FoGroBloMe 08

Ben from Real Seeds with his timeline of agricultural history
Yesterday a group of Food Growing Bloggers met up at the Oxford Botanical Garden for a bit of a natter and a seed swap. It was a great day (and the sun was shining!) and I met a lot of lovely people (listed roughly in order of appearance):
Bifurcated Carrots
The Plot Thickens
Real Seeds
Veg Plotting
Soilman
Hills & Plains
Spadework
Manor Stables Veg Plot
Daughter of the Soil
Mustard Plaster
One of the highlights was Ben from Real Seeds‘ talk on the history of seed saving, why we’ve lost most of our vegetable diversity and why it’s very important that we start to regain it. Real Seeds sell open-pollinated vegetable seeds, but what they’d really like you to do is buy them once and then save seed yourself. There are very good seed saving instructions on their website, which have a Creative Commons license – which means you are free to distribute them as long as you distribute them for free!
Patrick had some very interesting hints and tips on growing garlic. The ones which stuck with me are that a 1:10 solution of milk in water (skimmed smells better!) helps against garlic rust, a thick mulch deters weeds but not the garlic, and if you plant extra cloves close together you can pull them early in the year as ‘spring garlic’.
And then Simon regaled us with tales of his allotment and one of his poems. (You can download a PDF of his first collection of poems.)
After that it was time for a picnic lunch in the gardens and a seed swap (I got some exploding cucumber seeds! Patrick had brought bulbs of some of his special garlic varieties, which were soon snapped up, and there were interesting beans and gourds and all kinds of things on offer.
Then we stepped back out into the sunshine to wander round the botanical garden – which even had several beds of vegetables on display! Check out the rest of the photos.
All in all it was a great day, and should you get the opportunity next year you should come along :)
4 Comments for FoGroBloMe 08
Commenting is closed for this article.

March 12th 2010
12:52 PM GMT
XML Feeds
Search Me
Blogroll
The Fluffius Muppetus blogspot archives
My Amazon wishList
Emma's photos
The Emma & Pete Show
Abingdon Carbon Cutters
Bleepshow
Eco Knits
El Huerto Alternativo
Fuel My Blog
Growing Vegetables is Fun bookazine
Haidenmaiden's House
Muppet's Moolah
The Alternative Kitchen Garden Community
James
Karen
Maddy Harland
Permaculture Magazine
Permaculture Magazine reviews
Permanent Publications
Regular Jen
A blog called Fuggles
A Thinking Stomach
adekun's blog
At last I've got my plot!
Baklava Shed Coalition
Bean-sprouts
Bifurcated carrots
Bliss
Blogging from Black Pitts Garden
Calendula & Concrete
City Bumpkin
Cleve West
Clodhoppers
Clucking Billhooks
Compost Lover
Cool Blue Shed
Daughter of the soil
Eden
Elspeth Thompson
Fennel and Fern
Fergus the Forager
Finca
From Seed to Table
Frugilegus
Garden Monkey
Garden Organic
Gardeners Like Us
Gardenspaces
Going to the Dogs
Guardian Gardening Blog
Hills and Plains Seedsavers
Home on the Hill
Horticultural
In the Toad's Garden
La Ferme de Sourrou
Living the Good Life
Mas Du Diable
Melanie Fleur
Multiveg
Musings from a Stonehead
Mustard Plaster
My Tiny Plot
Nature's Paradise
Observer Organic Allotment
Otter Farm
Perennial Vegetables
Plain Old Kristi
plan be
Plant Cultures
Plant trees, it's self defence
Plants for a Future
Pumpkin soup
Pushing up the daisies
Quinta Stuart
Random Plantings
Scarecrow's Garden
Simon's Allotment
Soilman
Spade Work
Subsistence Pattern
Tales from the Pie 'n' Mash
The Constant Gardener
The Cottage Smallholder
The Green Fingered Photographer
The Informal Gardener
The Organic Gardening Catalogue
The Oxford Garden Project
The Perennial Platter
The Plot Thickens
The Rock and Roll Gardener
This Garden is Illegal
Trying to grow things
Urbania to Stoneheads
Veg Plot
Veg Plotting
VeggieGardenInfo
Wiggly Wigglers
You Grow Girl
My Zero Waste
The Book of Rubbish Ideas
The Rubbish Diet
YEAH!
I had a great time and it was lovely to meet you.
Rebsie Fairholm · Sep 21, 05:39 PM
Hi Emma, it was great to meet you and all the other FoGroBlos. For me the highlights of the talks were the genetic diversity that’s already been lost, and the interrelationship between garlic and its viruses. I liked the greenhouses too – I’d love one like that on the allotment. Actually I was surprised to find it quite exhausting materializing out of cyberspace, but it was good to put a face to names, both old and new. I’m pleased to have found your blog now, and I guess cosmic rays aren’t entirely your fault.
Simon
Simon Kirby · Sep 22, 02:12 AM
Hi Emma,
It was a great day and lovely to meet you at last!
Excellent write-up :D
VP · Sep 22, 03:35 AM
Hi Emma,
Great post.
Thanks for helping out with the set up, coffee/tea and everything else. It was also great you could come and nice to meet you.
Good luck with the slugs, and let me know how you get on with the copper barriers.
Patrick · Sep 23, 02:08 PM