Photos of wintery start to the new year

We'll be open again from Mon 21st Jan, and we'll be marking our re-opening for the new year with a Wassail. We will be open every Monday and Tuesday 9:30 til 4pm and when Spring kicks every day except Thursday. Weekend open on first Saturday of the month.

The new willow circle.

Group effort

Thanks to the efforts of different groups including a volunteer day from Burges and Salmon and HSBC we have now got the third poly tunnel dug over and prepared for the new season. Lots more tomatoes to come.  Lots of hard work went into these as the soil has be covered in plastic for many years and very compacted.

Apple pressing

After much debate about the lack of fruit on trees this year because of the bad weather we decided it was time to harvest the apples. We are fortunate to have a lot of very big mature apple trees, with lots of different varieties. Lots of the tree did have a good crop as they were so big. We discovered some very good little red apples which make excellent eater and a range of cooking apples. The combination of different apples on site means that you get the right ratio for making...cider. On the glorious sunny day we set to it harvesting and crushing. In the end we counted 24 gallons of apple juice. Half of this has been shared with Simms Hill and the other half is bubbling away gentle getting ready for our Wossail event on the 26th Jan. Wossail is used to welcome in the new year and to bless the land in the hope of another excellent growing season. January is a perfect time to have a big event as we can shake off winter and launch ourselves into the new season.

Winter bed preperation

After the glorious tomatoes harvest we are now preparing for winter. We have built up the edges of the beds so we can add more compost and now planting winter salads. This incudes Rocket, Mezuna, Endives, winter lettuce, Pak Choi, and mustard leaves. Outside we will continue to harvest kale, chard, cabbage, fennel, beetroot, leeks, purple sprouting broccoli and brussel sprouts. The harvesting rolls on.

Thanks to Ian for hosting a day of investigating herbal medicinal remedies that can be found on the site. It was amazing to see what a range of things we have at our disposal on site. Everything from remedies for viral infections to a broken heart. This was followed by an afternoon of tea making and sampling tinctures. Incredible wisdom that we can use to improve our own health and its all around us for free.

A glorious golden evening with the Jamaican elders. We had a huge feast laid on by their chef using a lot of seasonal veg, Jerk Chicken and Fish. This was followed by a very chilled reggae band. Just to mix things up this was sponsored by the Community Sustainable Energy Programme which was there to give advice about energy saving for the elderly. A magic night had by all.
 

Harvest Festival

We had great fun at the Harvest Festival celebrating a very productive first year. Other than involving lots of different community groups, putting down the infrastructure, setting up effective teams of volunteers, making a splash and networking with the buzzing local food scene in Bristol, we have also been growing some immensely tasty vegetables.

Saturday was all about showing people how we did it and then feasting on all the lovely organic veg. Thanks to all chefs and creative people we made an assortment of dishes. We danced several jigs and ate many a slices of tremendously tasty cake from the 'Grow Your Own' herbal cafe. We have been growing a range of herbs to fill our tea pots and keep us healthy through the seasons.

Community achievement award

On the 29th Sept we won a Community Achievement award as part of Bristol in Bloom. Many many thanks to all the hard work of everyone for getting involved and supporting all of the different community groups we work with.

Every group that has taken part so far has fed back that the support from the volunteers and the accommodating nature of the project has been exceptional. As project manager I take my hat off to all those that have made everyone feel so welcome on the site. Because of that we have achieved so much this year.

A huge thanks from Matt and Susan.

Oxfam recognition for the great work in local food production

Feed Bristol has been nominated by Oxfam for a Local Food Heroes Award. To get a different view on the project check out their blog from their site visit to Feed Bristol.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/south-west-blog/2012/09/food-heroes-feed-bristol-growing-food-and-community-spirit

Mature forest garden

It may be hard to make out but we have a mature forest garden running through the site. There is a diverse range of fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry and plum) which form part of an old orchard. Through the winter we will be restoring the trees back to good health with lots of pruning and ivy clearance. Some trees we will leave as the ivy creates a great habitat for bees and insects which is food for our resident wood pecker plus other bird life.

 

Closer to the ground there are raspberries, black berries and wild strawberries. Lower down a herb layer for our teas with lots of chamomile, yarrow and mint. The mixed herbs and flowers have attracted lots of different variety of bee and several varieties of hover fly which are essential for keeping down green fly and aphids.

 

In Spring this area makes a fantastic habitat for the birds and in winter a good wind break to shelter the site from cold winds. The lovely access for all path was put in by a community payback team and is maintained by different community groups. This allows full access across the site by people with different mobility needs and handy for picking out fruity harvest.

The BIG green house

On our 7 acre site we were fortunate enough to inherit lots of different resources. One of them is a 40 by 30meter square green house. This has amazing potential but this year as we have so much to get going on the rest of the site we have given it over to Simms Hill Shared Harvest. So if you receive a veg box from them your veg would probably of been grown in here. This has made a huge difference to Simms Hill as the weather outside has been so bad for growing.

At Feed Bristol we host a range of different groups. Last week eight young people from Otesha camped over for five days. Otesha are a groups that organise cycle tours around the country with groups that promote environmental sustainability and peace. We were very grateful for their support in helping on the land. http://www.otesha.org.uk/

Thanks to some hard work by a corporate volunteer day by Savils we managed to finish of the building work in front of our teaching barn. We laid hard standing and put in 4 raised beds on a very hot day. We now have access for all to our kitchen and barn so more different groups can access the project. The raised beds will also help those groups that come with limited mobility.

Whilst we do grow vegetables we also spend a lot of time poking around looking at wildlife on the site. One of aims of Feed Bristol is to connect people with nature through food growing. One day we discovered a real monster lurking in the corner of the green house. This is a giant edible puff ball found by James.

A share of the harvest

Despite one of the worst growing seasons in the past 100 years we have had a very good first season.  This shows why grade 1 agricultural soil is so important for the security of local food production. As a result we have been able to share our harvest with  many different community groups including local nursing homes, Easton community centre cafe, Wild Goose, Bristol Refugee Rights and Fare Share. If you are a community group that wants to get involved and share the harvest please get in touch.

Official launch of Feed Bristol!

Thanks to all of the support so far, we finally got to a big milestone – the official opening of the site by the Lord Mayor.

We had a group from Begbrook and Glenfrome Primary schools as well as a group from Milestone. The young people explored nature in our wild meadow and down our woodland trail. They also helped plant up our ‘Sun Burst Garden’.

The Mayor swapped his white gloves for some gardening gloves and got involved with helping to plant in the ‘Sun Burst Garden’. He helped put the final herbs into our herb garden made out of 100 year old rhubarb forcing chimneys.

Rapid transport road consultation link

We would like to make you aware of how the proposed rapid transport route will effect Feed Bristol and the surrounding area. It is being consulted on at the moment so if you would like to make your opinions heard, now is the time and it must be done in writing: online feedback form

EVERY COMMENT MAKES A DIFFERENCE SO PLEASE RESPOND BY 13TH JULY.

If you would like to check out the plans for the proposed road through the site have a look at www.travelwest.info/nfh

The section that effects Feed Bristol is: Zone 4: North Bristol - UWE to Bristol City Centre


If you look at the maps the road will cut across the bottom of the communal field with the small plots, through the woodland glade and straight across the big field through to the corner of the large greenhouse. We will loose nearly half the site.


The road is going to planning this Autumn and the consultation ends on 13th July. To make any comments about the proposals please use the online comments form by clicking here: online feedback form


Many thanks for your support.

A suprise visitor!

At Feed Bristol we have lots of wildlife. Whilst giving a tour around the wild flower meadow we discovered a new species lurking on the edge of the woodland. Not a gardeners favourite when roaming free. His name is Dave and he normaly lives next door, can you guess what he is?

Earthing up the spuds

Our potatoes are now up in the big field and going well. We have to keep on-top of the hoeing and earthing up and now have an expert team.

Thanks to big helping hands on the big fields

We have managed to finally get onto the big fields and plant out our main crops.  We had a team in from the Environment Agency to give us a big hand.  To meet our objective of supporting community groups with different abilities we organise big volunteer days where organisations can get involved as part of their commitment to social and environmental responsibility. On these days we can do lots of work in a short amount of time. This means we can offer any community group that comes to join in a decent share of the harvest.

A new face for the old shop

Thanks to Rachel and Pierce our ‘old shop’ at the front gate has been transformed into a beautiful welcoming building that is now our volunteer hub. Over time we will add to the mural and bring life back into more of the old building around the site.

Sunburst Garden

Come rain or shine we have managed to establish one of our communal growing areas in just a month. It provides a great demonstration for rotation cropping as each veg family group moves around the different sun beams.

Get Growing Trail

Thanks to a huge amount of effort by everyone involved Feed Bristol was up and running for the Get Growing Trail, our first public open day and a huge milestone.  Amazingly we have only been going for three months and the place is alive with different growing spaces and infrastructure to meet different people’s needs.

There were demonstrations of how to grow from balconies to bountiful fields,  Junk’n’food workshops (planting in old smelly wellies), a grand new mural bloomed across the old grey shop front and a stunning range of tea and cake from our ‘Grow Your Own Herbal Cafe’.  This was all accompanied by some delightful sunshine and the soothing sounds of Jose’s Latino quintet.  This was all topped off with a large BBQ round our new fire circle in the Glade.

A massive thanks to all involved and a big welcome to all those that came along and want to get involved.

Rehabilitating the soil

Our second poly tunnel is being be revitalised and brought back to life. The soil has been compacted and baked dry over the years. Plants were grown in pots rather than in the compact lifeless soil.  Our team of dedicated miners got to work with sharpened forks and chiselled away.  We didn’t find a single living thing. It is now on an intense organic diet to rehabilitate the amazing soil. Firstly it was dug over, then soaked and finally the rotavator could break up the rock like structure. Piles of compost have been dug in along with some organic cow manure heaving with worms. Like a miracle the beautiful red soil looks alive again.  We will nourished the soil with liquid feed made from nettles, plant mustard which can be dug in and add some vermaculture juice from a local wormery thanks to Richard and his army of worms. Hopefully we will see a crop of tomatoes by late summer. Over the coming years we will steadily rebuild the soil structure until it is teaming with life again.

Sun Burst

We got fed up of waiting for the rain to stop so on a slightly less wet day we tentatively crept out and designed a huge sunburst pattern across our demonstration allotment.  It looks fantastic and sure enough two days later it coaxed the sun just in time for our Saturday gang to start some much needed weeding.  We had to  use scaffolding boards to walk on to save the soil from getting too compact. Two workdays later we have our first bed planted up with peas!! Great effort everyone.  The ‘Sunburst Garden’ will work like a sun dial with different families of crops working their way around each year in a rotation.

And one month later.........

We have been pushing on despite the rain over the last few weeks. In this weather it's to wet to work the soil and we have to be patient. Fortunately we have some big poly tunnels to work in. One is for propagating seeds which is now heaving at the seems. A huge range of things bursting to get outside into the soil.  We have been building propagation tables, compost mixing bays so we can process our own compost, and frames for bird netting. We are never short of jobs and people that come down are learning a range of skills. On Tuesday evening we stripped down the old sad looking poly tunnel door and rebuilt it using all the old parts, thanks to some handy skills by Andy and Henry.

Teeming with wildlife

Things are shaping up on site. Many thanks to all of the people that have helped out so far. We have had teams of volunteers in who have been learning how we are turning long term pasture back into productive land for growing vegetables, whilst being very careful to minimise and protect the wildlife that has taken up residence.

Starling (Mike Dimmery)

Sections of the fields have been ploughed in blocks leaving nature corridors. As we go we have been checking for slow worm and other reptiles. We have discovered that the large meadow and overgrown fruit tree glade area is a favourite lunching spot for a flock of resident Starlings. They are become quite rare so nice to see a big family of them enjoying the delights on offer in our field.

All the boundaries are heaving with blossom as they are made up of mature fruit trees. Amongst them are apples, pears, plums and cherry. Most have been unmanaged for years so are full of ivy and covered in moss. This makes a great habitat for nesting birds and potentially the dormice on site. In the evening there are a lot of bats flying overhead. The old barn and ivy-covered trees create great roosts for the bats, and the meadows and overgrown boundaries provide them with an abundance of food.

Spuds, herbs and flowers

Thanks to VaultexUK and KPMG for sending us groups as part of their social responsibility schemes. It has been a great help and now 90kg of potatoes have been planted just in time for the rain.

Vaultex teams have been helping plant an array of beneficial herbs and flowers to be planted amongst our crops. 

KPMG started creating an entrance way feature raised bed which will be the welcome garden. This will be planted up with a range of flowers which will attract beneficial insects and can also be eaten.

First potatoes in the ground!

The first potatoes are now in the ground at the Feed Bristol site! This is one stage in a gradual process of bringing the land back into use for growing crops.
This year part of the site will be given over to growing annual vegetable crops, some of the land will be planted with green manures to increase fertility and suppress weeds, while some will be left for meadow and brought into cultivation in coming years.
Work building our new centre is still underway and there are smaller construction tasks ahead like putting in paths, recovering one of the polytunnels and building raised beds.
With planning and design work still going on it was great to have a down-to-earth day, get back to basics and feel the lovely sandy soil between our fingers, working alongside volunteers planting out 'Orla' potatoes -  an early variety that will be ready to harvest in August. We still have plenty more to put in - 5 different varieties that will give us a potato harvest from July to October. 

Introducing Matt

Matt Cracknell has joined us as the Project Worker for the Feed Bristol project. He has been working on the project for a couple of weeks and has been very busy getting his ideas for the land together, making plans for involving groups and communities in the project as well as putting in that all important seed order.

Matt has an incredible enthusiasm for the project and he can't wait to get people out on the land growing with him.

Community Payback team helps make land safe

A team of young people on the community payback scheme are helping us clear up the site this week. They are going over every inch of the site collecting metal, glass, wood and other debris so that we can make it safe for groups and especially children to come to the project to help grow food.

They have been working so fast that we are hoping they will be able to help us to clear one of the old greenhouses of rubbish this week too so we can begin sowing seeds and growing plants there in the next week or so.

We are separating all of the material we find so that it can be recycled and as little of it goes to landfill as possible.

Site buildings on their way

Work is well underway to build the facilities we need so that groups and schools can get involved in the project. The foundations for the site toilets, training room and community space were laid last week and our contractor has been busy starting to put the beginnings of the buildngs in place.

This has to be done very carefully so that we do not disturb the badger sett that is close to where the buildings are going up. We also have to be very careful to make sure that heavy machinery does not make the soil too compact and our contractors are following set out routes on the site.

We hope to have the site toilets in place very quickly which means that people will be able to begin to visit the plot and we can get growing there.

Introducing Susan

Meet Susan Rogers. She is going to be Feed Bristol's Seasonal Project Worker, helping you to grow food on the Feed Bristol site if you come for a visit. Susan joined us for our big site sort out session last week, although she doesn't really start work until the middle of March.

Susan's enthusiasm for the project and for growing food is truly infectious and we can't wait for her to start working with us.

Sorting out the site

Avon Wildlife Trust staff held a workday on Friday 24th February to begin sorting out the land. This included collecting anything useful that we could reuse like old plant pots and hose pipes and putting them away somewhere safe. We found all sorts of useful things including some ancient weighing scales that will take pride of place in the Feed Bristol Centre when it is completed. The other big job for the day was marking out the buffer zone around the badger sett on the site to make sure no building work or tractor ploughing disturbs the badgers.
We also plan to make sure the area around the badger sett becomes a really good area for wildflowers attracting more bees and other useful insects to the land. It's very important to us that all of the food growing that takes place at Feed Bristol is nature friendly and this includes making space for creatures, like badgers, that might enjoy digging up some of the vegetables we will be trying to grow - we hope to minmise this by making sure their favourite trails are not planted with veg because it would only put temptation in their way!

Feed Bristol about to start

After more than two years of planning, our new Feed Bristol project is about to start. Avon Wildlife Trust has just taken over 7 acres of market gardens at Parkside Nurseries on Frenchay Park Rd in Stapleton. Over the next couple of months we will be transforming it in to a place where anyone and everyone can come along and help us grow some tasty, nature friendly food.

We've got a lot of work to do to transform the site in to a friendly and inspiring place for people. We'll be putting in basic facilities like toilets and a special building for training and relaxing as well as creating raised beds for disabled growers, small plots for schools and community groups and ploughing up areas to grow vegetables.

The land is already good for wildlife with old hedgerows and fruit trees, but we will be making it even better by planting flowery corridors for bees and butterflies and creating a big pond for frogs and toads. This will make Feed Bristol an even more exciting and special place to visit and the natural balance should mean that our vegetables do not suffer from too many pests and diseases.

We start all this work tomorrow, so watch this space to witness the transformation!

If you want to get involved in this project, please email us at feedbristol@avonwildlifetrust.org.uk

Feed Bristol has been made possible with funding and support from Big Lottery Local Food Scheme, Bristol Green Capital Community Challenge Fund and Bristol City Council.