Tag Archives: allotments
Mapping Birmingham’s Community Growing Spaces
It has been a while in getting there, Growing Birmingham are please to be able to make available for the first time a map of Birmingham’s Community Gardens, Growing Spaces and Community Orchards.
The map is available here
We know this is by no means complete, and we can add to it all the time, so if your local space is missing and you want it adding then please let us know in a comment below or by e-mail to [email protected]
Some of the spaces on the map already have more information linked to them, web site addresses and the like, we hope to add pictures too soon.
Herligheten Urban Allotment Project, Oslo, Norway
Initiated in April 2012, Herligheten is an urban food project founded on ecological principles. It consists of 100 allotments and a 250m² field growing ancient grain types such as spelt, emmer and einkorn.
Located in the heart of Oslo in ‘Bjørvika’, a rocky island in the centre of a building site, the project is surrounded on all sides by roads, railways lines and industrial buildings.
One of the primary reasons for its location in an industrialised sector is the hope that ongoing monitoring with shed light on the effect of pollution on the success rates of urban gardening.
The Carrot City Talks: Jarred Henderson
The final speaker at the Edible Eastside event was Jarred Henderson, a designer and urban grower at Wayward Plants. Jarred’s talk was substantially different than the previous two, it focussed primarily on the sites operated by the organisation he works for; why they exist and the benefits they provide to communities.
Growing Birmingham: Feeding the city?
I’ve realised there are more than a few people living in Birmingham who worry about the city not being able to feed itself.
Let’s get one thing straight. Cities are not places where food can be grown in quantity. Birmingham can’t feed itself, never has been able to and, without as-yet unimagined technologies, it never will. Think of the effort and, let’s be frank, the slight angst in the Girl in the Garden talking about growing enough spinach for two.
Two people? To understand the scale of things here in Birmingham:
Events to the end of April
- 30th April: Allotment Club & Seed Swap at the Warehouse Cafe.
- 28th April: Spring Foraging at Edible Eastside
- 23rd April: Birmingham’s Edible Forest, a Carrot City seminar with Nick Grayson. Millenium Point
Balcony Larder: The start
Over the next few months, I will be converting my west-south-west-facing balcony space (150cm x 480cm, see left) into a living larder.
As I’m fairly clueless about what to do, the Greedy Gardener is advising me.
I’ll be keeping a running total of expenditure set against what I save in food bills.
Have Your Say on the Future of Birmingham
Birmingham City Council is running a Budget Consultation to discuss financial cuts being made to a variety of services.
Birmingham Parks is one of the services which will be affected and this consultation is the the perfect opportunity to have your say on what those cuts may look like…
Some proposals are:
Reducing numbers of park keepers
Reducing the cutting of ornamental grass from 26 to 12 cuts a year
Abandoning grass cutting in some areas completely
Removal of 60 play areas
Reduction of ranger numbers
Reduction in woodland teams
The Budget Consultation can be accessed through this link which also leads to useful factsheets summarising each area.