Propagate Spring and Summer event programme

Wellbeing Grown Locally
Friday 24th April, 12.30 – 5pm 

Finn’s Place, Langside Church, 167 Ledard Road, G42 9QU 

Led by Janice Clyne of Nourished by Nature there will be a talk and cookery demonstration exploring how what we eat affects our wellbeing and what we can eat to keep us well. This will be followed by an open session to help Finn’s Place develop their green space. Free lunch provided. http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1252207 

Meet the Rocket! 

Tuesday 12th May, 5.30-8.30pm
Glasgow Clyde College, Anniesland Campus, 19 Hatfield Drive, G12 0YE
Dumbarton Road Corridor Environment Trust invite you to see the operation of a successful closed loop in-vessel composting project and how this produces high quality compost. Hear about the practical operation of the process including a tour of the operational site where you can get hands on with the composting process. Snacks available.
Book a place by email to: neil@dumbartonroad.com

The Story Behind a Pint of Milk PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE: Friday 29th May, 5-8.00pm Open Jar Collective, The Kinning Park Complex, 43 Cornwall St, G41 1BA  Explore where our milk comes from and the role that micro-dairies could play in building a more sustainable food system. Practical demos on how to make fresh cheese, butter and oat milk, and chance to hear from a local dairy farmer. Free soup and snacks available. http://bit.ly/16cEizu Taste not waste – Preserves and Pickling Workshop Saturday 13th June, 1-5pm Woodlands Community Garden, 91-111 West Princes St, G4 9BY Do you have produce that is about to spoil or might spoil before you get a chance to eat it? Are your favourite fruits and vegetables only available in one season but you’d like to eat them year round? This practical workshop in pickling and preserves is led by Irina Romero & Deborah-Ann Armstrong of our Community Café project. Refreshments during workshop & crackers & cheese at the end for sampling the recipes. woodlandsworkspace@gmail.com Earlier events in the programme:

The Glad Academy: Reuben Chesters on 'Food'

Reuben Chesters from local organic and ethically sourced food store and social enterprise Locavore will be along at The Glad Academy at 4pm on Sunday 25 January to talk about 'Food' and where our food comes from and some of the alternatives that are available.

The Glad Academy takes place at The Glad Cafe. Tickets cost £5 and are available online or from the Glad Cafe

Views sought on Community Growing

As part of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill the Local Government and Regeneration Committee are seeking views on community growing. They have prepared a short video and they are asking for responses on 3 questions:

1. What are the benefits of having access to an allotment?
2. What other types of spaces could be used to grow food and plants?
3. How could a food-growing plan assist you?

You can let the Committee know your views using the following methods:

• Email: communityempowermentbill@scottish.parliament.uk
• Telephone: 0131 348 6040
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishparliament
• Twitter: @SP_LocalGov #spgrowingcommunity

Propagate

Last Thursday 30th October Glasgow Local Food Network, Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens and The Project Café organised a local food event aimed at growers and local cafe businesses.

The afternoon kicked off with a free trip to two market gardens – Urban Roots’ growing space in Toryglen and Locavore’s new 2.5 acre site in Neilston.  People had the chance to hear first hand how these market gardens were set up, and ask questions that might be relevant to upscaling their own growing projects. 

This was followed by an evening buffet, which was prepared by The Project Café using ingredients from 7 community gardens in the city:

The Concrete Garden

Northmuir Community Garden

Milton Community Garden

Scottish Fruit Trees

Glasgow Allotment Forum

Bellahouston Garden 

Grow Green at Parkhead CommunityGarden

35 people attended the buffet, and along with a chance to speak to other growers and businesses, there was also a pedal-powered cinema showing short films made by A Moment’s Peace.  Their project - I Could Eat a Horse - is a multi-artform project exploring the diverse relationships that individuals and communities have with food and the food industry.  Cyclists got first pick from a menu of 12 short films. It wasn't an easy task cycling on a full belly!

About 20 people stayed on to take part in the discussion about practical ways to connect local growers with local businesses. There were 4 short talks from the perspective of both producers and cafés: 

Reuben from Locavore

Rachna from Babu Bombay Street Kitchen

Eilidh from The Project Café

Stephen from Cyrenians Farm in Edinburgh

We heard about their aspirations and also the challenges of growing / sourcing local food. Some of the key issues explored in the discussion afterwards were:

• Desire to build honest relationships between producers and catering businesses, and actually get growers and chefs together, but recognising time constraints and business priorities will make this difficult
• Need to understand the challenges faced on both sides, particularly financial pressures.
• Local growers have a brilliant story to tell which will attract customers, need to get that story out there!
• Lack of transport infrastructure – how to get local produce to local businesses.  Kate Shaw spent at least a day co-ordinating produce list, collecting ingredients from the 7 gardens and delivering them to The Project Café for this one meal.
• We talked about setting up a volunteer delivery scheme - with volunteers paid in café meals/veg bags - but there was a big questions mark around whether this is reliable or sustainable. Locavore uses the Oatcake (their own local currency) as a way of paying people to do deliveries, but it's not always possible to retain volunteers.
• Need to overcome perception about high cost of organic local produce by circulating clear price lists to businesses and demonstrating that produce is high quality and tastier.
• Catering businesses could also send wish lists to growers.
• Need to acknowledge that some crops are more financially viable eg. it’s hard for small scale growers to compete with larger farms on the price of potatoes.  But the example of Locavore’s Urban Croft has shown that nano-growers could supply unusual salad and herb crops that are more expensive to buy through normal wholesalers.
• Quality control is essential eg. salads would need to be washed in advance of supplying them to restaurants

Key actions we could take to improve local supply chain and achieve better connection between growers and catering businesses:

• Face to face marketing of local produce to cafes, shops and restaurants
• Weekly updates of produce available and prices
• A reliable delivery scheme - creating a growers co-op might make this more financially viable

There are still many questions about how this would be co-ordinated, what resources are available to support marketing, transport and so on, but it was great to get the conversation started. 

Glasgow Local Food network is an entirely voluntary network with no paid staff, only the good will of various social enterprises, community organisations and volunteers. If you have any free time, resources (eg. a van) or relevant skills (eg. marketing) then get on touch!  

We’re looking for people who can help build a more sustainable local food economy through connecting growers to the retail/restaurant market.  Find us on Facebook or email: 

glasgowlocalfood2012@gmail.com and ask to join the google group. 

We’re also proposing to have regular monthly meet ups at The Project Café to create an open space for discussing local food issues, sharing ideas and designing solutions.  More info to follow.

Propagate

 

- Are you a local business looking at ways to increase the amount of local food that you source? 
- Are you a community garden, allotment or market garden looking to make links with local businesses to sell produce? 

Come along to a day of site visits, networking, talks and films.  Plus a free buffet made using produce from Glasgow's community gardens and allotments.

Propagate

Thursday 30th October.
1.30 - 5.30 - Site visits to Locavore's market garden in Neilston, and Urban Roots' market garden in Toryglen.  Transport is free, but must be booked in advance.
5.30 - 8.30 - Talks (from Babu's Kitchen, Locavore, the Project Cafe, Cyrenians Farm), discussions, pedal powered films and free buffet at the Project Cafe

Please contact roz@farmgarden.org.uk to register, or kate@concretegarden.org.uk if you've got produce you'd like to sell to us to add to the buffet!

Please circulate the flier to anyone who might be interested.

Grow Local, Shop Local, Love Local!

*****A Glasgow Local Food Network Market at the Empire Cafe*****

Join us for Food Sovereignty Day from midday to 5pm on Sunday 27 July at The Briggait: An afternoon of workshops, cookery demonstrations and tasters.

Browse and buy at stalls from local Glasgow growers selling fresh vegetables, herbs, fruit and other delights, all made from locally sourced ingredients!

The Empire Café is an exploration of Scotland’s relationship with the North Atlantic slave trade through coffee, sugar, tea, cotton, music, visual art, academic lectures, poetry, debate, workshops, historical walks, film and literature. The café will be based in the Briggait (home of the Merchant’s Steeple) in Glasgow’s Merchant City from 24th July - 1st August 2014

Permaculture Scotland Gathering 2014

Permaculture Scotland Gathering 2014

The next Permaculture Scotland Gathering will take place at one of our new ScotLAND Centres – Urban Roots, in the South-East of Glasgow – on Saturday 7th June from 10am to midnight.

With workshops, kids activities, general meeting, networking, a pot luck lunch, meeting old friends and new, and a delicious local, organic evening meal put on by Urban Roots, it's going to be a great day! After some delicious Cairn o Mohr wine you'll be wanting a dance or a song, so our illustrious permaculture ceilidh band will delight your ears and your dancing shoes, and you can even take a turn on the stage too.

All the info is at www.permaculture.org.uk/scotland/gathering14