Gardening and growing
Gardeners Club
Lots of susred members are starting to get their heads round organic and permaculture fruit and veg growing There’s much to learn, so to help us along we have a Gardeners Club. It’s very informal. About once every six weeks we meet up in someones garden, have a look round, and swop tips and share problems. You don’t even have to have a garden, it might just be a few tomatoes on a balcony. We hope also that there may be scope locally to match up people with garden space and no time, with people who have time but no space. There is already a Bristol Gardenshare if you are interested in this.
To find out more about susred gardening club just join our Yahoo group or send us an email.
Why do we bother?
Well – because of cheap fossil fuel, English orchards, allotments, nurseries, and garden fruit and veg have gone into decline in the last 50 years. It is so easy and cheap to get anything, all year round, so the time and effort just doesn’t seem worth it. This could change, more rapidly than one might expect, and already many people are responding to the need to relocalise some of our food production. Allotment waiting lists are growing exponentially. And one small sign of the times – in May 2009, as the world economy slowed and the English coast became a parking ground for laden oil tankers , citric acid was totally sold out during the elderflower cordial season.
Square metre for square metre, the productivity of a garden usually beats farmland because of the ‘gardeners shadow’ – the loving care and attention that it gets. Plus there is benefit from the knowledge, skills, experience and the pleasure that comes from gardening. If organic and permaculture methods are used then the positive impact on biodiversity is significant also.
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