this edition Ordeal by marshmallow Green stinginess
Is this man’s best friend?
Fruit and nuttery Annual meeting report Events diary
What shall we do with the bower?
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t’s made of the remaining ribs of a polytunnel that was burned many years ago, a random collection of sticks, and a couple of tarpaulins, already slightly degraded by sunshine. Welcome to the Jubilee Bower, the place we have been using for years as canteen, meeting place, shelter and talkshop. It’s almost the first thing that a visitor to the garden sees – and it’s a mess. That is the starting point for the discussions about improving the
facility - maybe if we get our act together, even a diamond jubilee bower to replace it. It’s not quite as simple as reconstructing the present one; that’s been going on as an irregular activity for years – replacing the tarpaulins as they fail, moving the sticks when they poke holes in the cover, and so on. Its faults are well known to us all. Here are some of them: • When it rains the sagging covers can fill with water so that anyone standing near the edges can be
Summer is a long time gone, and even though it was a bumper crop you are unlikely to have any apples left, but help is at hand with the fresh taste of the very best of local apples from Bath orchards. This is the label of Bath Apple Juice,the product of three local community orchards: Dry Arch Growers, Broadlands Orchardshare & Bathampton Lost Plot. The 70cl bottles (that’s a bit smaller than a conventional wine bottle) are available for £2.30 a bottle,
NEWS IN BRIEF
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and free local delivery can be arranged for quantities of more than a dozen bottles. All proceeds are being used to help Dry Arch Growers, a Bathampton based CSA, develop their somewhat overgrown six acre site. See the blog at http://bathamptoncsa.wordpress.com/ Orders can be place via Dan Smith on 07951047650 or dantherandom@hotmail.com
several finishing touches have been added, including the installation of a handsome wooden bench, completion of the jetty, and the provision of the required lifebelt and floating rope, plus a sign letting everyone know that the water is deep. There is an argument that anyone who can read would be tall enough to walk out of the pond unaided, but rules is rules. own by the new ponds
deluged by attempts to drain it. • The appearance of the bower makes the garden look down-at -heel, when the rest of the facilities have been upgraded to look smarter than they ever have been. • An open-sided bower like we have is an open invitation to unwelcome visitors to use it for their parties, seances, and so on, or to sleep there. We have some money to spend on a replacement, but before we embark on that, we need to decide exactly what we want from a new shelter. Any suggestions welcomed.
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et’s fingerprint
our hedgehogs. The Mammal Society in conjunction with the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society has an ingenious way to record their presence at www.mammal.org.uk. Using hot dogs as a bait a tunnel containing an ink pad and a sheet of paper records the animal footprints. Put ‘hedgehog track’ in the search box.
Hard route to a soft sweet I
f you’ve ever wondered why those sickly sweet fluffy confection are called marshmallows then this is for you. Marshmallow (Althea Officianlis) is a hardy perennial which produces tall stems with pink flowers and enjoys damp conditions. It’s quite pretty and easy to grow. Every part of the plant is rich in pectins and mucilage (posh word for ‘snotty’) compounds, like many of the mallow family (the leaves of mallows are used as the thickener in the arabic soup molukkia). It’s these we want to use to make sweeties. Grow your marshmallow (easily done from seeds) Grow for at least 18 months and harvest in autumn when the foliage has died. The roots should be fairly thick (finger sized - see pic 1), break them off and scrub well Chop into sections and dry the roots completely. (pic 2) Grind to a fine powder (pic 3) You can buy marshmallow root at
this stage from good herbalists. It’s used to sooth swollen mucus membranes (coughs, colds etc.) When moistened the mucilage becomes very obvious (a dab of the powder becomes a thick gloopy paste in the mouth) This is the point at which you want to start thinking about a recipe. My first attempt was just to mix the powder with water to form a stiff paste and then toast it - as you can see the result (pic 4)
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looks a bit like a bad TVP sausage - very bland to taste but not unpleasant 2nd attempt was with a real campfire - I added baking powder, sugar and a egg replacement powder and mixed in a bit of wine (aiming for pink colour). Once toasted (pic 5) the result was definitely sweeter and lighter than before, with quite a nice fruity edge from the wine but defintely still a stodgy snack. 3rd attempt - instead of attempting a marshmallow I went with the characteristics of the ingredient and mixed the root powder with sugar, vanilla and hot milk! (pic 6) The result was thin custard with sawdust in it! I’ve since learned that the original marshmallows were made with the sap, rather than the root!
Dan Smith
(culinarily-disappointed-butnow-appreciating-fake-marshmallows-much-more)
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All the fun of the feast
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50 people attended the Harvest Feast at the Community Garden in September, despite all the talk in the media at that time about the threats from the tail end of Hurricane Katia. bout
In the event, early autumn sunshine was the order of the day, if interrupted briefly by a fairly dramatic shower. It was a good crowd, with members, family and friends, young and old, enjoying a mountain of sweet and savoury delights - much of which was picked from the garden - and home brewed beer, cider, wine, and fresh apple juice.The earth oven was in action, cooking pizzas in two or three minutes. The garden was alive with colour, and life, glistening after the rain; and while some relaxed under the new gazebo, a few stalwarts stuck to their favourite spot under the bower; newcomers toured the garden; dragonflies busied themselves at the pond; whilst the youngest, in their own world, watered the plants, as they do. It was a fitting way to mark BOG’s twenty-fifth year, and the signing off of the Lottery grant. Some guests thought so and duly signed up. A warm welcome to you all. Jonathon Oates
Roll up for the fruit and nut
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Vale is a rural oasis a few minutes’ walk from the centre of town. The National Trust’s Skyline walk dips down to within a few hundred yards of the canal at Widcombe and it’s here that Transition Bath have planted a nut orchard, or ‘nuttery’. On a very wet day in February last year, a group of volunteers – including some well-known faces from BOG– planted 37 trees: 25 cobnuts, 6 French walnuts, 3 almonds and 3 sweet chestnuts. It’s a north-west facing site, sheltered from the prevailing weather by a hedge of hazel trees. The nut trees, which were funded by a grant from Trees for Cities and from individual sponsorship, should start producing nuts in two or three years’ time. The arrangement with the National Trust is that they provide the land, the fencing, gates, tree guards, etc, and also mow the nuttery in the autumn, and we inTransition Bath food group maintain the trees. With cattle excluded from the site, the ‘field’ turned into a rich wild flower meadow. Mowing was therefore delayed until October, so that the seed heads would be dispersed as the grass was raked-up. Transition Bath food group – surely under BOG’s influence– realised that it’s essential to have a seating/cooking area, and the Trust have put a circle of tree trunks around a fire pit. With guidance from Liz Clarke, we’ve learnt simple outdoor cooking techniques, and now a camp fire lunch is a routine part of maintenance days. mallcombe
This photo was taken when we raked up the mown grass last October, and includes the half-a-dozen people who were doing the Skyline Walk but came in to help and stayed for lunch. We got a lot more work done that day than at the ‘weeding’ session captured for BBC2’s Great British Food Revival. About four hours’ filming resulted in 30 seconds’ broadcast – but quality is more important than quality: The next event at the nuttery is on Sunday, 4th March, from 11 am – 2.30 pm. It’s going to be a bit of a ‘fruit and nuttery’ because we’ll be planting a quince, a mulberry and a medlar. Planting three trees shouldn’t take too long, leaving plenty of time for lunch. Come along and join in, or just drop by for a look around. The nearest parking is on Horseshoe Walk, but it’s an easy
walk from the canal path. Take the lane on the apex of the ‘horseshoe’, marked ‘private road’ which leads to Smallcombe Farm; access to the nuttery is via the kissing gate, half-way along the lane on the right. Hope to see you there. Virginia Williamson More information at www.transitionbath.org.uk/ uploads/pages/files/nutteryscrapbook.pdf (which includes a map) The broadcast is at http:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=OLIoe436WYQ.
Refuge, spaceship, clinic, temple - or just a bloke’s garden shed
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heddies – not the cereal – have become fashionable; the kind of thing that happens when something that has gone on forever gets a catchy name attached to it. To be a sheddie you just need a garden shed. What you do in it is entirely up to you. So-called mansheds are popular (as a retreat) but there are lots of other uses, all of which have been categorised for the Shed of the Year competition run by the Daily Telegraph. Categories include pubs, eco, tardis, workshop/office, and so on. All the entries, with photographs and details of construction, are on the website www.readersheds.
co.uk/
If you want to enter your shed for this year’s contest you will need to enter before May, and it might be worth noting that the sponsors are Cuprinol, and the prize is a bunch of their products, so wooden construction might be a good idea, though not all past winners have been. Gordon Thorburn, author of Men and Sheds claims the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘scead’ or shade, a place of partial darkness and obscurity, the realm of the hermit or wise man, and the store-houses for weapons and
symbolic capital. Taking the idea of a retreat to extreme lengths, a man in Weymouth lived in his shed for a year to avoid creditors. Bachelor Steve Morris became so anxious about bills and creditors asking for money that he moved into his shed at the bottom of his garden in Westham, Weymouth. He was discovered, last November, put in touch with Citizen’s Advice, and rescued from the clutches of the bailiffs before his house was repossessed. As well as sanctuary sheds are now being touted as therapy. The
In recent years sales of new sheds (to say nothing of the d-i-y versions) has been running at about 1.5 million a year.
charity Men’s Health Forum has developed a national network of communal sheds to entice men to communal chats about medical concerns they are loath to mention in more permanent, less manly structures such as the GP’s A lot of of a railway nostalgia has been invested in this shed in Surrey (above)
More like a relic from a film set than a workshop, the Roman extravaganza (right) does have a conventional shed in there somewhere
750ft up in the Cambrian mountains there is nothing flatpacked in the shed on the left. It has a hundred year old boat as a roof, walls of recycled wood and wattle and daub, and windows from a 1940’s caravan.
surgery. That idea was launched at a conference in a four star Leicester hotel, which jars a bit with the shed ethos. Sheddies are nearly always men. Women make homes, men prefer sheds, whether it is for serious carpentry, model-making or gardening or messing about with an engine – anything to have a place where they make the rules.
The peace of a shed is such that it has brought about many of the greatest pieces of writing and music of recent times. Dylan Thomas, in his waterside shed, George Bernard Shaw in his revolving shed (to catch all the sunshine), Gustav Mahler in his lakeside and forest sheds (writing his Third and Fourth Symphonies) and Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl, Harrison Birtwistle, and so on. Yet despite their central role in literature and music they hardly get a mention in print. An exception (which may also explain something about women’s feelings for shed culture) comes in Stella Gibbons book Cold Comfort Farm with the frequent references to ‘something nasty in the woodshed’ a something which is never identified.
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HE BEST FRUIT is always at the top of the tree and infuriatingly out of reach. A fruit picker —one of those poles with a bag on the end — solves the problem but with the cheapest costing about £15, it makes a free crop expensive. A simple solution lies in one of the plastic bottles in your recycling bin and a good sturdy cane, or a long straight stick.. Take a one and half litre bottle and cut off the bottom. Then cut one or two notches in the cut end. Stick the cane in the neck end, wedging it in place with whatever is to hand, or jam it through a hole drilled into the bottle cap. The notches are not vital, but help to twist the fruit off the tree and retain it inside the bottle. Bingo, a fruit picker that really works. Just be careful to keep it almost vertical when retrieving to stop the picked fruit falling out.
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f you like a beard that’s okay, and the cheapest option. If you can take it, Samuel Pepys’ solution, rubbing out your beard with a pumice stone, also has to qualify as a pretty stingy otion. He said that after trying it for a week ‘[I found it] easy, speedy and cleanly, and shall continue with the process,’ but there is no evidence of what his wife thought of it. But that was 350 years ago and today shavers are finding it very expensive keeping a smooth chin: about £8 a
Tough economic times demand scrimping all round. Here are some tips to help you become a more effective cheapskate month expensive if you go for one of to use them. the multi-blade razors. But it doesn’t The tips of our canes now match have to be like that. the front door. It is so achingly smart The rasping discomfort of a used we are expecting a call from a style blade is caused by the dozens of magazine any day.. little distortions in the blade caused by your beard, which is almost as tough as the steel in the blade, t’s a disturbing fact that when some apparently. But it doesn’t rats were fed on packaged cereals mean that the blade has been and another group of them was fed blunted. on the packaging they were sold in, To get rid of those distortions the ones one the cardboard diet were found to have been better-nourished. you need to hone the blade, just like the old fashioned Not an argument for eating barber with his strop and cardboard for breakfast, but cutthroat razor. apparently the liner that contains the cereal makes a good storage bag for Denim is ideal material for bread or for freezing food. this, so instead of dumping your old jeans, chop off a bit That comes from The Penny of leg stretch it on something Pincher’s Book Revisited: Living flat and stroke the blade down Better for Less by John and Irma the denim firmly and briskly Mustoe is published by Souvenir away from you about 50 times. Press at £7.99. The blade will be almost as good It also suggests that, if you decide as new and will last several shaves against eating cardboard, yout cut more, but you can repeat the process off the top of the box, trim the sides every time you shave, about a dozen down at an angle,and use them times before it wears out. turned sideways to hold files. This should work for women’s razors Now that is truly stingy. as well.
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arden canes — usually imported from China — are not sustainable but most of us already have them and it’s a bit late to undo the damage. After a couple of years they tend to get brittle at the ends, especially where they have been in the soil. Trim any broken bits first, then use up some of the spare paint which is cluttering up the shed by dipping the thick ends in the paint, or paint it on,. Do it soon, well before you need
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LANT LABELS are too expensive to use only once, and the homemade alternative made from discarded plastic bottles may be green but they are hardly attractive. To make plant labels pay their way and last for several seasons they can be cleaned off easily by rubbing them with a handful of dry sand. It even removes the indelible ink of a garden marker pen. WD40 is an even quicker method but not stingy enough.
Dates for the diary February 11 March 10 April 7 April 13 May 5 May 7 May 12 June 2 June 5 July 7 July 7 July 14 August 4 Aug 7 Sept 1 September 8 Sept 22
Trading hut opens Garden development meeting Farmers’ market Garden development meeting Garden development meeting Growing Green Farmers’ Market Farmers’ Market Garden development meeting Farmers’ Market Garden development meeting Midsummer party Farmers’ Market Garden development meeting Farmers’ Market Garden development meeting Harvest feast
See below
1- 4pm
The trading hut will be open every Saturday from February 11 to the end of July from 10 - midday. It will be closed throughout August and reopen through September
Growing Differently green
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possible reasons why Growing Green didn’t really work last year. 1 The weather: vile. It may not have rained all the time but it seemed to and you couldn’t blame anyone for staying at home. 2 The link with the Spring Flower Show was broken, not least because there wasn’t one, but also because we thought that moving the date to the bank holiday at the end of May would ensure better weather (ho ho) and give the garden a bit of time to recover from the beating up it had received at the hands of diggers etc. And to have a bit more time to give it some TLC. 3 Possibly because the recipe has grown tired after umpteen years. All of these elements have come up in discussions both on the garden and in committee meetings about the future of the day. Currently we are investigating here were several
the possibility of making the day a much more inclusive kind of event in which we make a real effort to get the many other organisations with similar interests to our own to come along and enjoy the garden. Organisations we are thinking of approaching include the City Farm, the Allotments Association, Timebank, Somer Housing, Broadlands, Transition Bath, and of course Dry Arch Growers
Chicken Club progress
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ur nine ladies are all doing well despite the cold, and amazingly are occasionally still laying, which the chicken club members all appreciate! The pecking order seems to be established at last, so the bare bottomed girls are finally starting to grow tail feathers, and those ladies that moulted are looking decidedly less raggedy. They all enjoy their twice-weekly forays into the big bad world of the orchard and are getting braver and exploring further every week, and are earning their keep by doing an excellent job of eating up the insects around the apple trees. Hopefully, in the spring they will properly come into laying and the chicken club members will be staggering home each day under the weight of nine delicious little eggs. The chicken club operates on a rota, with each member being responsible for a whole or half day of chicken duties. This involves letting them out, feeding and watering in the morning, and shutting them in and collecting eggs in the evening. We are always on the lookout for more members: please contact Ria Gane on 07875288283 if you’re interested.
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting The Annual General Meeting was held on 26th November 2011, at the Interpretation Centre in the Botanical Gardens 1. The Minutes of the last AGM held on 27th November 2010 were approved by Lyn Barham and seconded by Su Kendall. 2. Report on activities in the past year 2.1 Trustees : Two Trustees, Margaret Hall and Bill Brown, have resigned in the past year. Kate Mills and Dan Smith have taken their place. Thanks were given to Bill and Margaret for their service in the past years. 2.2 Lottery : We successfully applied for lottery money and a slow start was made on the various projects due to the appalling weather last winter and generally the garden looked dreadful while the pond area was being dug. 20 volunteers came forward to help puddle the clay and put three layers of underlay in the pond [there will be various photos on the website]. It was filled in early Spring courtesy of the Fire Service and Wessex Water. [A kingfisher was seen there last Saturday!]. The platform was erected by Simon Kale and the paths around it were finished last Saturday by the Bath Uni students who were the winners of the Local Energy Championship Scheme. [This was their prize, plus pizza and cider,
which they enjoyed]. Two benches have been installed and Liz Clarke supervised the building of the earth oven, which now has a cover, and has been used several times. Kate sent in the final spend report to the Lottery which had been accepted. 2.3 Shed : we were going to have a new shed but the old one has now been repaired and contains the everyday garden tools, so that anyone who wishes to come down to work can now access a tool without unlocking anything. 2.4 Chicken coop has been completed thanks to Bill. Ria is doing the rota and would be glad of more people joining the Chicken Club. There is a small fee. Each volunteer takes turns to visit the coop twice a day to clean out, feed and water and collect eggs which they keep. 2.5 Garden Development Meetings took place on the due date until September when they went a bit haywire. The next one is next Saturday 3rd December – everyone welcome. 2.6 Use of the garden : The Forest School are visiting the garden each week. This group is for the under 5s and everyone enjoys the morning spent in the garden. School visits : Sheila organises the school visits and sends an invita-
Present : Bill Brown, Kate Mills, Ria Gane, Rosemary Alvis, Jean Cooper, Sheila Blethyn, Geoff Andrews, Maggie Dibben, Verona Bass, Tim Baines, Pauline Magrath, Gill Christie, Katherine Wills, Katherine Parker, Caroline Frances-King, Su Kendall, Lyn Barham, Dan Smith, Jane Thomason, Bernard Thomason, Virgina Williamson, Len Fawcett, James Bond, Steve Chamberlain, Mark Dawson, Sarah Ball, Helen Woodley, Simi Rezai, Jennie Fairweather Sylvia Hudnott Apologies Clive Vinnecombe, Tony Parr, Mrudula Gore Peter Andrews.
tion to all local schools. Only St Andrews School have visited the garden twice this year. However, Sheila will give up organising these next year so we need someone else to do this. Kate gave thanks to Sheila for her work in the past. Kate reminded everyone has use of the the garden but would need to book the date of their visit. 2.7 Trading Hut : this is joint venture by BOG and the Allotments Association. It can only trade with members. A small profit of £300 was made despite sales being down 7%. The deadline for seed/onion/potato orders is 30th December. There is a discount of 25% on the organic sales and a smaller one on Kings Seeds. 2.8 Farmers Market/Trading Standards : the Farmers Market is doing well and thanks were given to all those who helped especially Phillipa Donaldson, who helps Pauline collect and take the produce to the market, and Gill Christie. Pauline made a plea for more volunteers and produce from members for next year. We have been approached by Trading Standards over the sale of our organic produce at the Farmers Market. Following an EU Act in 2009 we cannot sell any produce that is organic without being registered as an organic organisation. Of course, we cannot do this as the cost is prohibitive. We are hoping that as we only ‘trade’ with the public for 40 hours a year at the Farmers Market, this will make a difference in their decision. The Trading Standards of-
fice will come back to us with their decision. A discussion took place and if we are stopped from using the word ‘organic’ an alternative would be ‘locally grown produce for local people’ and, as more people are more responsive to the word ‘community’, this could also be used. However, we cannot just change our name as we need to have insurance in place, This will be discussed further at our next committee meeting. 2.9 Vandalism : this is an ongoing problem. We have now made a useful link with the Community Police. The latest incident was on Saturday when the garden was left with rubbish strewn everywhere and with a leg being sawn off a plastic table. Kate reported the incident and has a crime number. She feels that as the community police walk around the top part of the park the gvandals moves down to the allotment area. Other allotments also suffer. For everyone’s information if you wish to report a non-urgent incident to the police the number to use is 101. Perhaps the chicken people would keep their eyes and ears open as they are at the garden every day.
The admin costs have been reduced as we now email the majority of members [there are 14 members without email] and this is a huge saving. The membership number which is fairly consistent of around 120. We have received a few donations. We have to pay for insurance and membership of Soil Association and Garden Organic but for some reason have paid no water rates this year. 4. Appointment of Auditors : Lyn Barham will, again, audit our account. Many thanks. 5. Election of Committee: Kate Mills is willing to stand again as Chair, as are Sheila Blethyn as Membership Secretary, Gemma Bolton as Rota Organiser, Geoff Andrews as Newsletter Editor and Sylvia Hudnott as Minuting Secretary. Dan Smith is resigning as Treasurer and Ria Gane is willing to replace him as Treasurer. Ria Gane was proposed by Dan Smith and seconded by Pauline Magrath. Ria will become a signatory for cheques and Dan’s name will be removed.
The accounts were presented – the closing balance is £3,904.34. There were no questions.
Rosemary Alvis has resigned from the committee and the members who are willing to stand for another year are Pauline Macgrath, Tim Baines, Simi Rezai & Peter Andrews.
The lottery money has been spent and thanks were given to all those who have helped with this. The lottery money which was in our account until spent received interest. The polytunnel had been covered and the raised beds renewed.
The floor were asked if anyone else would like to come on to the committee and were informed that everyone is welcome at the meetings which are held at Kate’s house – the next one being on Monday 30th January.
3. Treasurers Report
6. Any Other Business 6.1 2012 Venue : everyone agreed that the Minerva Centre was an excellent venue and it will be booked again for next year. 6.2 Growing Green : this was discussed. This year as there was no Bath Flower Show we held it at the end of May. The weather was atrocious for most of the day. Suggestions for this year were requested. It was not thought to be a good idea to hold it on the Bank Holiday/Diamond Jubliee weekend at
Garden (1) Admin Farmers Market (2) Membership Donations (3) Rent Seedswap Growing Green Insurance Lottery Chicken run Interest TOTAL Opening Balance
the end of May. There will be too much going on. We may go back to our first weekend in May date.
time being but next year a space will be put on the renewal form for donations.
A suggestion was made to invite other groups to have a stall at our garden ie CSA, Guerilla Gardening, Transition Bath, WI.
Membership : many of us were unaware that Sheila sends out confirmation of membership to members who do not pay by S/O or are not Life Members. This is very expensive so Sylvia will now send confirmation to paid members by email.
Bath in Bloom : we may take part next year as the garden is looking good. Simi raised the question of raising the subscription. It was thought that, as these have been raised in the past few years and as we are not in a bad financial state, we would hold them at £10 for the
Income 2010/2011
2009/2010
£2,507.54 £855.00 £320.79
£2,493.10 £828.00 £393.77
£85.42 £183.77
£35.00 £268.86
£1,368.18 £7.67 £5,328.37 £10,847.74
£9,454.00 £2.66
Closing Balance
7. Close of Meeting 3.30pm An Auction then took place and raised £35
Payments 2010/2011 £1,271.74 £121.16 £896.19 £75.00
2009/2010 £520.79 £536.68 £1,063.97 £133.00
£130.93
£166.79
£365.10 £8,858.50 £1,367.15
£346.50 £607.04
£13,085.77 £3,090.34
1. Raised bed renewal, polytunnel skin 2. New tables bought, £205 Southstoke 3. Includes Forest School donations
Contacts Kate Mills Chair 311699 katemillsbath@gmail.com
Gemma Bolton Rotas 07748056837 gembolton@ymail.com
Ria Gane Treasurer 07875288283 ria_gane@yahoo.co.uk
Geoff Andrews Newsletter 484422 g.andrews@mac.com
Sylvia Hudnott Secretary shudnott@hotmail.com
Pauline McGrath Farmers’ Market 464697 shirleymagrath@yahoo.co.uk Tim Baines Community Garden and Trading Hut 312116 timjbaines@yahoo.co.uk