Any grower worth their earth salt should make regular inspections of their site: the land, soil, plants, animals, events. This may seem obvious, but in the golden heat of the gardeners’ day there is usually just enough time to fulfill the urgent tasks of the day, before the outside inside world beckons you back. Usually, once a week I manage to “get round”, equipped with one main tool, eyes; and one main aim, renewing acquaintance with the whole, and the particular.

Sketched out, the main paths at Hawkwood resemble the veins of a leaf or the trickles of a watershed, enveloped by the peculiarly human artery of the boundary path. The scratched lines of access paths between raised beds fizz off the broad ways and into the dense neighbourhoodsof cultivation. The wildlife corridor is like a deep lake, Ian’s mown trails are the only bridges across it.

29 April, 6 May, 13 May, 20 May, 27 May from 11am-3pm

at our Hawkwood growing site and plant nursery. From 2-3pm, for those buying plants, there will be a free taster training hour with one of our growers to help you settle the plants into the garden with aftercare advice. Popular favourites such as tomatoes, squash, courgettes and more will be on sale – plants that are hard to get started without a greenhouse.

*Extra* activities on ‘plant sale’ Sundays include:

*Sun 6 May: From 12-1pm there will be a free ‘Permaculture taster’ hour
for those interested in joining this Autumn’s Permaculture Design Course.

*Sun 13 May: We’re joining up with London Community Resource Network who
will be at Hawkwood giving away compost bins and compost. See
http://www.lcrn.org.uk/composting-bin-giveaway for more details.

*Sun 20 May: Special training for food enthusiasts will focus on tomato
training, aftercare and know-how – Taking place from 2-3pm for those with
Hawkwood tomato plants to care for!

*Sun 27 May: Will be our monthly Sunday open day – where the featured
vegetables will be freshly dug Spring (wet) garlic or possibly this
season’s broad beasn… watch this growing space!

Our plants:
We grow all the plants ourselves in our glasshouse that we rent from the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Work is carried out by a team of growers including members of our workers’ cooperative and lots of local volunteers who support the project’s aim to see more food growing in London. Plants are taken from the glasshouses and acclimatised to the outdoors before being dispatched. The plants are strong and healthy, ready to compete with weed seedlings and garden pests!

Other plant stalls this season:
We will also be holding ‘taster’ plant stalls at our Hornbeam and Leytonstone market stalls on Saturday 5 May – come along to find out what’s available this growing season; at the Hornbeam on Saturday 12 May, and at Growing Communities’ Farmers Market in Stoke Newington on Saturday 28 April, 5 May and 12 May.

For other ways to get hold of our plants, including schools packages and bulk group orders, click here for all the details.

Hawkwood Nursery
115 Hawkwood Crescent, Chingford E4 7UH
Directions and transport details here

At Organiclea’s Hawkwood growing site this coming Sunday we have 2 activities that celebrate permaculture:

*From 12-1pm, there will be a guided introduction to permaculture led by Julie Porter.

She will use the Hawkwood site to share some inspiring design principles and provide information about learning more, through introductory courses in London and with an accredited design course in Autumn 2012 run by Organiclea.

*From 11-3pm, we are holding one of our weekly Sunday plant sale events. A range of plants, grown in good-health at Hawkwood will be for sale. Permaculture favourites include:
- a diverse range of tomato plants; something for every palate and growing space (yellow, Italian plum, tiger striped, tumbling and simply a gardeners delight!)
- heritage French beans from our own saved seed stock; London cultivars that are no longer commercially available, are grown by Organiclea and rated as both a fresh and dried bean!
- a range of companion flowers for the vegetable garden.
- soft fruit bushes that will sweeten any productive garden and offer currants and berries throughout the year. The range includes wine-berries, loganberries, red, white and black currants and grape vines; all cut and grown on from our own fruit-garden stock.

From 2-3pm, for those buying plants, there will be a free taster training hour with one of our growers to help you settle the plants into the garden with aftercare advice.

Drop by, or stay for the day – all welcome!!

Marko and I were on the West Bank on Friday, prizing out the light-footed shafts from Subterranea for Saturday’s stalls. Turning back at the end of a long row, I swear some of the shoots had grown in the time we were going over them. You could never calculate how many bunches in the bed: more would keep popping up whilst you were counting, like blessings.

Box Scheme members who’ve been around since the heady days of last summer will remember BEANS WEEK – produce from 5 different local growers went into bags in one week including 18k of green beans… This week we have spinach: coming from three allotments in North and East London, supplemented with some from Chingford and Norfolk. The recent warm patch injected some life into the winter leaves, and as a result we will be packing up to 20kilos into our wonderful bags. Next week, we may be lucky enough to do the same with Chard.
This happy collaboration so early in the season is a perfect example of why community supported growing -like our box scheme- works so well. We can respond to plant growth, and supply, and keep you the customer in the loop about what we’re doing. If you were buying in a shop you may not have chosen spinach this week, unaware of what was going on at the other end of the supply chain.  So – thank you box scheme peeps for putting your veg decisions in our hands!

Organiclea with the Community Food Growers Network invite you to join us for an evening exploring why Genetically Modified (GM) crops pose a threat to sustainable food production, what the GM industry is doing here in Britain, and how we as ordinary people can best support alternative, sustainable and socially just food systems. The event is free and open to all.

There’s an event in Walthamstow and Brixton. Organiclea is hosting the Walthamstow end which in the evening will include:
* presentations and opendiscussion on the current situation in Britain, the threat posed by GM crops and what we can do about it; * tasty food from the Hornbeam café (£3-4 a bowl);
* ‘The Future of Food’ – this film explores the troubling changes happening in the food system today—genetically engineered foods, patenting, and corporatisation.

It is running in parallel to an event at the other end of town in Brixton
- full details for both (with timings) are on the Community Food Growers Network website.

The previously advertised course dates have had to change, but we are planning to run this 2 day course in the autumn, so please get in touch via courses[@]organiclea.org.uk if you would be interested in joining it. Course details as below.

This course is aimed at everyone from beginners to experienced beekeepers who are interested in learning about more sustainable methods of beekeeping. It will cover basic bee biology, introduce the theory and practice of sustainable beekeeping, deal with queries and experience observing bees in the apiary. The course takes place at the beautiful Hawkwood Nursery site, where beehives have been established using natural beekeeping techniques.

The course is being taught by Sean Hearn (beekeeper and former site worker at Hawkwood), Tim Evans (Hackney based community beekeeper) and John Haverson (very experienced beekeeper, and local swarm collection officer). Download the full course information sheet here.

Two day course, 9.30am-5pm both days. Course fee: £190 /£125 /£50. Includes lunch. See our course fee guide for details of how concessions apply.

Use our registration page to express interest in joining this course, and we’ll let you know the next dates.

Click here for directions to the Hawkwood community plant nursery where the course takes place.

… as this team worked preparing the trench and planting potatoes, Clare, Jo, Gertraud and Ed weeded and prepared a lower bed for ‘rainbow’ carrots which will be sown after good rain fall.. even though we know carrots don’t like London soil, we’re giving this a sowing. Plenty of leaf mould was added to balance up our London clay soil.

With no planning on our part, we were reminded of age-old lore and peasant tale that guides us to plant early potatoes on Good Friday. For those gardeners working in the grounds of wealthy estates and residencies, Good Friday was a holiday and that meant being able to get work done on the home-garden and potatoes planted for the family crop and the season to come.

Timely reminders and our first chitted potatoes are underground.

You can order hand-raised, locally grown food seedlings and plants.
You can talk to one of our growers about what combination of plants
might work best for your school’s plans. Orders taken by the end of
March, ideally with payment (we can be flexible around payment) – for
delivery in May.

1. Ready Steady Grow:
Garden for harvesting before the summer holidays.
This package will include spring onions, dwarf French beans,
courgettes, early potatoes and baby beets.
Order by price £50 / £100 / £250 / £500

2. Grow It, Pick It, Eat It:
Salad and herb bar — for harvesting before summer.
This package will include a range of small plant plugs ready to plant
into containers or the ground including red and green lettuces, baby
salad rocket, parsley and basil.
£50 / £100 / £250 / £500

3. Harvest Festival:
Food plants for sowing in Spring, neglect in summer, harvest in
September/October!
This package will include potatoes, spinach, pumpkins, beets.
£50 / £100 / £250 / £500

4. Fruit  Garden:
Year in year out.. and keeps on coming. Superfood forage!
Includes strawberries, blackcurrant, blackberry. Timed to coincide
with term-time harvests!
£100 / 200

Orders can be taken until 17 April. We prefer pre-payment, but can be flexible.

Earlybird Special Offer: we will include 2 free sacks of garden
compost whilst stocks last

Contact Organiclea’s Hawkwood site in March to place advance orders
and ask any questions. Call 020 8524 4994 or email
plants@organiclea.org.uk

As the growing season gets underway, if you want to let someone else do the cooking… come and enjoy a sumptuous supper of locally sown, grown, picked and prepared food on Saturday March 31st. It’s the Hornbeam Café’s first pop-up Seasonal Supper Club Evening. Let your tastebuds relish a delicious three course vegetarian evening supper that will be served around one communal table. Here all can join together to celebrate the coming of the lively spring season that will be reflected in the menu for you to enjoy with friends. The Hornbeam and Organiclea share a vision for good, local, seasonal food, and we will be using as much local produce as possible – from Organiclea’s Hawkwood growing site and locally picked wild food – as we possibly can for a surprise spring menu! So far the only menu information that has been leaked is that it will include leeks from Hawkwood…

Doors open 7.30pm, food served in one sitting at 8pm. Fully licensed bar serving a range of organic beers, cocktails, wine and soft drinks.

Seating is limited so booking with payment is essential, £18 for three courses. Pop into the Hornbeam café (10.30 – 17.00 Wednesday – Saturday) to pay or you can buy online here (with 10% booking fee).

We look forward to celebrating the spring with you!

Hornbeam Café
458 Hoe St
Walthamstow
E17 9AH