The question is - how can a group of people spend 3 hours talking about their gardens and what seeds / plants / produce etc they have brought from it to share with the others?
The answer is - when they are the Hills and Plains Seedsavers.We gather in the straw bale house and swap our goodies and eat lots of home-made food and talk, one after the other, about what we brought, what we have been doing in the garden and anything else of relevance.
I didn't take any notes because I didn't want to miss anything while writing, but now wish I had. Everyone...every single person there....had something interesting and often wonderfully entertaining or fascinating to say. We also had 3 new members.....and that reminds me I still have their $5 lifetime membership fees in my pocket.....anyway, they joined in as though we were old friends. Jan is decorating a spare ceramic toilet bowl which she plans to plant with herbs and put in her front garden! Ting, from Taiwan, brought us some delicious stinging nettle rice cakes and will put the recipe on here when I get around to sending her an invitation to post. Judy is digging up her front lawn and planting fruit trees...and so it goes on.
Cath brought a bucket full to the brim with yacon corms plus the purple roots to plant and a gorgeous basket that someone had creatively made suitable for carrying gardening tools; Deb brought a basket of assorted citrusand other things; Kath of the broccoli fame, brought spinach and other seedlings and Mary...now Mary brought something altogether unusual and I will write a separate thing about it but the gist of it is that it is a type of disgusting looking fungus that multiplies when you feed it black tea and sugar.
.
You soak a small piece of the fungus in the sweet tea for a week durng which time it grows bigger and bigger and then drink the liquid for unbelievable health benefits, the most potent being its ability to fight cancers as discovered in a Russian village.....I will put the photos of this on a separate post.
Outside in the community garden it is a picture postcard type of place and all the vegetables are looking as good as the broccoli in this photo.
You could not hope to meet a nicer, more enthusiastic bunch of crazy food gardeners anywhere!
There are lots more photos here.
Being crazy food gardeners is good. Meet one soon and catch some of their enthusiasm!
.
Posts
4 comments:
What a bummer that I could not come! Would have loved to participate.
Is there ever any chance of these gatherings being on a weekend?! Weekdays are still working days, unfortunately.
It sounds like you had a wonderful time. That's what I like about blogging, the generosity and sharing.
It was an inspirational day. I noticed as we went around the table that most people mentioned the work Kate had done in their gardens! Gosh she gets around and aren't we all grateful!!!
Here here to a weekend gatherings of seedsavers. It is tricky to get out of work.. don't want to let my good boss down (good bosses are so hard to come by). I know weekends are for other social occasions but I do agree with Veggie gnome, it would be great to be able to participate now and again.
The lifestyle is ideal for our current climate. How much gardening knowledge has already been lost? What a lovely opportunity to be encouraging and encouraged to tread lighly and preserve what we do have. Thanks Kate and all for sharing on this blogg, it helps to know there are others who love their gardens and hope for the future.
Post a Comment