Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Allotment garden features in the Marylebone Journal!

Thank you to Jean-Paul for his entertaining piece about Capital Growth, the allotment garden, and Paul Richens' training session!

You can download the October issue here (the feature on us begins on page 12):


http://www.themarylebonejournal.com/

Harvest Festival Pumpkin Salad Recipe

This recipe comes courtesy of Nick Baylis, our fantastic volunteer chef, who ran the kitchen at our Harvest Festival. This dish was a particular favourite of the visitors.

Pumpkin Salad:

The day before you plan to make it soak some butter beans overnight.
After soaking, cook until tender. Using a pressure cooker for this dramatically reduces cooking time and hence saves energy!
Leave to cool. (Alternatively just buy a can of butter beans.)

Chop a pumpkin into about 1cm cubes. If fairly young, keep the skin on, otherwise peel it first. Roast the pumpkin in a little oil, salt, pepper and whole fennel seeds until nicely coloured and tender. Set aside to cool. You could also fry the pumpkin with similar results.

Fry the butter beans in a little oil for a few minutes either side. Be careful not to put too many beans in the frying pan, otherwise they won't brown - fry in batches if necessary. You're aiming for a slightly crunchy, golden brown crust on the beans. Season with salt and pepper.

Finely chop plenty of sorrel (and/or lettuce, spinach, beat leaves etc etc) and mix carefully with the warm pumpkin and beans. Be gentle at this stage, otherwise you'll end up with a dense mush.

Serve the salad on a plate with some chopped feta, and a dressing of lemon, yoghurt and garlic. The dressing should be mostly lemon, a small amount of garlic and a bit of yoghurt to bind. This salad would also work nicely with curd cheese.

Capital Growth Food-Growing Training Sessions @ The Allotment Garden

Coming up we have.....

Permaculture Design Taster with Stefan Geyer of the London Permaculture Association
On:
Saturday 12th November 2011 10.30am to 1pm
or
Saturday 3rd December 2011 10.30am to 1pm

Soft Fruits, Fruit Tree Pruning and Care with Tom Moggach of City Leaf
On:
Saturday 26th November 2011 10.30am to 1pm

All sessions are £20 for individuals and £10 for Capital Growth members. Booking is essential, so to avoid disappointment book now by emailing training@capitalgrowth.org

The wonderful world of bees






The allotment garden attracts lots of wildlife. It's location in the heart of Regent's park certainly helps, but we also try and encourage it along with bug hotels, hedgehog boxes, and plenty of flowers. The bees love them!


Harvest Festival 2011 Part 4 (the best of the rest)

Other activities at the Harvest Festival included Ask the Experts, pizza making and apple pressing (mmmm, delicious!), tombola and the Big Raffle.....










Harvest Festival 2011 Part 3 (the volunteers)






A big THANK YOU goes to all of the volunteers that made the Harvest Festival possible! A few of them can be seen here, enjoying the day....










Harvest Festival 2011 Part 2 (Scarecrows)






Many visitors to this year's Harvest Festival cam especially for our scarecrow-making workshop, run by Joyce Warrren or Scarecrowland (www.scarecrowland.co.uk). Over 60 happy children (and their parents!) made their own plant-pot scarecrows to take home with them.


Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Harvest Festival 2011 Part 1






This year's harvest festival
was a great success, with over 500 people coming to enjoy the garden, the weather and, of course, the wonderful food!