One Pot Pledge® Blog

April 2011

We know you did the One Pot Pledge last year, what made you decide to try growing your own veg again this year? I haven’t really had a choice, after getting used to salads and french beans fresh from the garden last year my parents decided that i had to do the same this year!

Is there anything you grew last year that you’ll grow again? Were the pots you used suitable? Last year i had the most success with my dwarf french beans so i will definitely be growing these again. As they did so well i think i will be growing them in the old recycling box again.

Tell us what you’ve decided to grow this year? After seeing all the different varieties at Garden Organic’s Potato Day, i decided that i would give growing some spuds a go. I decided on two varieties of early potatoes: Swift and Charlotte and one main-crop variety: Maris Piper. As you can see from the pictures these are growing really well, in fact the bags are almost full already!

I tried growing some tomatoes last year but did not have much success, so i will be trying again this year with the help of the new One Pot Pledge Tomato grow sheet.

Are you trying any different pots or containers to grow them in? As I’m not allowed to dig up anymore of the garden lawn, i’ve decided to try growing my potatoes in a bag. Because my French beans did so well last year in the old recycling box, I’m going to use that again this year!

Did you find the One Pot Pledge growing cards helpful as your vegetables grew? Yes! the growing cards were very useful. As i am still a novice when it comes to food growing they helped me keep everything alive and gave me an idea of what to expect as the veg grew.

Last year you said that you’d get your mum to cook the veg for you – are you going to dare try cooking anything yourself this year?! I might try cooking some spuds myself, but the way i look at it is why risk ruining all that lovely fresh veg with my terrible cooking!

To quote a well known festive tune -’the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful’ – and we do hope that those of you that sowed or planted Chard, Pak Choi and winter salads back in September and October were able to harvest something before the cold weather arrived! Here at One Pot Pledge HQ we’ve bought our Chard and Pak Choi in from the cold and fingers crossed we’ll still be getting fresh leaves into the new year.

For those of you ready to harvest  your veggies, we saw this on Jamie Oliver’s show last night – perfect for making those delicious One Pot veggies even tastier – enjoy!  Green Veggies recipe

A wintry scene at Ryton Gardens. Copyright Garden Organic/Helen Lockwood

Just a quick post to share my excitement!

Yep, the One Pot Pledge will be making an appearance at the Prince of Wales’ Garden Party to Make a Difference which starts in central London this Wednesday (8th September). By Royal invite, we’ve been asked to bring the pledge to the palaces to get visitors to the garden party potting their own edible veg to take home, grow and eat!

If you’re heading to the Garden Party then make sure you find us – we’ll be the ones wheeling the lovely bright green Haemmerlin wheelbarrows, giving out Delfland Nurseries’ organically grown chard and wild rocket to anyone that pledges to grow their own!

See you there…www.startgardenparty.co.uk

First Harvest- copyright Linda Scannell

It’s fantastic getting feedback from our One Pot Pledgers. Here photographer, Linda Scannell, shares tales of her first forays into food growing and some of her lovely photos:

Name: Linda Scannell

Age: 44

Location: Warwick

Is this the first time you’ve tried to grow anything edible?   No- I’ve had a go at strawberries and rocket before but not very successfully.

Why did you decide to ‘give it a grow’?   I thought it would be interesting for my children, who are aged 8 and 5. Plus i was fed up of buying bags of salad from the supermarket and wasting lots of it- I thought it would be easier to cut what I wanted.

What are you growing?   Runner beans, peas, mangetout, potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, mixed salad leaves, tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, red cabbage, spring onions, mint, thyme, rosemary, chives and parsley.

New Potatoes- copyright Linda Scannell

Have you had any teething problems?   The fist sowing of carrots didn’t go that well (4 small ones) – not sure why, but the next lot have all grown so looking forward to eating those. The broccoli didn’t come through at all – I ended up nurturing something that turned out to be a nettle where the broccoli should’ve grown! And the peas haven’t thrived – we’ve just had enough for one spoonful each – so I need to think about planting them somewhere else next year. The slugs have pretty much left the veg alone – they were too busy eating all our sunflowers!!

Have you eaten any of the produce you’ve grown?   We’ve eaten loads of mangetout and runner beans, salad leaves, one meals worth of new potatoes and a few tomatoes and peppers so far. And the mint has come in handy for Pimms and making fresh mint tea.

Has the One Pot Pledge inspired you to have a go at growing anything again? Yes – I’ll definitely be growing some more. It’s been a lot less time consuming than I thought it would be, it’s been very satisfying watching everything grow, and we all think fresh veg is much tastier than supermarket bought, so now I’m looking for an allotment so we can grow more of it.

What would you like to try next?   I definitely want to give broccoli another try, and the kids want to try purple carrots.

Dwarf French beans in a recycling bin and old tiling grout container!

Name: Matt Priestley
Age: 25
Location: Coventry

Is this the first time you’ve tried to grow anything edible?
This is the first time I have attempted to grow anything edible other than strawberries, except for growing cress at school.

Why did you decide to have a go? I decided to have a go while working at Gardeners’ World Live. There were a few seeds and pots left over at the end of the week and it seemed a bit hypocritical of me to sign people up for the One Pot Pledge and not try it myself.

What are you growing?
At the moment I have dwarf French Beans growing in pots and some tomatoes and carrots growing in a raised bed.

Have you had any teething problems?
My first problem was trying to find a bigger pot to transfer the beans to when they outgrew their original pot, luckily I had an unused recycling box laying around that worked well for this purpose. My second problem was remembering to water the pots after I had moved them outside, but the regular rain showers saved me!

Have you eaten any of the produce you’ve grown?
So far I have only eaten some of my own lettuce as I decided to eat it before the slugs attacked it!

Have you got a recipe idea to use your One Pot Pledge veg in?
As I cannot cook to save my life I will most likely give the French beans to my mum to be cooked and eaten with my Sunday dinner!

Will you be having a go at growing again?
After finding out how easy it is I will definitely try growing again in the future.

What would you like to try next? Next time I may try growing some winter veg but if I don’t get round to it I will try growing some chillies and peppers next as I know these will get eaten.

It’s great to hear tales from our One Pot Pledgers, here Jo Roberts, tells us all about her office pledge competition at Parenthesis Design and Marketing in Coventry.

“I decided to get the ‘office growing’ this year and sorted out a challenge for our One Pot Pledge: a chilli growing competition.

We had eight seedlings and six were all potted up on the same day, all have the same compost, same size pot and same saucer to sit on and they were all more or less the same size.

After lining them up on the windowsill in our canal side office kitchen, staff were asked to choose one. The MD chose the biggest (no surprise!) and I waited until last, as it seemed fairer.

A list of rules was then posted on the notice board stating staff could not swap their position on the windowsill or sabotage other chillies. Despite this we did have someone cut out several paper chillies and tie them to their plant and one even tried to fool everyone with a real chilli!

So far we have one plant with three chillies, one with none, and the rest have one. We will have a prize for the biggest plant and the one with the most chillies.

The competition really has galvanized staff into action and the some have already asked for the next challenge, which will be potatoes for Christmas dinner!”

Competition chillies

Here at One Pot Pledge HQ we’ve been opting for veg plants over houseplants this summer. They may not have the same lifespan as your average spider plant, but they’re pretty exciting – especially when this happens! What is more I reckon that chilli is going to be pretty tasty too!

Desktop Chilli plant

I must add to this post that had I have planted this chilli plant into a larger pot – as per the instructions – I would have had more to show for my efforts! Oh well, it’s a start and that’s what the One Pot Pledge is all about. So how are the rest of you doing?

It’s not every day that you get a buzz from going to work, but I think today definitely counts as one of them!

Today Chief Exec of Garden Organic, Myles Bremner, joined the One Pot Pledge team and our campaign partners, Food up Front, to take to London Bridge to get as many commuters, tourists and passers by to join us in making the One Pot Pledge to grow something edible and delicious this year.

Based outside Pret A Manger on London Bridge, the morning surge of commuters was intense but despite the pressures of needing to get to work within an hour hundreds of people had already taken the opportunity to make the pledge and take away a coffee cup sown with delicious basil seeds in rich organic compost. Some were suited and booted business men, some were sightseers and day trippers and some were ‘ladies that lunch’ but one thing was certain – all of them were chuffed to bits with their reused coffee cups filled with soil, seeds and most of all promise!

And it wasn’t just commuters that dropped by. Rosie Boycott sowed a cup, so did Tristram Stuart, and as well as literally hundreds of eager Londoners – even the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson chipped in with his own contribution from his City Hall office!

All in all it’s been a great day – I hope today’s pledgers got as much out of it as we all did.

Boris Johnson with his One Pot Pledge

Good day to you my pledging chums.

It’s now been over a week since I started my One Pot Pledge and my strawberries are coming up a treat. Or at least I’m sure they would be if I’d actually got round to planting them yet.

I know; I am quite, quite terrible.

I have bought the seeds though… so that’s something I guess. Although I am quite shocked to learn that a strawberry is not just a strawberry. Oh no. There are varieties and everything.

I have got myself an alpine strawberry. Apparently they’re quite a tiny little fruit but extraordinarily flavoursome. Once you’ve grown them, that is. Currently they’d be rather crunchy.

What I have achieved in this time is a lettuce. In a hat! It has rather enjoyed the sunshine over this weekend and has come on a treat. I’ve just got to be careful that I’m not too over-zealous with my watering. As I usually forget it now seems I have compensated for that by attempting to drown the poor little mite.

Maybe one day I’ll find that middle ground.

This weeks jobs:

Buy Seed Compost.

PLANT STRAWBERRIES (!!!)

I’ve also been donated some chilli seeds and seed potatoes so they’re going to have to be given a grow.