RESILIENT GROWERS PACK

RESILIENT GROWERS PACK

Why start growing? Why now?

During these turbulent and unstable times, we need resilient local food systems and dedicated food growers now more than ever before. Historically in times of crisis, people have rallied to grow food, as seen in the allotment revolution during WWI and the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign during WWII. And now in 2020, we have #FeedTheNation campaign.

Whatever scale you’re wanting to grow at, whether windowsill, allotment or farm, below are valuable ideas from our experienced food growing team at Propagate, plus some useful online resources to support you on our journey to fight food insecurity and build community resilience.

First, before you begin to grow food, we urge you to take care of yourself and those around you. Put in place facilities for good hygiene, hand washing and social distancing. And plan for the possibility of sickness, with a back-up plan for watering/harvesting.

Where to start growing?

In these exceptional times, we must be less concerned about finding the ‘ideal’ patch of land for growing; a surprising amount can be grown on a small patch. We want to inspire you to grow on your window ledges, back courts, gardens or shared greenspaces; many of our team operate in urban areas where space is premium, it works and we share how we do it on our YouTube channel with regular videos. 

At a larger scale, 1 acre could feed between 25 and 70 veg boxes, depending on the quality of soil, climate, experience of the growers, availability of resources. However, it’s always wise to start small and build up slowly, as your knowledge of techniques, resources and your confidence develop.

Land that wouldn’t be suitable would include any with heavy metal soil contamination, neighbours spraying herbicides, excessive Bindweed or very shady. 

What resources do you need to grow food?

Growers tend to be great at ‘bodging’, making creative use of whatever resources are available! Now, more than ever, we’ll need to be adaptable and imaginative and we encourage you to get in a creative mindset for growing. Use food cartons destined for recycling to pot on seedlings, make your own frost protection cloches from any boxes and plastic you find, swap and share tools with friends and neighbours if you can do so safely. 

Some local hardware stores and seed companies are open and delivering and there may be materials around your house, garden or even your local neighbourhood that will be useful for growing, keep an open mind.

What you will need...

Seeds – Real Seeds and Seed Co-operative are great for UK produced organic seeds.

Organic Material – compost (multipurpose and seed), manure / green waste compost. Try local stables for horse manure, or rake up fresh grass cuttings. If you have budget to spend, companies like Caledonian Horticulture are a great source of compost.

Composting Area – either in windrows or compost bays made from pallets. If you’ve not got space for compost heap, DIY Wormeries are brilliant for fast kitchen waste composting.

Mulch – cardboard/woodchip or plastic.
Covers / mesh / shade netting – brassicas (pests /diseases)
Seed trays / pots / toilet rolls/ tetrapacks for sowing seeds

Tools – fork, spade, trowel, trug, wheelbarrow, rake, hoe, watering can with a fine rose for seedlings

Polytunnel / low tunnels – there are plenty of DIY designs online and Propagate’s version is here. 
Storage area

Plant supports / structures – canes / metal for making bean supports. 

Watering – do you have access to main water, rainwater harvesting or a bore hole? Water systems include small scale hand-watering with watering cans, to drip irrigation and sprinkler systems. It’s a good idea to harvest rainwater where you can, connect water butts to your downpipes to collect roof water - even on sheds and other outbuildings. Otherwise a Scottish Water connection can cost £thousands....

Where to start?

Start by observing and understanding your growing space. 

Where do does my growing space get the most sunshine? 
How far is the water? 
What kind of soil do we have?

Creating a rough site design, detailing boundaries, water, access and orientation. From this you can determine how much space you have for growing, size and location of beds and where any infrastructure can be placed.

Raised beds aren’t essential - if you have grass and good soil permanent veggie beds are often best. It can be useful to standardize bed sizes to ensure meshes/low tunnels are transferable. Widths of between 75cm and 1.2m work well. You need to be able to reach across them for easy weeding!

If you don’t have grass and soil, containers of all shapes and sizes can also be used for growing. Raised planters, or pallet beds can be easy to knock up. Small boxes, big tins - the only limit is your imagination. Remember that smaller vessels require more watering.

To dig? Or not to dig?

If you have a very weedy site, you may need to dig to get growing quickly. Remove the grass, digging out small square sections. These grass sods can be stacked up in layers (grass to grass/soil to soil), covered and left for a year to create a lovely soil addition. If you have sufficient materials (cardboard and compost/manure) you can create no-dig beds directly on top of the grass (although this is ideally done in the Autumn/Winter). Paths can be created with woodchip over cardboard. 

See Charles Dowding – No-dig Market Gardener. 

What to grow?

To make the best use of space (and avoid mice attacking your pea seeds), sow seed in pots/seed trays, indoors or under cover. Transplant once the weather warms up and the plants have developed two true leaves. Direct sowing in the ground is perfect for carrots. Propagate has lots of resources to help you get sowing and growing here.

In small spaces it’s good to focus on ‘cut and come again’ type crops - leafy greens like salads and chard, spring onions, a cone of bean plants and courgettes.

There are all sorts of methods for planting out. You can group your crops in various ways: per plant families; time in the ground; type of protection required e.g. supports or netting, 
Intercropping or relay planting.

Various considerations could include:
  • Days to maturity (how long will the crop be in the ground)
  • Hours of sunlight
  • Yield per metre (is your focus on higher value crops or having a wider range of crops?)
  • longer harvest period
  • popularity
  • ease of growing the crop
  • pests and diseases which are common in your area.

Quick crops (under 60 days to maturity), grow in in high rotation plots, mostly salad greens and radishes. 

Multiple quick crops can be grown in a year. Ideally separate them into plant families, especially brassicas as they will need covering with an insect mesh.

30 - 35 days: 
baby kale, mustard greens, radishes, spinach, chard, salad greens (lettuce, endive, chicory), rocket.

Up to 40 days: 
Asian greens (komatsuna, mizuna, pak choi, tatsoi etc), Chinese napa cabbage.

35 - 40 days: 
baby carrots (harvest the thinned out carrots, leaving the rest to grow larger), endive, land cress, sorrel, parsley, chervil.
Steady crops (slower maturing 50+ days) can be planted and continuously harvested over a period of time. We would suggest, two rotations in a plot: a Steady Crop, followed or preceded by a Quick Crop.

Steady crops include: kale, peas, carrots, tomatoes, beetroot, beans, cucumbers, summer squash.

Grow slow or long season crops if you have the space but they’ll be in the ground a long time with only one harvest.

Slow crops include:
sweetcorn, parsnips, cabbages, squash, broccoli. 

Companion plants, plants for pollinators, crop rotation and permaculture... thinking about growing food to last a lifetime.

Companion plants 
Look at plants that grow well together, especially herbs and edible flowers as they are extra food for your plate, as well as deterring or confusing pests (think mint, chives, dill, rosemary, marigolds, nasturtiums, borage, coriander, thyme, sage, basil, parsley, lemon balm). They’ll make your garden way more attractive too!

Plants for pollinators 
We are all aware of the plight of the bees - remember to plant to feed your local bee population and other pollinators by leaving a weedy patch (dandelions, clover, borage) or adding perennials - lavender etc. More info and for free seeds visit Grow Wild. 

Crop Rotation
This is essential to avoid the build up of pests and diseases in the soil and to ensure the crops have the nutrients they require. Vegetables are grouped into families (legumes, brassicas, root crops, alliums, nightshades and cucurbits) and rotated - eg. a heavy feeding brassica will be followed by a nitrogen-fixing legume. For this reason it’s a good idea to have a planting plan - what you plan to grow and when it needs to be planted - and a crop rotation plan - typically over 3 or 4 years.

Permaculture
If you’re interested in a holistic, low input, low maintenance form of land use and community design, look into Permaculture. There is a lot more time spent on observation and design, and thoughtful placing, for maximum yield and working in harmony with nature. Think Forest Gardens, edible perennials, integrated systems with livestock, eg. chickens. Seed swaps, events and skill shares are often part of the design too. Once up and running, there is less work involved in growing seeds from scratch every year, digging over beds, etc. More information from the UK Permaculture Association and Permaculture Scotland Network. Or ask around to find a locally available permaculture designer to give you advice. 

Resources 


Propagate has a library of useful resources to help you, including downloadable how to sheets, videos, online workshops and more. We can help with setting up a new group, finding land and dealing with the Local Authority, understanding your growing space, permaculture design, growing skills and much more.


Other Advice and Support

If you’re in an around Glasgow, check out the Glasgow Community Food Network or, join the sister group on facebook Glasgow Local Food Network ,


Social Farms and Gardens

The Network for community farms, gardens and care farms. Members get access to advice and support. scotland@farmgarden.org.uk . 


Books and Online

Nothing beats a good gardening book! There’s loads of good ones, and loads of great online resources too.


Joy Larkcom ‘Grow Your Own Vegetables’ – a fantastic introductory book.


Caroline Beaton and Kenneth Cox - Fruit and Vegetables for Scotland: What to Grow and How to Grow It - the definitive guide for Scottish gardeners.


Charles Dowding – No-dig Market Gardener. 


Curtis Stone – Urban farmer growing small-scale on leased/borrowed land


Dig for Victory – youtube channel in response to CoVid


Garden Organic – online resources and growing guides



Land access


Land Workers’ Alliance – union working on food sovereignty issues, creating resilient, diverse local food systems and influencing policy 


Community Land Advisory Service Scotland –  Advice for community groups looking to access land in Scotland. 


Community Land Scotland  –  The network for community land-owners. Information on how to purchase land through a community buy-out.


Open Food Network - a sustainable Food Network, linking commercial producers with consumers



Seed Suppliers


Real Seeds

is a family firm in Wales, passionate about getting people growing and saving seeds. Sells Heritage and heirloom varieties


Seed Cooperative

Organic, biodynamic, open pollinated seeds. is the UK's only community owned seed company.


Organic Gardening Catalogue -

a great source of not just seeds but also equipment, advice and resources. Seeds, plants, bulbs, mushrooms, compost, equipment


Glasgow Wood

Source of timber including whisky barrels and furniture made from recycled timber.


Northern Polytunnels

Polytunnel and parts supplier


Scotbark

Delivers composted bark, topsoil and peat free compost.


Caledonian Horticulture

Supplier of green waste compost and topsoil


Woodland Trust

Supplies free native trees to community groups


Scottish Fruit Trees

Supplier of Scottish grown fruit trees


Grow Wild - Native wildflower seed mixes. 


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