Let the adventure begin!

CC
May 6, 2018
3 min read

The Urban Farming adventure started last weekend! On Saturday, I finally got to choose my plot, which was actually very difficult considering there were so many available and looking beautiful. I also received my goodie bag and badge to access the site any day of the week!

During the first part of the meeting, we went over the basics once more to remind everyone of some of the rules at Peas & Love and that Urban Farming is about respect: of nature and each other. We then received our goodie bag (containing a welcome leaflet & recipe book) and were off to choose our plot. It was quite fun to wander the rooftop and analyze which plot would produce the most. Each row is named after a veggie, a fruit or an herb and already a lot of them had fully grown cauliflowers ready to be harvested. To be honest, this got everyone biased about the choice of their plot and so did the cute names of the rows… But eventually we managed to all find our little happy place and to name it. Matthias and the team then took a picture for the Member Portal and a Polaroid for each welcome leaflet.

The next part of the meeting involved the goodie bag and a pair of scissors! Yes, we were already able to harvest a bunch of herbs as well as salad, mizuna, rucola, kale, cauliflower (haha!) and more delicious veggies! I was actually surprised by the diversity and amount of plants available in the common areas that I couldn’t even name! We discovered plants that tasted like chestnut, anis or oyster that would add a little kick to any salad or smoothie! We also enjoyed 3 varieties of mint, we tasted lovage, we could harvest some young salad leaves and received strawberry plants to grow at home.

In the goodie bag was a recipe book written for Peas & Love including recipes that you can prepare with the veggies harvested at the farm. Within the first pages, you can find some really good tips on how to harvest herbs and veggies, keeps them fresh, etc. All in all, it was such a nice moment spent with my fellow urban farmers!

Each plot should produce about 30kg of leafy greens, herbs, fruits and veggies including a total of 70 species! Now this is what I call diversity in the plate! The harvest planning has been thought through to respect the seasons and to ensure that you get food all year round....I can't wait for the juicy tomato's, sweet peppers and zucchinis from this summer! I am also quite eager to discover what my winter plate would look like if we respect the seasons instead of buying imported veggies!

If you missed the post where I mention the address of the farm, here it is! Several visits are organised throughout the season for anyone curious or thinking about becoming an Urban Farmer.

I also visited the farm today to get some greens in my plate and show a friends the concept! With today's weather and almost nobody at the farm, it was a little piece of heaven...Literally! The sun was shining, we had a lovely blue sky, seats and we were surrounded by nature! What more do you wish for? But hey, it wouldn't be perfect if we didn't get our hands dirty!

There is always some maintenance to do at Peas & Love or some plants to...plant! And today some sharp cabbages were to be placed in the common areas. I must say that it didn't take long but damn it was fun and very satisfying to do on a lovely Sunday afternoon (*yes we all have our hobbies*). Following that short interlude, we then headed to my plot and the common areas to harvest some salad, rucola, pak choi, mizuna, young kale, celery and aromatics like parsley, mint and coriander.

We also head that tomato's would be planted in about 2 weeks! Can't wait for that to happen and for strawberries and raspberries to come!