The University's first Living Wall is completed

Shelley Mosco is a Landscape Research Assistant in the University’s Landscape Architecture and Garden Design Department and a senior lecturer in GIS. Shelley is guest blogging for us about the construction of the University’s first living wall at the Mansion Site at Avery Hill.

We did it!  Over the weekend, 23/24 February, we built the University’s first ever living wall, launching the first stage of our research on the performance of plants in relation to microclimate, water resource management and the development of living walls for urban agriculture.

Construction of the Living Wall

The Sustainable Landscapes Research Group (School of Architecture, Design and Construction) and a team of Certificate Landscape Design students, led by Benz Kotzen and Shelley Mosco, built the planted modular wall outside ‘Greengages’ cafe at Avery Hill. It’s ‘X’ shape provides different sun/shade aspects and microclimates for the plants and the multi-coloured modules presents an opportunity to research thermal variations.

The modules

The wall is also a teaching/learning resource for plant biodiversity. We will be adding plants to the wall as our research develops but so far the plants comprise the following native species:

Chives, Allium sphaerocephalon
Cluster Bellflower, Campanula glomerata
Wild Basil, Clinopodium vulgare
Wild Carrot, Daucus carota
Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare
Wild Marjoram, Origanum vulgare
Creeping Thyme, Thymus serpyllum

The wall is intended to be the first of many, which will focus on urban agriculture and growing food vertically in our cities. The Research Group is planning to set up a community system on one of the local Greenwich estates and also to incorporate a number of living wall systems on the new School roof at Stockwell Street.

The completed 'X' shaped Living Wall

If you want more information, please contact me s.mosco@gre.ac.uk, Benz Kotzen b.kotzen@gre.ac.uk, or Sarah Milliken, s.milliken@gre.ac.uk

University of Greenwich Bees

This week we are given an update from the various bee hives we have across the  University of Greenwich. Since getting hives at Southwood House on the Avery Hill Campus (looked after by John & Christine Hird) a couple of years ago we have added further hives at Avery Hill, managed by local beekeeper Colin Edwards, hives at Greenwich looked after by Camilla Goddard of Capital Bee and now the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) have installed some hives at Medway too. We here how some of our bees have been getting on this year, starting with the ones at Medway where Jeremy Cooper explains how their first season has gone:

‘After arriving as flat packs, the three bee hives were assembled and installed on the Medway Campus in June, which was later than ideal, but season started slowly and the colonies of bees arrived later than expected. The bees have been busy since then, operating from their hives situated between Hawke and Grenville buildings.

This month saw our first harvest of 37 jars of lovely clear honey, which were distributed to members of the beekeeping group and some NRI managers.

NRI Beekepers group inspecting their hives

NRI Beekepers group inspecting their hives

Since June, we have been learning as we go about bee husbandry. By a happy coincidence, a local bee expert was on the campus when we were making one of our first hive inspections and he (known locally as John the bee man) has been very helpful in training and advising the group of volunteers. All 20 group members have now had the chance to handle frames which are full of bees, and to learn how to tell the queen from workers and drones.

Several people in the group took photographs of bees on flowers, and some have been used on labels for our first harvest. This picture, taken by Mark Parnell’s wife Sue, is one of eight that featured on the labels this first season.

NRI honey bee

NRI honey bee

For the rest of the year there are several jobs to be done, including treating the hives against the deadly mite Varroa, that has been one of the factors to have reduced bee populations in recent years. Other factors as less straightforward, and if we can get the support, members of NRI may do some research in future years to find out more about how to safeguard these important pollinators. In the meantime we are marveling at the way the bees operate (and enjoying the honey!)’

John & Christine let us know how our original hives at Southwood House have fared this year, ‘We extracted [honey] at the end of July, it wasn’t a brilliant yield but better that 2011. As you may have read in the press the weather hasn’t been very kind to bees this year. After extraction it was time for putting the varroa treatment into practice, which takes four weeks.  Varroa is a parasite we cant eradicate but hopefully can keep under control.

After the treatment was complete we then start to feed, we feed the bees as we need to make sure they have enough stores to overwinter.  We feed a solution of white cane sugar mixed with warm water so it dissolves and the bees can then store it.

So now we are up to date, we have been down to see the bees and have hefted (lifted to feel the weight) the hives which seem fine for stores. Within the next few weeks we will put the mouse guards on the entrance and a protective cover round each hive to prevent woodpecker damage.’ In total we have received 60 jars of honey from the bees at Southwood house and still have a few leftover – get in contact with sustainability@greenwich.ac.uk if you fancying buying a jar.

John & Christine looking for the Queen earlier this year

John & Christine looking for the Queen bee earlier this year

Colin Edwards, another local beekeeper also keeps hives at the Avery Hill Campus, ‘The Avery hill bees, having had a rough start this season due to weather conditions, the spring crop of honey was zero.  However, after introducing a few new queens Italian and Buckfast, and a few of my own,  all the colonies have built up well, but the second crop was very low due to lack of nectar flow. All the bees are now feeding well and looking promising for the winter season spent on the meadow,  so we are hopefully looking forward to a better honey crop next year!

Lastly I would just like to thank the staff of the Avery hill campus  for all the help and support throughout the year.’

Avery Hill Meadow Beehive

Avery Hill meadow beehive with woodpecker protection

Camilla Goddard’s bees at the Greenwich Campus were removed on the request of LOCOG and they spent a few months on holiday in London Fields in Hackney and Covent Garden in central London. They are being moved back into the hives as we speak and will be looking forward to being back in Greenwich!

Organic Cocoa Farming in Bahia

As regular readers will know,  Serena who is one of our students who helps lead the community garden project made the most of her summer learning more about permaculture and sustainable agriculture and writes about the second part of her summer experience before returning to study for the 2nd year of her part time MSc in Sustainable Environmental Management with the Natural Resources Institute here at the university.  Over to you Serena… 

During the month of September I have been travelling through the region of Bahia in Brazil and worked as a wwoofer in the organic farm Fazienda Santa Tereza, located in the Mata Atlantica jungle, between Itacaré and Serra Grande, southern Bahian coast. This region is widely known for the production of cacao – which is specifically the reason why I chose to wwoof  here! 

Fazienda Santa Tereza

Cocoa beans are considered “super food” because they contain many beneficial nutrients known for promoting healthy mood and positive mental state such as serotonin, dopamine and phenylethylamine; they are also one of the richest natural sources of antioxidants. Ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations highly valued cocoa beans as a source of energy and used them as money. 

Fazenda Santa Tereza is a 34 hectare property where agroforestry and permaculture principles are practiced; alongside cocoa, many other products are successfully grown: such as acai, citrus, mango, bananas, pineapple, coconut, vanilla, cupuaçu (a fruit related to cacao) and also seringueira (the tree rubber comes from) together with other local fruits such as jenipapo. The owner of the farm, Mathieu, is also allowing some parts of the property to return to native Mata Atlantica. 

pineapple plant

ripening mango

The cocoa tree is not an easy plant to grow, indeed it requires precise climatic conditions and it will grow only in a very warm, moist, shady environment, being also very susceptible to pests and disease; in addition, a tree must be five or six years old before it will bear fruit. 

ripening cocoa fruit - not ready!

cocoa tree bearing fruit

Cocoa beans are the seeds of a yellow, rugby ball-shaped fruit that sprouts directly from the trunk of the cacao tree. Pods don’t all ripen at the same time and must be removed individually by hand, using machetes or large knives, taking care not to hurt nearby buds. 

harvesting cocoa pods

opening the fruit

Once opened, the pod contains about 40 cocoa beans covered in a sticky, white, delicious sweet lemony flavour pulp – while the actual bean is bitter and hard to eat. Beans are scooped out to be fermented and dried, this process takes from two to eight days. 

cocoa beans inside the pod

cocoa beans left to dry

Fazienda Santa Tereza produces delicious handmade dark chocolate and one day I happily volunteered to make some: first we warmed up the cocoa beans on the stove to remove the skin 

removing the skin - great smell!

We left the beans to warm up in the sun and reach a proper temperature and become soft: 

cocoa beans, warming up!

Cocoa beans were then ground to achieve a nice powdery consistence 

grinding cocoa beans!

…a little bit of sugar and honey are added and mixed using this very sophisticated piece of modern technology (heavy work!!!), banging for about 45 minutes: 

working the chocolate

until a very fine and smooth – almost liquid! – texture was achieved and the (very!) dark chocolate was ready … shiny and delicious! 

job done! yummy!

One of the main tasks at the Fazienda was the creation a suitable micro-environment around the trunks of the one-year-old cocoa trees which Mathieu had transplanted about a month ago. First we got rid of the weeds around the trunk using a hoe (also to break up soil compaction) whilst being careful not to damage the roots. 

clearing the weeds (hard work!!)

The soil here has a high content of clay and is therefore very hard to work with, which is the reason why it is important to add large quantities of organic matter– in this case pot ash and leaf mold. 

After weeding, we placed some old logs around the base of the tree: in fact there is plenty of spare old wood whitin the Fazienda’s forest! Wood will slowly rot down with the help of beneficial fungus, bacteria and micro organisms, which will break down and release the nutrients into the soil – carbon in particular – also offering ground cover, preventing nutrients from being washed away, and shelter to beneficial animals. 

frog - perfectly camouflaged

some useful wildlife, having a feast!

a millepede - loving rotten wood

Around and in between the logs we sowed few leguminose beans seeds: they will fix nitrogen with the action of the bacteria living in their roots and function as green manure/living mulch. On top of the logs, we placed large amounts of hay, which will help retain both moisture and temperature while also suppressing weeds and protecting the soil structure. 

placing the logs around cocoa trees

job done: final touch of mulch - hay

..some other common wildlife hanging around in the jungle..

With the help of a GPS, one day we carried out a survey to establish the presence of native vanilla within the property of the Fazienda – this census will eventually lead to the creation of a database of organic vanilla plants in this area of Bahia; each species of vanilla was identified and measured. 

vanilla census!

The vanilla plant is a tropical vine, which can reach over one hundred feet; it belongs to the orchid family but it is the only one that produces an agriculturally valuable crop. 

the vanilla vine

Unfortunately almost 90% of the vanilla flavour we find in our food today has been created by the addition of ingredients containing synthetic vanillin. 

dried vanilla pods

During my experience as a wwoofer I also had the chance to visit Comunitade Campina, an ecovillage located in the beautiful settings of Vale do Capao, Chapada Diamantina. Since 1998 the people from the community successfully practice principles of permaculture and forest gardening. 

the mandala garden

Cassava is a major staple food

the wormery - nice home for the earthworms!

the seed bank - to exchange seeds!

and a very sustainable juice maker!

August Progression in the Community Allotment

Our community garden at the Avery Hill campus continues to progress and expand! We now have a beautiful shed where we keep our tools:

painting the shed!

Over the course of the last few week some of the Brassicas crops were badly attacked by nasty cabbage caterpillars. These are often found in large clusters and are easily spotted thanks to their distinctive yellow and black patterns (they can grow up to 2 inches!). Plants should be examinated regularly to prevent the damage or gown under fine mesh netting to stop butterflies laying eggs. Beneficial wasps are particularly effective at controlling these pests, or else they can be picked off by hand. Unfortunately we had to remove some badly damaged plants, such as cabbage and radishes.

leaf damage from cabbage caterpillars

radishes were cleared - because damaged by caterpillars

In the meantime, all of the cucurbits are growing particularly vigorous, they require a lot of space and therefore are expanding out of the bed:

cucurbitaceae family bed

The resuts are some delicious courgettes, pumpkins and squashes coming in different varieties and shapes:

growing courgette

discovering a massive squash hidden among the leaves!

very heavy!!

This summer the weather has been particularly wet and tomatoes and peppers have struggled but are now slowly ripening:

ripening tomatoes

shiny pepper

We also harvested our first carrot!

very long carrot (though a little bit pale!)

We also decided to experiment a bit and sow some peas where potatos and tomatoes used to be. In a rotation system, leguminosae plants (such as peas) follow the “heavy feeders” plants (such as tomatos) which use up a lot of the nutrients in the soil: peas roots in fact will fix nitrogen, promoting soil fertility. August is probably not ideal time to sow peas because they often struggle in cold wet soil – we might have to grow them under cloches. However we hope the weather will be relatively mild until October – just like last year – and even if the plants will not produce many pea pods, they will still function as green manure that improve soil fertility.

sowing peas

We also transplanted some young tiny leeks into another bed:

lifting the leeks cluster - they were closely spaced in this patch of soil

As a general rule, when transplanting young plants it is important to minimize root damage: for this reason we should always handle them by the leaves and try to keep as much soil on the roots as possible.

Pam transplanting the leeks

Before transplanting, we first made 6 inches deep holes, 8 inches apart in the bed; we watered well the group of leeks, these were then divided one by one with the help of a fork; each leek was dropped into a hole and watered in order for the soil to gently settle around the roots.

job done! after transplanting, wilting is common but plants will eventually recover

And finally, some beneficial wildlife: a hoverfly

tiny hoverfly checking on the pumpkins

11th July Garden Work Day

Last Wednesday’s weather was a little undecided but gave us some time to do some work in the garden – in between shiny sunny spells and torrential showers of rain.
The tasks of the day included weeding, harvesting and pruning:

the queens of the garden: Lexie, Alexandra and Emily

There were many vegetables to harvest as everything kept growing since last week– such as the radishes, the spinach, the peas, the courgettes, cabbages and kale.

the size of the beetroots, a nice surprise

baby marrows keep growing!

harvesting is always the favourite job

We continued to prune the tomato plants as these were so leafy and bushy it looked as if no space/light was left for our fruits to ripen: we kept on removing the leaves from the lower part of the stem and the lateral suckers until all plants looked nicely shaped and tidied up. We also improved their structure by helping them with sticks – for them to grow up high and strongly.

Stefan and Alexandra pruning tomato plants

still pruning!

how to remove lateral suckers from tomato plants

we built this structure around a bushy tomato plant in order to hold it up high from the ground while the fruits will hung from the wires

In the meantime Julian brought from the office some more paper shredding that we can use as ingredient in the compost mix – it will provide aeration and a good source of carbon as it breaks down:

bags of paper shredding

Some wildlife came to visit too:

the admiral butterfly

an unidentified character - a bee?! a wasp?! a fly?! - shielding from the rain

See you next Wednesday!

Two hives from one! Bees at Southwood House

Last Friday saw our bees at Southwood House in Avery Hill start a swarm and the formation of a new colony. The building services team spotted the bees gathering in a swarm underneath one of the two hives while doing a walk-round check of the campus. After a couple of telephone conversations with our beekeepers, John and Christine Hird (the beekepers for our Southwood House bees) decided to come and visit the bees and see what ought to be done.

Bees swarming on the bottom of the hive

John tries on some of the protective bee keeping clothing

When John and Christine arrived we donned the protective clothing and had a closer look at the swarm that was forming. Bees tend to swarm when they are looking to replace an older queen with a new one and is part of the reproductive cycle of a hive. The hive will create some queen cells and the queen will lay eggs in these, then the hive will stop feeding the queen so that she is lighter and more able to fly. When the old queen leaves the hive (sometimes taking as many as 60% of the bees with her) she will find a resting place while the scouts look for potential new places to form a hive. The scouts go off to look for new loactions and the new location is determined by the level of excitement the scouts communicate about to the hive. This process normally takes around three days and the bees tend to be non-agressive during this time as there is less focus on defending brood.

When we had a closer look at the bees it was clear that this is what they were doing but rather than let the scouts find a new home and lose the swarm of bees John and Christine decided to capture the swarm and place them in a new hive or a ‘nuc’. This would lead to us getting two hives from the one hive that had started swarming. To do this John opened up the hive and started to look to see if the queen was there and look for queen cells. As expected there were a few queen cells and no sign of the queen bee in the hive, this meant the old queen had left and was looking to create a new hive and the remaining bees were looking after the queen cells and brood inside to get a new queen for the old hive. After the hive had been checked we then went to capture the swarm in the nuc.

Checking the hive to see if the queen bee was still inside

Getting a closer look at the bees working on the cells

Normally bees would swarm in a brach of a tree which would then require a litte shake to get them to fall into the new hive but as they were attached to the bottom of the hive this meant we had to take apart the hive and get the nuc right underneath it – with a couple of bashes and a couple of brushes the majority of the bees were in the nuc. The queen went in and soon enough the remaining bees on the bottom of the hive started to diminish as they followed the queen into it. The nuc was then fitted with a couple of frames so that the new hive could stat to form cells for the queen to lay eggs and the hive to bring up some new brood and of course seal off some honey too!

Moving the bees off the base of the hive into the 'nuc'

The nuc - now with the swarm of bees inside along with the old queen

2010 The Year in Sustainability

2010 has been a big year for sustainability at the University of Greenwich, and looking back at what we have achieved I believe we can be proud of how we have taken the University forward.
The successes of the Sustainability Team were reflected in the People & Planet Green League which was released in April when the University of Greenwich jumped from 103rd (2009) up to 61st. Sustainability issues are moving further up the agenda within the higher education sector so it will be difficult to achieve such a large jump this year, although we are of course committed to keep improving and constantly reviewing the University’s approach to sustainability.

January 2010 saw the University of Greenwich present and approve its Sustainability Policy, which can be seen here (www.gre.ac.uk/sustainability/sustainability) and is signed off by the University’s Vice Chancellor Tessa Blackstone. The policy draws together the findings of a baseline review that was conducted to establish the University’s environmental aspects and impacts and develops a policy to deal with these. The policy was drawn together as part of the environmental management system that the University has signed up for (EcoCampus). In the summer of 2010 the University was awarded the Bronze award by EcoCampus and we hope we are just a couple of months away from achieving Silver now.

EcoCampus Bronze Award

With carbon and energy reduction becoming a key priority through the Carbon Reduction Commitment being introduced into UK law and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) introducing requirements linked to carbon reduction as part of their Capital Investment Framework (CIF2), the University has taken some significant steps towards addressing these issues. HEFCE require that each institution should have a carbon management plan submitted by March 2011 and have set a sector wide target of 43% reduction in emissions by 2020 (against a 2005/06 baseline), so many of the cogs whirring away in the Sustainability Team are working towards achieving that target.

On waste the University has seen new bins being introduced at the Greenwich Campus which are divided in two for main two waste streams that the University creates. However the recycling rate at the University varies widely from very good in some areas achieving nearly 70% recycling and the not so good where some areas are achieving no better than 30% recycling. In 2011 waste and recycling will rise up the agenda and as a result we will expect the amount of waste generated to go down along with the amount sent to landfill and the percentage of waste recycled to go up. The University ran a very successful re-use campaign at the end of the summer term in 2010 diverting would-be waste from Avery Hill halls of residences to the benefit of charities through CRISP. Internally the emergence of reusing everything and anything through the University’s own unofficial freecycle of the ‘all-staff-announce’ emails has been a great success – in fact the Sustainability team office is kitted out with many an item first offered on the internal email.

New Bins at Greenwich Campus

Food has been another area of achievement for the University, following on from 2009’s award for discontinuing the use of bottled water in hospitality. The University was awarded the Good Egg award at the Good Food on the Public Plate Awards and were celebrated for five areas of achievement, including the use of organic milk, free range eggs and MSC certified fish. On top of these achievements 2010 saw the first meeting of the Fairtrade Steering Group which includes the Students Union (SUUG), the Medway Student Association (UMSA), ABM (the main University caterers) and Sodexo (who also provide some catering on campus) who are all intent on achieving Fairtrade Status for the University.

Biodiversity has appeared on the agenda for the University in 2010 with the creation of the Biodiversity Steering Group and draft Biodiversity Action Plans have been drawn up for each of the University’s sites. 900m2 has been identified on the Avery Hill Campus for an agricultural grade pollen and nectar bee mix to be planted, which will be great news for the two hives of bees that now occupy the gardens at Southwood House. Greenwich Campus has also seen five hives introduced in 2010 into the mausoleum area, right next to where Sir Thomas Hardy (Nelson’s right hand man) is buried, and all these bees will busy pollinating come the springtime. Good news for anyone who wants to use the fruits of the campus for, blackberry and apple pie, quince jelly or sloe gin (on that note I would have to say 2010 sloe harvest produced a delicious couple of bottles!)

The Sustainability Team has experienced a lot of growth this year, even without the pollination of the bees on hand! Of course there is the very important addition to the team in the shape of the Green Gnome (yours truly) who has been prolific in his blog writing and on twitter, oh and John too, who joined the Sustainability Team in April, and has now signed up for a further 12 months with the Sustainability Team. Along with the direct additions to the team we have now swelled in influence thanks to the creation of the Sustainability Champions Network. There is now a sustainability champion in almost every department helping to promote the University’s Sustainability Policy and to promote environmentally friendly and sustainable practice within their department. To help them do this the Green Impact project has been rolled out for the first time in the University and our sustainability champions are busy implementing tasks such as setting all prin
ters in their department to print double sided, promoting the University’s green travel initiatives and implementing shutdown plans to ensure energy is not wasted over holidays and weekends.

John

Green Gnome

The sustainability champions are proving to be a key communication channel to the wider University community, and that is not the only step towards better communication we have seen. The sustainability website is soon to launch following on from the emergence of the sustainability twitter feed and of course this blog. The Sustainability Induction was introduced for new starters (and existing interested staff) and also for the new student Residential Assistants. Interserve the University’s new suppliers for portering and cleaning had to include their sustainability credentials when tendering for the cleaning contract and this is something that all our suppliers will be expected to do in the future.

New Green Cleaning products

John and Kat became more involved with LUEG, the London Universities Environmental Group, both taking up places on the group’s executive board, and hosted the LUEG AGM at Greenwich in the summer time.

Travel wise John and Kat continue to cycle to work on a daily basis and were both in the top five riders from the University that took part in the TFL London Cycle Challenge in June, Neil Garrod, Tom Barnes and Adele brooks were the other three. Overall the University clocked up more than 10,500 miles, saving around three tonnes of CO2 and burning the equivalent of over 1,500 Mars bars in calories. The University has also been successful in receiving funding from Walking Works to promote walking to, from and while at work and Simon Baldwin from Accommodation walked away with 24 mince pies as a result of winning the walking to work mince pie challenge.

Before this turns into a dissertation I shall sign off with the knowledge that I haven’t even started to tell you about the 100 or so projects identified to go into the Carbon Management Plan, the voltage optimisation units that have been installed, the Greenwich graduate attributes or about many of the other Sustainability success stories that have emerged from the University of Greenwich Sustainability Team over the course of 2010. Here’s to 2010 and to a look towards 2011 hoping that we will be even more successful over the next 12 months. Happy New Year!