Talking Turnips #1 Woodlands Community Garden

This is the first interview for Talking Turnips and its setting off a chain reaction of interviews amongst the many Local Food projects in Glasgow.

We'll be posting an interview every month (or more often if you're lucky) from a Local Food project in Glasgow, by a Local Food project in Glasgow. Each interviewee gets the opportunity to become interviewer for the next Talking Turnips, and can chose a local food project that they want to interview.

This month, Roz Corbett, who is a volunteer for Urban Roots and Dennistoun Diggers, interviews Tim Cowen from Woodlands Community Garden. If you're interested in being interviewed, or being an interviewer, please email Roz 

Open Letter on GM

Last week Environment Secretary Owen Paterson backed introducing genetically modified (GM) food production in the UK. In his speech he said there were "real environmental benefits" to the technology and dismissed concerns about its impact on human health as "complete nonsense".


The Scottish Government opposes GM foods and so our good friends over at The Fife Diet have written an open letter to the new Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse MSP and to James Withers, Scotland Food and Drink’s CEO urging them to re-articulate the Scottish Government’s opposition to GM foods.

You can sign the letter on The Fife Diet website and we have copied the text for you to read below (to follow the links please visit the Fife Diet website!).

Gasland - a review

Last week about 40 people came along to The Glad Cafe (an amazing new music and cultural venue on the Southside of Glasgow!) to watch the award winning documentary Gasland.

We were treated to some fantastic food - a vegetable curry and chapatis - all made from locally grown food supplied by Glasgow Locavore and cooked by Clem and Kate (thanks guys!)

I hadn't seen the film before but I had heard a lot about it and how it really highlights the dash for gas in the US as a result of the political desire for energy security and domestic energy supplies. This has seen huge corporations frack there way from state-to-state resulting in the huge negative health and environmental impacts that the film documents.

Mono meet up

So last week about a dozen people gathered at Mono in King Street to look at how we can build on the success of Glasgow Blasda event and moving the Glasgow Local Food Network forward.

There were people representing Locavore, Towards Transition Glasgow, Urban Roots, Dennistoun Diggers, G3 Growers, The Hidden Gardens, South Seeds, Battlefield Community Project, Dumbarton Road Corridor Environment Trust, Playbusters, Transition UWS, Abundance Glasgow as well as a few interested individuals. You can find all of these organisations and more on our map!

Gasland - the movie!

Glasgow Local Food Network presents... A film and local food evening to expose the environmental threats posed by fracking to our food, water and landscape. This is a pressing issue for Scotland as energy companies like Dart Energy eye up our natural resources.

Grab a drink from the bar and a bowl of organic veggie curry before the film. The screening will be followed by a discussion and a chance for you to find out more about the campaign against fracking in Scotland. http://frackoffscotland.org.uk/

Communal food and community spirit

Streetland in Govanhill held a Pecha Kucha[1] event as part of Refugee Week back in June. The event focused on community spirit and saw several guest speakers talk about community spirit from their own working and living perspectives.

One of the presenters was Clem Sandison who has been involved in the local food movement in Glasgow for the best part of a decade. Check out her inspirational talk on the video below - even better invite your friends round for dinner and watch and discuss!

Glasgow Blasda - a big THANK YOU!

Thanks for helping us make Glasgow Blasda 2012 such a BIG success!

On behalf of everyone organising Glasgow Blasda through the Glasgow Local Food Network (GLFN) we would like to thank the helpers, loaners and collaborators in making the 2nd year of Glasgow Blasda such a great day for everyone!

So, as befits a mostly voluntary run community event, there's many lovely people to acknowledge so here goes...

Glasgow Blasda - Wow! That was great!

Wow! That was amazing – what a great day we had in Glasgow! Well I might be a bit biased but it was a lot of fun (and hardwork) and well, well worth it!

'Twas a great event in a fantastic setting and many thanks to everyone that made it happen and came along as well!

You can read the full write up from the event in the official Blasda website.