Welcoming new members for 2009!

After a busy few months working furiously behind the scenes, Food Up Front is now inviting members from 2008 to renew their memberships, and inviting new members to join our urban food growing network.

We now have seven working groups of volunteers who are running the network. They are 20 amazing people who were Street Reps last year, and this year they find themselves organising workshops, training new Street Reps, refreshing the membership packs, organising deliveries of starter kits, producing leaflets & newsletters, migrating email accounts, processing membership applications, the list goes on and on.. and on (...and Ariston).

So the point is, we are still here and are raring to go! If you would like to join as a member to receive a starter kit and help from a local Street Rep, as well as access to our programme of workshops, socials and trips, our online forum and our newletter etc etc, email us at fufmembers@gmail.com and tell us your postcode. Sorry but we are still only able to cover the South London areas of Wandsworth, Lambeth & Southwark.

If you would like to be a Street Rep (or would like to find out more about what it involves), write to fufstreetreps@gmail.com

There are loads of 'grow your own' initiatives & products around and about this year. We think this is fabulous and would encourage everyone to have a go at growing something edible, whether it is with the help of Food Up Front or not. We like to think that being part of a growing network can be both helpful and fun, but the main thing is, have a go!

As the Nights Draw In

We have now closed membership for 2008 but are very pleased to be helping nearly 300 households to grow food this year! To try and motivate as many of our members as possible to keep growing food during the colder months we ran a very successful Autumn & Winter Growing workshop on Saturday. Nearly 50 people turned up and were able to not only learn what precautions to take when trying to grow food at this time of year, but they also went away with some very low cost and practical ways to deal with the colder temperatures, as well as lots of wonderful seeds to sow. Hopefully more and more people will realise that their pots do not have to go in to hibernation!

FUF in Action

Here's a copy of an email we received from a FUF member. It's a great example of what the project is all about:

I’ve been delighted with the progress of my salad box grown from the starter kit provided when I joined. The spinach and lettuce grown in my tiny front garden have given me the yummiest lunch box in London. Spurred on by this success, I’ve also grouped together with some friends to share propagating, planting and watering duties during each others’ holidays – and I now have pumpkins, courgettes and tomatoes all growing in my front garden. The neighbours are fascinated and are getting motivated to grow food as well. The ideas given in the last newsletter about using coffee grounds to slow the slugs really worked for me, whilst I watch my neighbours battle with their slugs. I'm now collecting coffee grains to sort everyone out!

Keep Growing!

Quick! Join Food Up Front now! We will only be accepting new members until the end of August, as we want to be absolutely sure that beginners get a decent chance at harvesting some of their own Summer salad leaves before the nights draw in.

However, for anyone who does join before the end of the month, and for existing members, we are going to be helping them to grow right through the year, with workshops on Winter salads and the chance to get their hands on seeds for Winter crops. We think this is really important as people tend to forget, or simply don't realise, that it is possible to grow food over the Winter months. In fact, with milder Winters like last year we were still harvesting some Summer salad in January!

Members will also be able to attend some exciting talks, workshops and social gatherings over the Autumn and Winter so don't despair if you're only just starting to think about growing some food now, and if you have been growing food already this year, don't be so quick to put down that trowel!!

Tell us how you feel (about Food Up Front)

In the glorious sunshine on Sunday, twenty Food Up Front members enjoyed a special guided tour of the herbs and edible plants at the Chelsea Physic Garden, followed by a delicious lunch and good conversation in the garden restaurant. Our next big event is the Food Up Front Picnic on Sunday 31st August at the Urban Green Fair in Brockwell Park, Brixton. We are looking forward to holding the first ever Food Up Front Fabulous Vegetable Competition that day too, so we encourage all our members to bring along their best veggies to be judged by our expert panel!

Today we have been busy planning events for members over the next few months. Without giving too much away, we are planning a workshop on what you can grow in your FUF box over the Winter, a couple of talks by REALLY interesting people as well as lots of very local social events for members and lots more. As soon as things are confirmed, details will be published on our Project Dirt forum, and in the next edition of 'News Up Front', our newsletter.

Something else that started today is our first formal venture into the world of getting 'member feedback'. Marvellous Martha (a volunteer) has started to telephone Food Up Front members to ask things like how they are getting on with growing food and (scarily for us) whether they are happy with their membership of Food Up Front. We want to do everything that we can to ensure that members are having a good growing experience (sounds cheesy but it's true!) and are enjoying being part of our urban food growing network. Therefore getting honest feedback is really important to us. It will help us to improve. Martha is hoping to (eventually) phone each and every member. Please bear with her, there are over two hundred of you. If you are a member that hasn't been called yet and have something to tell us, please email us at info@foodupfront.org - we'd love to hear your views and suggestions.

We went along for some drinks with some Street Reps and their members last night. A good time was had by all and we managed to talk about things other than veggies! The pub we went to, Balham Bowls Club, has signed up as a member recently and it was great to see that their coriander and rocket had germinated. They had their first box of seedlings under the window of the kitchen soon to be used in their pub food!

Online Forum Launch!

Despite Seb's initial misgivings (he doesn't do Facebook or anything online for that matter) we have just launched our very own online forum on Project Dirt! It's early days yet but quite a few members have joined up in the first 24 hours. It should be a great way for our members and volunteers to exchange ideas/info/resources and ask questions about their food growing exploits...and Seb's even joined!