Spring is in the air, there is stronger brightness. We are getting a taste of what 2024 has in store. Here we are at Imbolc.
Lia Leendertz in her Substack Lia’s Living Almanac: “They are called ‘cross-quarter days’ because they fall between the big astronomical markers of the year, the summer and winter solstices, and the spring and autumn equinoxes. They are useful because they are signposts. They say: the season is moving on, look where we are, let’s mark this moment.”
As the season looks to move on, I thought it would be prudent to set out Earthed Up!’s intentions for the year.
What we do
Broadly speaking, this is what we do. Detail follows.
We are a collectively managed workers co-operative, our 3 workers run the organisation: Carol, Cristina, and Ryan.
Our vision
With our contribution, people are enabled to regenerate land that they have stewardship over, and themselves.
Our mission
Broaden the horizons of people, by sharing the benefits and possibilities of edible and useful plants. Develop a flourishing agroecological plant nursery. To make healthy plants accessible locally.
Find more of our story on the About page.
Growing gardens this year
We grow all our own plants. We have 2 gardens that we rent.
At Belper Lane End is our main space. Come see it. We have shared our intentions for the bottom part of the garden and raised funds from the crowd (you!) to help transform the space.
We are currently crowdfunding, matched by the Aviva Community Fund. We will construct a new polytunnel and start new beds outside of it to show off more of the edible and useful plants we grow! As well as reskinning our existing tunnel. Your help will be appreciated from March please!?
New tunnel up in March, current tunnel reskinned by end of May.
Carol is taking on a redesign of the top half of our garden, creating shape, utilising more spaces to fit more plants in, and incorporating a dye plants bed. We hope to share the design write up.
In Crich, we have access to a paddock. We are growing round the edges. We started to plant a forest garden wide-hedgerow in autumn 2023, aided by forest gardening course participants! We planted more trees there in early winter, complimenting the native hedgerow that the owners planted then too.
This garden holds a lot of potential to store more carbon, provide food for people and wildlife, and be a space for learning experiences. We are applying to PFAF for funding to establish a food forest – a diverse polyculture of microbes and edible and useful plants.
Plants, seeds and books
We sell by mail order now. We are growing plants in larger quantities to supply people across Britain.
We work in order cycles, not like Amazon Prime, rather in a rhythm that works for us and the plants. We list stock online, orders are placed, we pack and post them all in one go once the cycle ends, currently monthly. We will have shorter cycles as Spring starts and plants come ready swiftly.
We may need some help from April to pack plants ready for the postperson to collect. We will also need cardboard boxes under 60cm³. We don’t buy new packaging, other than paper stickytape from Eartharmony.
We are expanding the diversity of plants we grow. More herbs and the start of growing some longer lived perennials, which we hope to make availablein future years. We will grow a good range of dye plants this year, already we have many woad looking for gardens. We are growing out seedlings of a Taunton Deane perennial kale that flowered under stress. We are growing on 6 tuber crops to have more to share in autumn.
We will save seed for our own growing, particularly herbs this year – hyssop, coriander, basil. Inevitably, we have plenty to share with others, hence we sell seeds. We will have another seed packing party to talk technicalities and to get many dozens of packs of seed packed.
We will continue to contribute to and maintain the Belper Permaculture Network free seed bank, a box of seeds hosted in Eartharmony, which sometimes appears at our events and courses too. We will also hold another Seedy Sunday event in 2025!
Peat free compost and soil health range
We will sell SylvaGrow certified organic multipurpose compost. We will sell a range of Dalefoot compost, including for vegetables and salads, tomatoes, and double strength.
We will sell Agriton UK bokashi bran, as well as actiferm and Ægir to make green manure heaps – producing soil improver/compost.
We will make and sell our own liquid plant feed. We will make our own vermicompost and offer any surplus for sale, plus sell compost worms by the kg to anyone that asks.
We will make our own biochar, we already have early in the year, using feedstock from our gardens. We use biochar in our potting mix and in growing on plants.
We will start to craft a custom compost mix and offer it loose for refills. This will include our vermicompost and biochar, likely best for mulching beds and pots, rather than as a potting mix. We are seeking grant funding to run trials to measure microbial activity and crop yields.
Education and events
This is our biggest growth area in 2024. We are doing more than previous years and going more places. Even January has been a busy month!
See our calendar of education and events. We have plans through to October, so far.
In workshops, you will see the return of soil health and permaculture. We are giving shorter sessions to make it accessible financially and socially. We will also create space for deeper connections through day courses and our events.
More people will be running workshops with us, details being confirmed. In our winter online series Plan your 2024 edible garden, Lori Heath and Sean Roy Parker share their experience. We aim to do more online skillshares through the year too, we’re trying to set the pattern of how that is.
We are happy to have Ryan giving talks to different groups in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. We will be at festivals in the summer: Timber, Belper Goes Green, and Hellens Garden Festival.
We will run another Midlands Permaculture Festival! 21 September not May, to give more time to collectively plan and curate it. Be in touch if you’re up for helping, we’ve had a couple of offers already. Let’s get together and a-feel alright.
We intend to bring community growers together, people feeding others. We are seeking grant funding for a longer term project in this area, to have a more sustainable impact. We need more local food growers, producing more, and that needs support.
We will inevitably do lots of things with apples in September and October. The kids will get involved. We know where there are apples and if you would like to harvest and process them to share with people, we’d love for you to go for it!
And
We will take time to care for ourselves and our families. We will take holidays. We will very likely take sick leave. We will do the work that needs doing.
Well done for reading this far. Keep in touch.
Earthed Up! 