Fife Blasda – Launching Ravenscraig Walled Garden

This weekend – Sunday 9th September at Dysart Community Hall (directions here) Fife Diet are teaming up with our friends at Greener Kirkcaldy who are throwing the doors open to their fabulous huge new allotments and community orchard at Ravenscraig Walled Garden. Starting at Dysart Community Hall then round the corner to the walled garden.

10.30 -11.30: Talks at Dysart Community Hall (Mike Small on Blasda across the country, Kevin O Kane on Fife Council’s EATS project, and David Wann – Kirkcaldy Community Gardens & Allotments Ravenscraig Walled Garden, Suzy Goodsir on a Community Orchard)

12-1 pm: Lunch from SAMH Evergreen project in Kirkcaldy, with grapes (!)

1 pm: Piped Procession to the Ravenscraig Walled Garden for Doors Open Day Loads to see and do: Guided tours, story telling, seed sowing workshops for adults and kids and our Seed Truck and smoothie bike. Come all ye!

CLEAR Buckhaven

CLEAR would like to invite you to their harvest festival to celebrate the first year of Buckhaven’s Bountiful Growing Space on Sunday 16 Sept. at Buckhaven’s Bountiful Growing Space, in between Omar Crescent and Burns Avenue Buckhaven. 12pm-4pm.

We have been busy since January 2012 turning a disused park into a thriving community garden and orchard. With help from volunteers, neighbours, local schools and other volunteer groups the garden is now bursting with colour, fruit and veg., so we could really do with a hand in eating it.

CLEAR have also been busy setting up The Globe Wildlife Orchard opposite Buckhaven Primary holding weekly school sessions with the pupils exploring, maintaining and building new habitats. Kerry a local artist has been creating a exciting and colourful mural over the road which has been the talk of the town as it progresses.

A new Therapeutic Orchard will be up and running in the next few months and with our members newly qualified in Orchard Care and Management means our other wild and town orchards are in good hands.

We have planted around 200 fruit trees over the past year (making a grand total of 1000 fruit trees in Buckhaven) and will be tasting them and juicing at the event.

Food and activities include:

- Freshly caught mackerel from our local sea anglers.

- Harvesting and cooking veg straight from the garden and wild fruit from the braes- broad bean burgers, nasturtium pesto, fruit sorbets and more!

- Fruit Juicing

- Music and Croquet in the Orchard

- Garden activities and plants to take away

- Craft and Kids activities

- Fun with Wild Flowers

- Films in the shed

All happening at Buckhaven’s Bountiful Growing Space, in between Omar Crescent and Burns Avenue Buckhaven. 12pm-4pm.

Fife Blasda

Kevin O Kane and Ea O Neill at the launch of EATS

Greener Kirkcaldy and Fife Diet are planning a big event on Sunday 9th September, at Dysart Community Hall and Ravenscraig Walled Garden (just next to each other).

The event is a collaboration between Greener Kirkcaldy and Fife Diet that combines Fife’s Blasda and the opening / launch of the Ravenscraig Walled Garden project starting at 11am in the community hall.

The event will include a workshop by Greenspace Scotland, a celebratory lunch with produce from the new EATS (Edible and Tasty Spaces) edible border in Kirkcaldy (pictured, above) and a lot more.

Ravenscraig Walled Community Garden (Dysart Road) will be open to the public 12 – 4.00 on Sunday 9^th Sept, as part of Doors Open Day. Suzy Goodsir from Greener Kirkcaldy:

Come and see our first season’s growing in the Walled Garden. Once it serviced Dysart House, then was a major Council facility for training and producing plants for public places, but in February this year the walled garden re-opened as a local community growing resource with allotments, community orchard, training area, willow and wildlife area. A community sensory garden is planned as well as restoration of the 19th century Victorian greenhouse.

Parking is restricted – if possible please walk in.

• Guided Tours of the Gardens

• Chat to plot-holders about their allotments

• Kids activities – sowing wildflowers in the orchard; storytelling

• Workshops – ‘ Bottle the Glut’ and others – in the training area

Other groups and projects from around Fife have also been invited to take part, more details shortly. More details soon.

Blasda Lift Off FAQ

Invitations to Blasda 2012 are flying out the door as we try and network the local food movement across Scotland…loads of new groups are coming on boards with big collaborative events planned in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Fife. Here’s (right) a sample of our new posters which will be available online later for download.

We’re getting the same questions – so here’s a quick FAQ.

What sort of events are being planned? People use Blasda as a way to celebrate and super-charge their local food activities. This could be having a local food audit or a public food workshop on how to improve access to local food. It could be engaging local food producers and getting a bargain. It could be encouraging local cafes / restaurants / hotels to put a locally-sourced menu on for the two weeks of Scotland’s Food & Drink Fortnight (1st – 16th September 2012) Or it could be just having a big pot-luck meal. Any scale is good. Celebration is a key part of the idea.

Here’s as useful equation: Workshop+Potluck+Ceilidh=Blasda

How can I get involved? Just contact: John O Donoghue john@fifediet.co.uk.

What does Blasda mean? Blasda is gaelic for taste or flavour. We think fresh local produce tastes better than processed food. We think it’s better for you and the planet. We think developing local resilient economies is crucial in tough economic times.

Who is Blasda aimed at? Blasda is aimed at everybody – it’s aimed at getting everyone behind and involved in the local food movement. Community growing projects and local food growing projects are key, but cafes, restaurants and delis are also invited to take part.

Blasda 2011/12

A great thanks for everyone who helped host a Blasda event in September 2011, it was a huge event far beyond our expectations for this first, tentative year, with thousands of people involved.

Special thank you to our supporters CASP and to our wonderful designers D8, but most of all to communities and producers who’s energy made it happen.

We hope to be back next year and would welcome feedback, ideas, hopes from you about how to develop a local food feast for Scotland. Please send your thoughts to mike@fifediet.co.uk

Thanks!

Kirkcaldy Blasda Brunch

Thanks to Colin from Bread in Fife for producing masses of lovely porridge last Saturday, which, along with fantastic organic bacon from Falkland Farm kept everyone happy enought to buy chocolate chip brioche (yummy) from Barnett’s Artisan Bakery and the Little Herb Farm.

Also present were Falkland Centre for Stewardship demonstrating Love Food Hate Waste and our friends from Greener Kirkcaldy. Everyone was asked to contribute to our Food Graffiti boards in four questions: What’s your Favourite Autumn Food? What’s Wrong with the Food System? What’s your strongest Food Memory? What’s your Food Heaven & Food Hell? What’s your favourite Scottish food? Here’s what people wrote (feel free to add your own in comments….) Read More >>

Blasda

Scotland’s Local Food Feast September 2012

Category Archives: Fife