Wildlife Gardening Forum: conference 21 Oct 13

TTT joined this bi-annual conference yesterday at the University Hospital, Coventry. The Wildflife Garden Forum is a voluntary UK-wide group including local and national projects and charities, researchers and academics, local authorities and government agencies. The Forum's intention is to share evidence and practice about the value of wildlife to gardening (and people) - and vice versa.

Yesterday's conference topic was 'Human Health and Wildlife Gardening' - please see the agenda here. An excellent range of speakers covered up-to-date research and personal experience of the links between our own health, wellbeing and happiness, and the health and biodiversity of wildlife.

It's a topic that's one of the keys to sustainability in Tooting.

A very exciting feature of the day was the focus on wildlife and nature's role across the NHS itself: including softer benefits such as the value of amenity and beauty, and harder evidence including faster recovery times. The University Hospital's Sustainable Development Manager gave us a tour of some of the easy-to-see elements of working with nature: the Hospital has created a wild space of reeds and young trees, next to a small river newly-populated by otters.

We have some good new contacts and ideas for taking forward these possibilities in Tooting - in a very different setting from a new-build hospital, but still with plenty of potential.

Work & Play Scrapstore in Tooting

I made a visit to the recently re-opened Work and Play Scrapstore in Blackshaw Rd this week. Running for over 20 years, the Scrapstore promotes the re-use of resources for environmental and community benefit and has a great collection of card, trimmings, fabric, plastics, carpet pieces and costumes.  The Scrapstore is a registered charity and provides resources to  schools, community groups and local artists - TTT's art making group SMArT visits regularly.  

Many thanks to Scrapstore volunteers Alison, Elizabeth, Lucy & Susan (all pictured) for showing me around.  The ethos of the Scrapstore seems a good fit with Transition ideas, and would be a great resource for future events.  

Meanwhile can anyone out there assist the Scrapstore with donations?  I was given a wishlist of desirable items so please do take any of the following down there on a Tuesday if you are able. dt

Wishlist:
finer fabrics, felt, metal bottle tops, coloured card and paper, ribbon, laces, haberdashery, buttons, sewing tape, zips, elastic, knitting wool, plastic offcuts, plastic foam in sheets (2mm thick and up), wine corks, paper cups and plates.

Find out more at http://workandplayscrapstore.org.uk

'After the Foodival' open meeting 15th October

TTT Open Meeting Tuesday 15th October - looking forward at TTT and local activities to build on the energy of the Foodival

Please come along: we have a regular TTT meeting in the upstairs room at The Selkirk in Selkirk Road, SW17 0ES on Tuesday at 7pm. All are welcome. We'll aim to tap in to the energy raised by, and have a bit of a debrief from, the Foodival - and hear about ongoing opportunities to get involved with existing projects.

Maybe you have a project idea you'd like to develop with others?  

If so why not come along and share with the group?

This meeting will have a structured section as well as time to chat. 

Please contact us if you are interested in presenting at this meeting: email us here

Our latest TTT mail out to subscribers was sent on the 11th October: click here to read a copy.

No TTT post is complete without a photo: so here are 2 from yesterdays' plant printing session for families at Gatton School's Big Draw and Cultural Day - thanks for asking us!

Meanwhile TTT was also at yesterday's St George's Hospital Community Open Day, where we dished out a lot of Community Garden seeds and had some good conversations. 

And how about the medical students dance society?  They should have been on the stage at Foodival - maybe next year, they were great!

Garden tea in the sun, and a visit in the rain

In the beautiful weather of Sunday 6th October we made tea at the Community Garden using our volcano kettle, trying out some of the wild plants Mark Watson suggested during the Tooting Foodival.



We sorted sunflower seeds for
drying and sowing next year

As well as enjoying cakes made with Garden brambles and local apples (thanks to the bakers Charlotte, Liz, and Gillian and Phoebe), we did some gardening too. We tidied the herb bed; planted elephant garlic; turned over weeds to dry in the sun. Thinking of future possibilities, we looked at samples of home-made paper incorporating garden plants - an idea for the garden-grown wheat straw that we have saved.


The visit in the rain was today, from Lina and Emil who are starting up a new project in Malmö, Sweden - a city farm to

be run as a local food production, green employment and sustainability hub - maybe the first in Sweden. We'll share more when it all gets going.



Foodival Video & Press

Some snippets of video from the Foodival plus last week's Wandsworth Guardian article.  Thanks again to everyone who made this such a fantastic event for the 6th year in a row. Can't wait for the next one!  Please tell us what you thought about Foodival 2013 HERE.  Thanks!