Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

Next week we’ll be finding our creative sides and making a mosaic sign for the allotment. We’ll be staying nice and warm in the local church, so no need to check the weather forecast!
Everyone’s welcome, so come along at 10.30 on Tuesday 6th Dec, see you then!

This autumn we have a range of events and activities planned, including:

aromatherapy workshop - how to create your own herbal massage oils

bodycare products workshop - how to create herbal lotions and cremes to care for your body

planning session for planting next spring

planting of overwintering crops and green manures

soft fruit pruning and propagating

putting up our new polytunnel

forest garden maintenance

sign painting

weeding, as ever!

Last week we ran a workshop on making culinary oil infusions.

We harvested herbs from the allotment - thyme, spearmint, peppermint and rosemary, as well as garlic and raspberries (still fruiting!).

We then each selected our preferred combinations of flavours and put them in bottles of olive oil. The flavours will take 2 weeks to infuse and then they’ll be ready to use for salad dressings and cooking. And they look beautiful.

In September we held our first ever Apple Day

We harvested apples from our four apple trees, three of which we planted three and a half years ago, the other one we inherited and is enormous…

We chopped up the apples, ’scratted’ them (mashed them up in a pan) and then put them through a hand-powered apple press, giving us very delicious apple juices, all with distinctive flavours.

an excellent day was had by all.

harvesting from one of the apple trees we planted when we first established our forest garden.

scratting!

At theHeap we welcome people of all ages, ability and energy levels to share and learn about growing food as part of a community.

Join us at theHeap every Tuesday, we start at 10.30am and Finnish at 2 pm. We always break at 12.30 to enjoy food together. Please contact if you would like to come along. We also have Volunteers  maintaining the allotment on other days who always welcome help.

Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th November, 11am-4pm

bring food to share, hot drinks provided

extending the excellent work of last winter’s raised bed building weekend we’ll be building another set of raised beds using the hugel technique (burying logs into the subsoil to raise soil level for improved drainage, and to provide a slow-release source of nutrients). These beds will allow us to expand our work with Revive, an organisation that supports asylum seekers and refugees. Revive members have been coming to our weekly workdays (every Wednesday) for nearly a year now, growing their own food in the beds that we built last year.

come and learn more about hugel technique, practice your carpentry skills, dig for victory (?!), get active to beat the autumn blues etc etc

should be a good weekend, tell your friends, see you there!

Tom/theHEAP

Saturday 18th July, Sunday 19th July, 10am-4pm

the HEAP is hosting a free course on permaculture and how to grow food sustainably in an allotment setting.

ideal for anyone interested in growing food, sustainability, vegan organics and permaculture.

the course will be led by Angus from the Manchester Permaculture Network and Kirsty from the HEAP and Birchfields Forest Garden and will last two days. Bring vegan food to share, drinks provided.

places will be limited and we’ve already had quite a bit of interest so please book early to avoid disappointment.

contact info@theheap.org.uk for more info and to book your place