wholefood kitchen

Coretta Van Wijk‘s first baby courgettes.

New shoots! My peas are going for it. Crying out to find a place in my vegetable bed. It won’t be long now. I feel like a concerned parent. Is it too early for them to be allowed to run outside?

My foray into vegetable gardening begins in earnest. Time to plant some seeds! Very satisfying it was too, to select and soak a range of seeds overnight before populating some indoor seed trays, and eagerly await signs of germination. If you are of a slightly queasy nature, please look away now… the seed soaking included some of my own saliva. It may be an old wives tale (in fact, it is. It comes from the writings of Anastasia, a Russian healer) and the theory is that creating such a ‘personal’ connection with your plants encourages them to develop in a way which complements your own physiology. It makes some sense. It certainly brings the idea of local and seasonal food very close to home. I’m looking forward to see what grows from this.

Another special from this week vegetable bag was the first salad bag of 2011 – the salad leaves are grown in the Growing Communities Sites around Stoke Newington. Last summer I volunteered at the site in Allen Gardens and it really inspired me to grow vegetables at  home. I was chuffed to see this bag, knowing what it takes to produce it. It was fresh, with lots of different flavours (mustard leaves, coriander etc). I dressed it very simply with a pinch of salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I tried a sliced of  my home made sourdough rye bread, very smooth and almost sweet with some beautiful buffalo milk cheese from the market of course… In the bread, instead of adding molasse as the recipe suggest, I used carob syrup…the result was really good. I am still wondering about the quality of carob syup. I found it in a Turkish shop. Sometime people use carob flour as a replacement for cocoa, a bit different, it is also a bean though. Any thoughts?

A word of thanks to the stallholders at the Stoke Newington Farmers Market, who brave the elements each and every week in bringing their produce to market, and face particular challenges over the winter months to extract produce from the frozen soil. Thanks also to Kerry Rankin and other members of the Growing Communities team who have made an incredible commitment to providing local, organic produce to the Stoke Newington community each and every week throughout the year.

Welcome to the Hackney Harvest website. With the support of the excellent London Orchard Project, it will be used to map the fruit trees that are tucked away in squares, parks and gardens around Hackney. A wonderful community project, raising awareness of the ‘wild food’ in our urban midst. Thanks to Stoke Newington Market Chef Nicholas Furrow for the tip.

Old friend Lenny McLeod, with some freshly harvested Morangos, in Lisbon.

A visit to Growing Communities’ Plant Sale and organic market garden on Sunday 2 May in Springfield Park. New Salad Leaves and Chard springing up, and baby seedlings slowly coming to life under cover in the nursery. A fortuitous meeting with grower Sara Davies and Ed Posey from the Gaia Foundation.

A visit to Eco Day, run by the Sustainable Living Centre in New Lynn, West Auckland. A day of sustainable living stalls, workshops and demonstrations. Pictured is an organic garden in a state of evolution, complete with moveable Chicken Run designed to assist regeneration of the soil.