Green spam

Good day! If you have a moment I would like to bend your ear with details of a day of lectures taking place at Kew and organised by the Kew students and the Kew Mutual Improvement Society. The event, ‘Growing vegetables, communities and sustainability’, takes place on Saturday 1st June and brings together six experts who will explore the benefits that growing vegetables can have on the environment and local communities. Here is the official hype for your consideration;

 

“Growing vegetables can be an extremely useful pathway to engage with a whole range of wider issues. The Kew Mutual Improvement Society believes that as a botanic garden we need to expand our social and environmental role, and growing veg could provide the platform to engage with a wider spectrum of society. We must move beyond the boundaries of our gardens and work with communities to promote sustainability. This would provide part of a significantly more holistic approach to conservation. This event will explore these issues as a means to bring about positive change within these gardens and beyond”.

 

Speakers on the day include biologist Colin Tudge, author of Good Food for Everyone Forever and the Secret Life of Trees. Vertical Veg expert, Mark Ridsdill Smith, will focus on growing food in small spaces, and Kevin Frediani from Paignton Zoo Environmental Park will discuss urban agriculture and plant conservation. The garden designer and all-round good egg Cleve West will share stories from his own allotment in London, and Joris Gunawarden from Sutton Community Farm will relate the success of London’s only community farm. Finally, Jenny Foulkes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh will talk about the Edible Gardening Project which has been teaching garden visitors and local communities the skills they need to grow their own veg.

 

Further information and tickets can be found here and here. Please feel free to share this event if you know a green fingered cove that might be interested!