One Pot Pledge® Blog

Just a quick update to say hi all those new pledgers out there that joined the campaign at the Real Food Festival last weekend. It was fantastic meeting you all and we hope you’ve been looking after your newly acquired seedlings!

We had a great time talking to you about food growing and seeing how excited so many of you were at the prospect of your very own home grown veg. Don’t forget there are tips on how to care for your veggies on the website and do keep us posted by sending in your stories and pictures – onepotpledge@gardenorganic.org.uk

Oh and just to show you how far reaching the campaign is – here’s a pic of Michelin starred chef, Raymond Blanc, making his very own One Pot Pledge!

Renowned chef, Raymond Blanc, makes his own One Pot Pledge

If you want to get involved with the One Pot Pledge this year but you’ve surveyed your growing opportunities at home and they’re not very inspiring, then why not look further afield?

Most of us spend around half of our waking hours at work, so why not pot up a plant and take it with you? You can water it on your tea breaks, talk to it while you’re waiting for the printer and harvest your crop to liven up your lunch!

One of the best crops of peppers I ever grew was in an office. I had a nice, sunny spot by the window and the long days of artificial light and temperature-controlled air-conditioning provided the peppers with just the kind of conditions they love.

Peppers (sweet and chilli) are happy growing in pots as long as they get enough light and enough water – something it’s easy to keep an eye on when you’re at your desk. They also appreciate regular liquid feeds with a tomato fertilizer that’s high in potassium (the K value) to encourage them to grow lots of fruit.

Peppers are largely self-fertile and don’t require the attentions of bees, but in the calm air of an office it can be helpful to either gently shake the blooms or rub your finger inside them to encourage the transfer of pollen. You’ll know which flowers have been pollinated – their insides swell into little green fruits – whereas unpollinated flowers simply drop off.

Peppers can take a long time to ripen, which makes them tricky to grow outdoors but perfect candidates for an office, where they can grow year round. They are perennial plants, so you won’t need to replace them, although they will need repotting every so often as they get larger. You can prune any unruly branches off if they’re getting in the way of your computer screen!

Having an interesting plant on your desk really adds life to the office, and if you work for a big company then you might be surprised at who stops by to take a look! You may be less pleased to see that some fruits disappear when they’re ripe – unfortunately a bit of ’scrumping’ is often inevitable, so try and look upon it as sharing with strangers. And you’ll need to find someone reliable to keep up with the watering duties when you’re on your holidays.

And if you don’t have a sunny spot for a pepper? Then think about plants that don’t mind less light and don’t need insect pollinators – a little pot of salad plants, or a couple of herbs, could really liven up your lunches.

Emma Cooper is a freelance garden writer living in Oxfordshire with her husband and three pet chickens. You can read her garden diary and listen to The Alternative Kitchen Garden Show online at http://coopette.com. Her first book, ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z’ was published by Permanent Publications in August 2009.

The office chilis get off to a good grow.

Just to prove that we really have been eating pea shoots at lunch…here’s our beginner gardener, Simon Lovett tucking in on a Friday afternoon!

Brown break, smoked salmon and pea shoot sarnie - yum!

If you’ve been to the supermarket recently and browsed the salad aisle then you’ll have seen ‘pea shoots’ making an appearance – but what are they and how are they grown?

Pea shoots, put simply, are young pea plants grown to a certain height and then harvested for their tasty, tender stems and leaves. They are sooooo easy to grow, particularly indoors, they are perfect for ‘first timers’ and are the perfect pea flavoured addition to sandwiches, salads and stir frys.

One of our pledgers emailed and asked how to grow them – so we thought it only right to bring you our top tips:

Step 1: Get a shallow tray – no deeper than roughly 2 inches or 6 centimetres, make drainage holes in the bottom and fill it almost to the top with some peat free seed compost or potting compost. Make sure you then water the compost.

Step 2: Select the peas you want to grow (any will do, but you might have a specific pea preference) and then plant the seeds in rows 1 – 2cm apart and about 1/2 cm deep. Cover the seeds over with compost and water.

Step 3: Place your tray on a sunny windowsill, at work, school or home and then watch your peas grow! You should see results within two – three weeks.

Top tip – keep the soil moist and your pea shoots well watered. Your pea shoots should be ready to cut within roughly 14 – 20 days. You should harvest them when they put out wispy tendrils at the tops. Harvest them just above the first set of leaves and theywill re-grow ready for cutting all over again.

Here at Garden Organic we’re growing ours in the office and eating them at lunchtime.

Happea growing!

A tray of half harvested pea shoots