Grow your own organic food

Why grow organic?

Organic growing is gardening without using artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides or herbicides. It uses natural methods which The WEN local create a balance of wildlife to encourage food project offers healthy plant growth and pest control. support and training Traditional small scale growing (often by to groups of women women) has used these techniques success- growing food in fully for thousands of years. Women produce urban areas. more than half the world’s food and yet they own only 1% of the world’s land. Some reasons for growing your own organic food are: It saves money; it tastes great; it helps to keep you fit; you know that you are not eating genetically engineered foods or pesticides; it can be therapeutic and it saves on packaging. Fresh organic vegetables are often Somewhere to grow more nourishing than non-organic ones. Organic carrots for example, have a high You will need a sunny space with access to concentration of nutrients in the skin and only water. It could be a space amongst a flower need to be washed, but non-organic carrots, border, some pots, a windowsill or balcony. which have been treated with Organic gardener John Leavon estimates that organophosphates, must be peeled and so it is possible to grow enough fresh produce for unfortunately important nutrients are lost. a small family, for one year, on 3.5m2 (the size Growing organic food means that you have of a double bed sheet). control over what you eat. You and your family Allotments are very cheap to rent but and friends may already have growing skills sometimes have long waiting lists. and knowledge about methods like this. Get in touch with your local council for more details. If you live in London, on the Capital Growth website you can find a comprehensive Checking the soil list of growing spaces already in action which are normally hungry for volunteers! See useful contacts for more information. When you have a growing site, find out what the land has been used for before you start growing food in it – inner city areas may have “ Growing organic food means been contaminated by industry in the past. Your that you have control over what local authority may be able to tell you about the you eat. It saves money, tastes history of the land use. great and helps you keep fit.” Testing the soil for contamination is very expensive. A local university may be able to test the soil for free or for a small charge. Otherwise you will have to contact a private soil Chemical cocktails testing company. If there is any risk that the soil in your growing Pesticides are not selective. As well as pests, space has been contaminated, it is safer to they kill ‘gardener’s friends’, insects such as grow vegetables in containers or raised beds. If ladybirds, lacewings and beetles that naturally your site is a patch of concrete, you could build control pests by eating them. raised beds on top of this or grow food in containers. Pesticides also poison birds and animals briefing Organizations such as the Organic Research which eat insects, producing harmful effects Centre at Elm Farm offer advice on soil throughout the ecosystem. analysis for organic growers, to detect nutrient Nitrates from artificial fertilizers can leach into deficiencies in the soil. See useful contacts for water and poison rivers, killing fish and other more information. water life. When can you start? What do you need? What to grow?

Any time is a good time to start setting up a growing space. 1. You will need some tools to Mooli (white radish) can be grown as start with. Get a fork and You may have to wait for the soil to easily as red radishes. a spade first, to dig the warm up before planting seeds outside Chillies grow very well on sunny soil, then a watering can. but there is always something to do to windowsills or in a sheltered sunny place outside. start growing your own food. 2. A trowel or small fork is good for planting things. Pink fir apple potatoes are a tasty JANUARY old variety. Make a plan of your growing site. 3. A rake and a hoe are useful Chard, rocket, cabbage and kale are Make a compost heap. Trim hedges for sowing seeds and weeding. useful green vegetables for a late and trees. You may be able to borrow tools or harvest. buy them from car boot sales or FEBRUARY Grow your own mixed salad - online auction websites. Sow broad beans and onion sets expensive to buy, but quick and easy to grow, with a long harvesting season. outside. To reuse plant pots, wash the 4. You can collect seeds from shop- containers ready for planting later in bought vegetables. Easy seeds to You can include oriental leaves such the year. collect are peppers, aubergines, as mizuna and mustard. Older varieties of seeds are often less MARCH squash, tomatoes, and garlic bulbs. Sow early potatoes. Cover beds with fussy than modern hybrids and the compost or well-rotted manure. 5. Ask gardeners or allotment groups vegetables often have a better flavour. if they can spare some seeds. A diversity of plants encourages wild- APRIL life and does not exhaust the soil. 6. You can buy seeds from garden Sow tomatoes, aubergines and This gives more protection from courgettes indoors. centres or organic seed catalogues. diseases, pests and soil deficiencies. MAY 7. See useful contacts for some good Grow food, which is expensive or hard Plant out tender plants after danger of suppliers. Follow the sowing to find in the shops. frost has passed. instructions on the packet. Pumpkins and squashes are available in many different varieties as seeds and JUNE 8. Keep a journal of what you plant, they keep well. Sample text: Sow salads and peas when, where – and if it was a Coriander is easy to grow. every week so that they are not all success. This will help you learn ready at once. what grows best in your plot or containers. JULY Feed plants in containers with dilute comfrey liquid. Water crops regularly. Saving water AUGUST Sow winter salads such as oriental brassicas and rocket. If your plot is near your home, try to use your bath and washing up water for your SEPTEMBER “ Grow groundcover plants plants. Grow groundcover plants around As you harvest crops, fill bare patches larger plants, and water in the evening or around larger plants, and with fast-growing salad crops or early morning to cut down on evaporation ‘green manures’ such as mustard or water in the evening or early from the soil. field beans. If you have a shed or a greenhouse on morning to cut down on OCTOBER your plot, install guttering and you can evaporation from the soil.” Collect autumn leaves for a leaf mould collect rainwater in a water butt. heap. Leave it for 18 months - two years to break down into a humus- 2.Potatoes n an old dustbin rich mulch. 4. Runner beans in large 1.Collect rainwater in a butt pots on the ground NOVEMBER Plant trees and bushes. Store vegetables in boxes of sand in a cool 3. Trailing tomatoes in a bucket dry place. Dig in manure. Cover any bare soil.

DECEMBER Order seeds. Sow onion sets and garlic. Check over and mend tools.

2 | WEN briefing: Grow your own organic food Feeding the soil Things you can make

To keep plants supplied with food, you need to take care of the soil around them. Composting and 3. Fill old tyres with compost and mulching are two methods that will grown pumpkin plants help you build up a fertile soil, even if the land hasn’t been used for growing plants before. You can buy 1. Lettuce in pots, organic compost but it’s cheaper to troughs and make it yourself, and a good way to windowsills recycle kitchen waste.

MAKING COMPOST MULCHING Mulching means putting a thick layer on top of the soil. You could use dry grass cuttings, leaf mould or wood chippings. It doesn’t add nutrients to 2. Use your old yoghurt pots and soft drink the soil, but prevents water bottles to grow young vegetable plants evaporating and smothers weeds. Mulch slowly breaks down and helps keep good soil structure. If you are Liquid plant food Seed trays and planting pots starting a new garden from scratch, Half fill a container with nettles or Collect plastic trays from supermarket mulching is an easy way of clearing a comfrey leaves and top it up with water. fruit and vegetables to use as seed new growing space of weeds. Knock Cover it and leave it for about one trays. Plant up young plants in card- weeds down flat and cover with month, or until the leaves have broken board toilet roll tubes and stack these in newspapers, cardboard or old carpet down into a dark mess. Dilute one part the trays. (don’t use carpet with a rubber of the liquid with three parts water Cut off the bottom of plastic drink underlay). Make sure there are no gaps and plenty of overlap between before using it. bottles and use these as planting pots. pieces so that weeds cannot zig-zag Comfrey liquid plant food is high in You can use clear plastic bottles between them. Peat is an endanger- potassium and nitrogen and has all the as miniature greenhouses for tender ed natural resource, often used as nutrients that are in a shop-bought plants such as chillies or aubergines. mulch or potting compost. You can tomato feed. use coir or leaf mould instead. Compost adds nutrients to the soil as it breaks down and improves the soil structure. Make compost from virtually any organic matter - Permaculture Good companions collecting kitchen and garden waste is the easiest way to do this. You can The word permaculture comes from Companion planting add eggshells, tea bags, grass ‘permanent agriculture’ and is a garden means grouping cuttings, screwed up or shredded design system that involves more than plants together to paper and cardboard egg boxes to your compost heap. Don’t put animal just growing food. benefit each other. Marigolds, fennel bones or meat in it - they will attract Organic growing is a component of a and nasturtiums rats. Try to get a good balance permaculture system. are companion between green material (like The aim is to produce a sustainable vegetable peelings or grass cuttings) plants, which encourage ladybirds and environment based on natural cycles, and brown material (like hoverflies (both aphid-eating insects) to where each element of the design cardboard). Make compost in a shop- a garden. contributes to the whole system, rather bought container, an old dustbin or Onions, chives and garlic protect than having just one function. make one out of old pallets. Get in against plant diseases and pests, but touch with your local council to see if Permaculture encourages they can also suppress plant growth. they will provide free or low cost diversity of species, Corn, beans and squash are compost bins. recycling and good companions; corn provides beans Successful composting needs efficient use of with tall stalks to grow up, the beans fix moisture, air, and a mixture of space and materials. nitrogen into the soil and the organic materials. You may need to For more Information squash keeps the soil moist. turn the compost heap occasionally see our website to speed it up. For more information contact contacts page. Garden Organic, in the useful “ Mulching is an easy way contacts section. of clearing a new growing Tearing up egg boxes helps them break down more quickly. space of weeds.”

WEN briefing : Grow your own organic food | 3 Encouraging wild life Common weeds

Over time an organic garden develops a Weeds are only plants growing in the wrong balance of wildlife, which helps to control place - or those that you haven’t yet found a pests. You can make wildlife welcome by use for! They often indicate fertile soil and can providing food and shelter. provide an important source of food for garden friends. Bees and butterflies pollinate flowers so that plants produce For example as ladybirds emerge from fruit. Buddleia, rosemary and hibernation they feast on early nettle WEN’s mission marigolds will draw them into aphids, so a patch of nettles in your is to make the your growing space. growing space is a good thing. connections between Birds add manure to the Some weeds do need controlling, women’s health and garden and eat a variety of and there will always be some weeds wellbeing and pests including leatherjackets, to get rid of. Here are a few common environmental issues. greenfly and snails. Leave ones: Deep rooted weeds such as It aims to empower seed heads in the winter for dandelions, dock and thistles will women to become agents of change in birds to feed on. need to be dug out to prevent them their families, networks Hoverflies like bright, from re-growing. Ground elder is a and society and to shallow flowers to feed on, common weed whose brittle roots participate equally in such as convolvulus and spread quickly, particularly if they are an environmentally marigolds. They eat large chopped up by a rotovator. The only sustainable future. quantities of greenfly and sure way to deal with it is by carefully their eggs. Frogs and toads digging up the roots, however, it is also eat slugs and snails. edible, along with other native plants, Memberships: They like cool damp places. chickweed and salad burnett. By Any shady place can be a home identifying your weeds you may find Standard - £20 for frogs and toads. A small pond other uses for them as salad Unwaged - £12 will encourage them to stay and breed. vegetables. Horsetail is an ‘indicator Supporting - £40 Hedgehogs eat millipedes, cutworms and slugs, plant’. It shows that the soil is poorly Organizations among other pests. If you are lucky enough to have drained. As well as weeding, add organic £35 to £150 a hedgehog living nearby, a small dish of dog or cat matter and improve drainage to prevent depending on size food left out at night will encourage it to stay. regrowth. It is poisonous.

Useful contacts

Garden Organic Permaculture Association www.gardenorganic.org.uk www.permaculture.org.uk

Capital Growth Real Seeds- seed suppliers www.capitalgrowth.org www.realseeds.co.uk

Organic Research Centre- Elm Farm Seedy Sunday- seed swapping info www.organicresearchcentre.com www.seedysunday.org

WEN Ground Floor Further reading 20 Club Row Organic Gardening Weeds: How to Control and Love Them London Lawrence D. Hills (Penguin) Jo Readman (HDRA/Garden Organic) E2 7EY T 020 7481 9004 F 020 7481 9144 [email protected] Illustrations by Keir Wickenham  Women’s Environmental Network  Printed on 100% recycled paper www.wen.org.uk