GreenFriends™ UK

Gardening Corner: March 2009

"Even if we only have a tiny plot of land, we should try to go a few vegetables using organic fertilisers. Spending some time with our plants, we should talk to them and kiss them. This relationship with nature will give us a new vitality." - Amma (From Amma's speech Amma at the Cinema Verite's 2007 Film Festival award presentation ceremony.)

Welcome to the first of what we hope will become a regular article. We hope to inspire others to follow Amma's teachings regarding the environment, covering such topics as growing your own food, tree planting and maintenance, water conservation, harvesting wild foods, recycling, wildlife identification and observation, and what ever else comes up. We will try to write only about subjects of which we have some personal experience, to emphasise the practical and minimise theory.

Amma is talking more and more about the environment in her teachings, and although the environmental crisis may seem overwhelming, there are in fact some very easy steps that we can all take to connect more with nature and to reduce our negative impact upon the earth. Amma says that protecting the environment should become more of a priority in all of our lives. As Amma has said in the above quote that everyone should try and grow some of their own food, this week we are focusing on small scale food growing. There are many benefits to this including connecting more with nature, providing yourself with healthy organic food, not to mention home grown food tastes better. However, it can seem a daunting prospect for people, with visions of having to dig acres of land by hand, being up to your neck in horse manure etc. The good news is that you can grow food on whatever scale you want to, be it small, large or very large!

Grow your own chillies and peppers

Today we will be looking at growing chillies or sweet peppers in a pot on your windowsill or conservatory, as it is the right time of year to begin planting them. Chillies and peppers are a low maintenance crop which requires little more than regular watering and some food once it is established. So what do you need? Well, a pot (about 30 cm deep), some peat free compost (more about the issue of peat free compost in a later edition of e-news), seeds (always helpful when growing plants!) and some organic plant food. These can be purchased from a number of places, but there are some excellent organic catalogues available we use the Organic Gardening Catalogue (www.OrganicCatalogue.com).

1. Fill your pot with compost and plant a couple of seeds about 3cm deep and put it on a sunny windowsill or in a conservatory. Remember to keep the soil moist at all times and you can cover it with clear polythene (which will keep the soil warm). It should germinate after one or two weeks.
2. Keep the soil moist but not too wet during the growing season. Expect it to grow to a height of up to 70 cm.
3. After a couple of months of growing the first flowers will appear which you will need to fertilise, unless you have bumble bees or honey bees buzzing around your living room or conservatory . Using an artist's paint brush or a feather and gently touch the centre of each flower in turn. This should move pollen from one flower to another. Repeat this when new flowers appear.
4. You will need to regularly feed the plant at this point with an organic plant food liquid, often labelled for tomatoes but chillies/peppers like it as well. Follow the instructions on the bottle.
5. Now comes the exciting bit. Your chilli or pepper should appear as a small greenish globe where the flower was. It will lengthen and expand over the weeks, and eventually change colour depending on which variety you are growing. The plant continues to grow and produce new flowers, and by August/September you will have a small bush laden with fruit (maybe 15-20 chillies or 6 peppers).
6. Eat produce and enjoy!

Allotment Corner

"We have had an allotment for some time and thought we would share with you what goes on each month. Hopefully at some point we will have photographs for you to laugh at or commiserate us on - depending on how kind you are. In the middle of March we seeded up our own chillis, peppers, tomatoes and aubergines in the living room, all covered with recycled polythene bags to create a small greenhouse.

This month on the allotment we will be planting potatoes (lots of initial hard work but great taste later on), onion sets plus beetroot and swede seeds directly into the soil. In the greenhouse we will be seeding up all manner of seeds like leeks, spinach, kale, squash, courgette and beans. As we live "oop north" we often have to start seeds earlier then you lot down south as its colder and seeds take longer to germinate.

Well, we hope you have enjoyed this article and that it inspires you to have a go at food growing. See you all next month

Om Amriteshwaryai Namah

Richard and Kaivalya"

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