Remember Agne’s food-growing experiment in the forest garden that started back in early June?
The picture above shows her courgette, chard and pumpkin taking shape in July.
You can see the original blog post about the garden transformation over lockdown here: https://plantingup.co.uk/building-our-community-garden/a-tranformational-experiment-over-lockdown/
This is an update on how it’s now looking…
The courgettes, chard and pumpkin that Agne planted have flourished. So much so, that there are surplus courgettes available now.
Agne has emailed to say that the courgettes are producing 2 -3 fruit every week that are ready for picking.
You can see from her pictures that there are large ones to be picked and smaller ones coming through all the time.
The artists at Westbury Arts Centre have been asked to take what they like, and all Planting Up members are encouraged to pop by and pick courgettes and chard to take home too.
Please leave the pumpkins (seen pictured here) as they still have some time to grow to their full potential to be ready for eating.
Agne picked two overgrown courgettes, also classed as marrow, and shared them on Olio – the fast, free and friendly mobile app for food-sharing, aiming to reduce food waste by connecting people with surplus food to those who need/want it.
Olio is renowned for being fast but I was amazed to hear that Agne’s collection was arranged in less than 5 minutes!
Please feel free to drop into Westbury Arts Centre and help yourself to the courgettes that are ready for picking and eating.
URGENT NOTICE:
Although we have tried the courgettes from our forest garden and they taste delicious (no bitterness at all by all reports), we thought it best to share this notice so that people are aware to be cautious when eating any fruit/veg from the squash family, no matter where it comes from.
BITTER TASTING COURGETTES, CUCUMBERS, PUMPKINS, SQUASH & MELONS CAN CAUSE FOOD POISONING
A member of the group has messaged to alert us to increased risk of “curcurbit poisoning” in the cucurbitaceae family of flowering plants that include courgettes, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash and melon this year. The best advice to determine whether it will make you sick is to cut off a small piece and lick it. Then, if it tastes bitter, do not eat it and immediately throw it away.
