Ac Baker

I think this project will be very inspiring & supportive for the work our community is doing to repair our suburb of our city.

‘What does the Earth ask of us?’ - Robin Wall Kimmerer of "Braiding Sweet grass" etc.
https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/books

"We’re showered every day with the gifts of plants.

"They provide the food we eat, the air we breathe, and medicines for mind and body.

"Despite this unearned flow of green generosity, we find ourselves embedded in a political climate and an economic system that relentlessly asks, “What more can we take from the Earth?”

"This question and its answers have led us to the brink of disaster. ..

"Well, let’s raise a garden-gloved middle finger in return.

"I invite you, my friends, my neighbors, my readers, my fellow citizens into a new movement called Plant, Baby, Plant."

https://plantbabyplant.com/

In some ways, my favourite volunteer plants are brambles, with their beautiful nectarful flowers as well as gorgeous fruits.  

But I also love scarlet pimpernel and veronica / speedwell for their flowers & gentle ground-cover.

Then there are the volunteer, self-seeding edibles such as salsify, and corn salad.

I love accepting the ways volunteer plants can enhance the local ecology.

I have absorbed from many sources, including Robin Wall Kimmerer, the concept of vigorous volunteer plants - of cultivated, or uncultivated origin, for which I can learn the virtues & most harmonious configurations - to displace the concept of "weeds".

"We’re showered every day with the gifts of plants. They provide the food we eat, the air we breathe, and medicines for mind and body."

https://plantbabyplant.com/

"“There’s no such thing as a weed.” This concept, from renowned Japanese botanist Dr. Tomitaro Makino, reminds us that every plant in nature has its proper name and purpose. "

https://hanamikke.com/en/172.html/

Kathy Gray wrote: I had 2 (Autumn Olive Shrubs)—-Service Berry …
Much to my dismay, one of my neighbors cut one of them down to the ground!☹️
They came on my property!

That is pretty scary.

What community support might you be able to find, to hold your neighbour accountable for such harmful behaviour?

Good evening.  Although I only did observational astrophysics, and how it helps constrain cosmology, I do have an observational cosmologist to hand.

Our first note is, we are observing from within the system when it comes to the Universe.

So that's fundamentally different from when we observe a black hole, as in that case we're outside the system, and the event horizon.

With the Universe, there is no "outside" from which to observe it.  By definition, the Universe contains everything within itself.

I hope you feel better soon: no rush to reply!

Yes!  Giving more people the chance to try food gardening is one of the big 'selling points' for the project with the Allotments Committee and our local climate change group who are supporting us too.

A very good day today.  Our first "graduate" of the Community Plot, who is renting their own allotment plot for the first time ever this Autumn, came with their neighbour. I was there with my wonderful partner D (life & gardening).

We all had a cracking "gardening party".  

As it's unseasonably mild still, our runner bean plants are still lush & green.  So we transplanted some of the volunteer strawberries from around them, and started the process of mulching them with (green) nettles & various straw.

Then we reviewed the progress so far on the new Community Plot, and transplanted a cherry sucker out of the vegetable beds there.

D edited the volunteer plants around our red summer raspberries on our personal plot (knocking back the creeping grass & bindweed, both of which can get smothering if unedited).

The rest of us worked on clearing the volunteer plants in the new plotholders plot, including golden plum suckers. These I've heeled in on the old community plot, by agreement with the site secretary.

Perennials growing in the new personal plot include golden plums, a cooking apple tree, gooseberries, variagated sage, raspberries (unknown type), lavender, and other herbs too.  So the new plot-holder was able to take home the last of the lavender flowers.

Also, another allotment holder has a glut of eating apples which they've donated to the community.  We've already send 100 of the best, ripe biggest ones to the Black-led Mutual Aid. So the remainders we picked over on the tree today. Our two volunteer people went home with a bag each of unblemished apples, and another of windfalls.

They were so happy!  And even the forecast rain stayed away.

Just a wonderful afternoon.

And we hope to be able to reconvene tomorrow, and do more.  This is what it's all about!

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote: that the starchy root is eaten in Mesoamerica.

I missed this earlier.  

Anyone reading who has reliable information about eating runner bean roots?

Various reports online from "delicious" to "meh" to "made me ill".

Plants for a Future also has a reference to the tubers being poisonous: https://pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Phaseolus+coccineus from Hedrick. U. P. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications 1972 ISBN 0-486-20459-6

We are slowly making progress: our hardy overwintering broad beans have their first leaves up!  

An enthusiastic neighbour was finally able to come & help out last weekend, someone who is very keen to learn more about gardening, and already has a lot of useful trades skills.  Hopefully they'll be able to help again this weekend too.  

One of the other allotment holders is going to replace their small polytunnel cover this weekend, because it was a zipped design and the zips have gone.  But it will fit nicely over the frame of our mesh/shade structure on the community plot.  So we might well be able to upgrade ours to a winter growing area for free!

We have obtained magic beans (see picture).   Nearly a year ago, a friend donated a huge box of seeds to the project, mostly within a few years of being 'in date'.  With some trouble due to the drought in England this summer, we grew out about a dozen runner bean (multiflora) plants which seem to be starting to mature viable seeds thanks to our mild Autumn.

Now I've learned that you can overwinter runner beans if you're careful & lucky, because they make tubers!!  As per this thread: https://permies.com/t/56740/ways-runner-bean-tubers-overwinter I have what I need to try this three-way experiment - home-saved seed, overwintered in situ, overwintered in pots & replanted.  

Runner beans are quite a popular vegetable around here, where the immature pods are sliced & lightly cooked.  So if we can raise more plants by overwintering, this could be really valuable for our community food project which always struggles to have enough fresh vegetables.  Watch this space!

Today I learned this!

I have saved some runner bean seeds already.

So I'm going to do a three arm experiment:

(1) Save any more mature seeds to start as usual in Spring, planting out mid-May after our last aversge frost;

(2) Heavily mulch half the plants in situ with nettles & other straw, to feed the tubers for Spring;

(3) Lift the rest of the plants to overwinter in the shed then plant in a new location with a rich mulch e.g garden compost in mid-May.

Watch this space!

All the details are now up!

Madhavi Kolte, Co-founder of Jeeva Bhavana in India and part of a regional sustainable growing network, is a keynote speaker.

Helen Atthowe and Iain Tolhurst are too.

The talks are pre-recorded and subtitled, to make them accessible across timezones, help those who aren't L1 in English, and those who need a longer time to access all the sessions (I think they're available for 12 months).

(There are also live activities over the next two weeks, I think you can contact the organisers about the fees if they're unaffordable for you).

The focus weekend is Fri 7 - Sun 9 Nov for the 2025 Veganic Summit, but it's a year-round growing community in practice.