Speed Greening: Winter Garden Day at Cordwainers Garden

Despite a few blustery showers to begin with, we were lucky with another sunny day for garden volunteering down at Cordwainers Garden. Teams of people got stuck in with various different tasks including bagging up soil, clearing and planting a new bed, cutting kindling with an axe, weeding rogue areas, collecting leaves for leafmould, patching up the shed and clearing out and re-arranging the composting corner. Fuelled by an almost continuous supply of tea from the storm-kettle (powered by wood) and a delicious spread from Cafe Morningside we got a huge amount done. We even dug up and relocated an enormous Calla Lily which had planted itself rather annoyingly in the dye bed.  It was great to have a mix of old and new faces at the garden, to share some of the heavy lifting and chat about Starwars and science fiction (!) over lunch. Thanks to all our hardworking volunteers, the garden has been given a new lease of life as it braces itself for the cold months ahead.

First volunteer of the day, a huge worm

The rains clears and the sun comes out to warm us up

Duncan gets to work on patching up the pallet shed

Emma and Shamima clearing the ground and planting up a new area in the front garden

Jane weeding and tidying the wildlife bed and Jonathan bagging up our fresh compost

Star of the day, the storm kettle

Delicious spread made by Cafe Morningside

Bags of fresh compost for each bed, Christmas has come early!

Having a break and filling up with lots of food

Lots of mmmm sounds

Cutting up dry woody thing for storm kettle kindling

Last teabreak of the day!

This Winter Garden Volunteer Day was organised by Cordwainers Grow as part of our Speed Greening project supported by Team London.

Meadow flower dyeing

After spending multiple occasions wading through the wildflowers in London Fields in the pouring rain we finally put our harvest to good use this weekend. We held a pop-up dye workshop between the park and Broadway Market catching people reveling in the glorious sunshine that Saturday brought. We showed people an ancient Japanese technique for natural dyeing called shibori where you use folding, clamping, twisting and other creative means to create a pattern. (Tie-dying is a type of shibori). We created a dye vat using the flowers from the meadow, mostly coreopsis and zinnias. 

Naturally dyed bunting

The dye vat with coreopsis and zinnia meadown flowers

Some shibori creations from the day drying in the sunshine

Bundle dyeing at the Redmond Centre

It was quite an eventful week for dyeing, that's natural dyeing with plants as opposed to the sad kind of dyeing. We held a workshop at Woodberry Down and showed residents how to use plants to dye fabric using silk swatches. One method for natural dyeing involves creating a pattern with flowers and plant materials directly onto the fabric. You then roll the fabric squares into bundles around a stick and steam them.

 Our dye class at Redmond Centre in Woodberry Down

Preparing a bundle dye with hollyhocks, onions skins and Zinnia flowers

Steaming the bundles

The finished dyed silks

Hanging our creations up to dry

Picking flowers in the rain

A table full of colourful dye plants

Suited and booted this morning we met over at London Fields to collect some of the wildflowers which are not only pretty, but also plant gold for any garden dyer (a person who uses plants to naturally dye fabric). After getting permission from the council, who will be scything the wild flowers later in the week - we set out to gather our harvest. We will be using the flowers for various community projects that we are working on and in workshops which teach people about the process of natural dyeing. Despite getting soaked in the process and shouted at by a passer-by who assumed we were plant thieves, my house is now covered in a rainbow of zinnias, coreopsis, african marigolds and cosmos. A great way to brighten up a gloomy Monday morning!

African marigold, coreopsis, cosmos and cinnia (clockwise from top left)

Growing seeds of freedom

From seed to bean and to seed again.... the runner beans I am growing for the London Freedom Seedbank are still going strong as we get close to the end of Summer.

Nestled amongst the rice fields

The good thing about close siblings is that they will always be there for you in times of need. Therefore, after a spontaneous trip of this kind, I found myself in Bali. Whilst here I naturally gravitated towards what was going on with the agriculture in the area that surrounded the town of Ubud, where I was staying. On first impressions it was hard to see beyond the yoga-come-spirituality-come-raw food mecca that Ubud has become for Western visitors. However, I was quick to veer off the beaten track and venture into more real territories. Whilst exploring I found nestled in between the sea of rice fields an organic garden growing an array of fruits and vegetables. Its diversity of colours and shapes stood out against the backdrop of formulaic paddies.

The garden belonged to the smiley-dreadlocked Har, who was happy to show me around and whilst jumping between pathways and water canals which structure the growing spaces, he shared his dreams for the project. He was growing a huge variety of native and non-native crops organically and had created a business by selling his wholesome produce directly to consumers. Whilst working full time on this and 3 other gardens Har also gives free gardening classes to the local people spreading the knowledge that he has built up to his wider community.

He explained the difficulties of getting authentic organic seeds which affects his seed saving practices, a vital aspect for any garden wishing to be less reliant of external inputs. He gave me some Indonesian spinach seeds which I will try in the garden this season.

One of Hars philosophies was “Give more, put more or change” and this stuck with me as it can be applied to so many situations from farming systems to relationships.

Feeling happy to have found such a garden of hope with many parallel ideas to what we are doing at Cordwainers I bid Har farewell and promised to send him some heirloom seeds so we could be guardians of each others native varieties.

 

Rows of vegetables and fruit separated by water canals

Seedlings ready to be planted out or sold to local gardens

Abundant diversity in amongst the sea of rice fields

Har busy at work making lettuce plug plants

Roof gardening at HOL, Hackney