Tag: sustainable food

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August Progression in the Community Allotment

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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

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Sustainability Awards

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Tuesday saw the University of Greenwich celebrate its first annual Sustainability Awards. To celebrate the progress the University has made over that last 12 months an esteemed selection of 45 people chosen for their contribution to the University’s sustainability effort were invited to Hamilton House for the event.
The event gets under way in Hamilton House

Neil Garrod lauds the efforts of the attendees in their contribution to sustainability at the University
On the agenda were speeches from the Sustainability Team, Charlotte Bonner from NUS green Impact Team, Neil Garrod Deputy Vice Chancellor for Resources and a presentation on ‘local food’ from Dr Howard Lee from Hadlow College. The main thrust of the speeches was angled towards the positive changes that had occurred at the University over the last 12 months and celebrating the impact that the people in the room had in helping bring about these positive changes.
A large part of the event was based around the achievements of the sustainability champions and to award them certificates and prizes for the work they had been doing on the Green Impact workbook. The workbook which had 22 tasks to complete for the bronze award, 15 for silver and 65 bonus tasks was attempted by all the sustainability champions. Since we launched the workbook an astonishing 561 tasks towards improving the University’s sustainability performance have been undertaken by the champions and their departments. These 561 completed tasks are the result of the hard work and determination of our sustainability champions, who have had to persuade, change and influence their colleagues and peers since the workbook was launched in October last year.
Overall 23 schools and departments achieved the bronze award, 1 achieved the silver and in turn won the gold award for the department that completed the most tasks. The golden department was the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), led by Caroline Troy, which completed a whopping 61 tasks in total. It might not be surprising that the NRI is leading the way with sustainability at Greenwich when sustainable development is at the heart of the NRI’s mission statement.
“Our mission is to provide distinctive, high quality and relevant research, consultancy, learning and advice in support of sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction.”
Caroline Troy receives her prize for bronze, silver and gold award in the Green Impact workbook.
Along with the awards to the sustainability champions there were a few special awards going around for people who had put in a particularly strong effort towards sustainability at the University. Ian Cakebread and Tony Dodson won an award for their excellent bicycle powered generators built for Green Week, Pru Jones received an award for her efforts towards recycling at the Medway campus (often as high as 70%), ABM Catering won an award for their move towards sustainable menus and Sustain won an award for their contribution to the Sustainable Food Policy.
There was one particularly special award being handed out which was the Sustainability Hero Award complete with FA Cup style trophy, courtesy of Glasdon UK, which went to Mary McCartney from the Business School. Mary won the award for the extra effort she put in over the year towards sustainability. As the only champion in the Business School she has helped get sustainability to the top of the agenda within the school which is now developing more programmes, employing more lecturers and more researchers with sustainability at the heart of what they do. On top of this Mary managed to get the 2nd highest number of tasks done in the Green Impact workbook and fully deserves the award for 2011.
Neil Garrod awards the Sustainability Hero trophy to Mary McCartney

All the sustainability champions with their prizes
Following the awards everyone headed to Greenwich Park to enjoy a Sustainability Picnic laid on by ABM Catering. The menu was designed to showcase the best of the food on offer from the south east of England that we have available at the University. The menu included local cheeses, University of Greenwich home baked bread, cakes and scones and a selection of locally grown fruits.
Sustainability menu provided by ABM Catering

Enjoying the sunshine and the picnic in the park
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London as a Sustainable Fish City?

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The University of Greenwich is one of 11 London Universities to sign up to the Sustainable Fish City campaign from Sustain.

The campaign follows on from the London 2012 Olympics stating that they will only buy fish from sustainable sources and Sustain are asking the rest of the city to get on board as well and become the first ‘Sustainable Fish City.’ The campaign sets out a number of targets to be achieved by 2012 whether you are a university or college, multi-national corporation or just an individual citizen of London there are actions you can take to help London achieve this target.

At the University of Greenwich we have been doing a lot of work to develop a wider variety of sustainable food options and an increase in the amount of sustainable fish supplied is one of the feathers in our sustainable food hat. You can find Marine Stewardship Council certified fish being served on our campuses and it is no secret that Friday fish and chips is the meal most likely to persuade the Sustainability Team down to the canteen!