LET THEM EAT CAKE - CAKE EVENT

To cheer up those January blues we are running an event called let them eat cake. The idea is that we will show you in a few hours how to cook cake based on Carrots, Beetroot, Parsnip and Courgette. Yes they are all veg, and yes cake with them in does count as part of your 5 a day - how mad is that !!!

You will chose a group and make one of the recipes and them get to try all of them with a drink at the end. It will also be your last chance to do your bulk seed order so don't forget to come.  Transport help is available so do ask us if you need any.

Its on the 14th of January late afternoon till early eve...times to be confirmed :-D

Bulk Seed Order

Calling all growing groups

We are going to do a massive collective seed order from Suttons Seeds so please let us know if there is anything you would like. We can get a discount though our friends Food 360 of up to 50% of the packet price of any seeds.

We wil place the order early in the new year so use the holiday period to do that window shopping. 

You can view the full Suttons Seeds catalogue here  http://www.suttons.co.uk/online-catalogues-seeds-3991.htm or order a paper copy for free here  http://www.suttons.co.uk/CatalogueRequest.aspx?gclid=CMrHm4OHqLsCFQMHwwod0XcAeQ

Reach Out Orchards - all over Hull

During the next few months we hope to plant 8 orchards within Hull in and around church grounds.  Why orchards ?  Well they are great low cost, low maintainance food growers, that last years and years. They also help attract insects to pollonate other vegtables planted near them as their nectar is sweet and high up.

So far we have planted one orchard of 14 trees at Bricknell Methodist Church (post to follow) with more to come at St Martins CoE and the Boulevard Hope Grows Garden, but we are talking to a number of other venues too. If you would like to help plant or even make tea on planting days do let us know.

St Michaels Youth Project, Orchard Park Hull

St Michael's have the enviable job of working with young people day in and day out. Some of them wanted to try growing their own and managed to plant a herb garden, fruit trees, rhubarb, spinich, Potatoes, strawberrys and beans.

Sadly the beans where victims of the dry hot summer we had (they didn't get enough watering) but everything else did wonderfully well and a few of the hard workers returned to collect some of the crop.

Teenagers ever conscious of their image didn't want to be in the pictures but the crops speak for themselves.

Over the winter we plan to do some fruit tree planting and turn half of their allotment plot into an orchard to make it more manageable to grow on.

We really need a volunteer who can help with watering for this project so do let us know if you live near Clough Road and can help.

GreenFingers - Bodmin Road - Bransholme

The guys on Branshome have had an amazing year, going from not having ever grown anything, to reaping the best harvest of all our groups from the smallest plot.

We never did weigh all the runner beans but my guess would be into the 15kg and more.  We also had over 40kg of squash - from just 4 plants. This is Sheila one of the group leaders having a ball with rhubarb.

We are about to plant some trees here as part of our Reach Out Orchards plan, which will see 8 new fruit orchards in Hull this winter. Click on the article to see more on them.

Plans are afoot for next years growing already with more people showing interest based on the success of this year.

Is is cheaper to grow your own?...Yes and here is the proof

Back in May 2013 i bought a £1 bag of compost from Wilco and 2 cheap bush tomato plants that cost me £1.50.  I planted them in a worn out jute bag (it had holes in ) and decided to be the worst gardener i could be to these poor plants.

I never fed them any fertilizer (tomatoes need regular feeding), i watered them only when the plants wilted during the warmest + driest summer in years (tomatoes also need heaps of watering - twice a day sometimes. They never had full sun (you guessed it they love full sun) and they still grew.

Not only did they grow but they produced delicious fruit, of supermarket quality looks wise and far better flavour.  I didn't weight them but i got around 5 large punnets of tomatoes from them of the quality you see in the last pic. Basically they paid me back more than their cost in great tasty toms.

The pic above is the tomatoes as I planted them in my home greenhouse. The next pic is half way through the harvest period, which lasted nearly 2 months.  As you can see they are not fine looking tomatoe plants by any means, it was abused and lived in the shade.

The last pic is just the ripe tomatoes I picked on the day of the second picture on the left. As you can see there are many more fruits to pick when ripe.

So if you watered them a little more, added a little plant feed and gave them some sun, you would easily double your crop.

So even the lazy, buying everything late, can grow better food cheaper than you can buy them. If you want to know more about how please email us at iwant2livebetter@gmail.com

If you planted the plants from seed and used home made compost these tomatoes below would cost you about 10p and the rest would be ALL FREE.  Who doesn't want free food?

St Matthews Church Hall, Boulevard. HYFC

Its been a while since I posted here but a lot has happened.  Here is one of the many things the new Hope Grows group did in the growing space out the back of the parish hall.

This huge mural was designed by teh young people and painted on teh wall with paints kindly donated by WESTOBYS on Boulevard. they also built a sand pit that day, which they are standing in so parents can grow while their kids safely play.

The group went on for the lifestyle award for helping transform the garden space. They went on to make insect and bird boxes so we have good pollination and pest control when we plant up next year. Scroll down to see the fab results, all made with reclaimed timber.