Mung Bean For Nothing And Your Chicory For Free

Free food! Growing on a street corner near you. Well certainly it is if you happen to live in Machynlleth or one of the several other towns about the UK who are following Todmorden's example by cultivating vegetables and fruit in public spaces, the pickings of which are for anyone who fancies it. As you potter down to the post office on Friday morning (should such an entity still exist on your high street) and notice a rumbling in your stomach, why not harvest a few kale leaves from the attractive wooden box outside to nibble on as you queue?

One of my two beds of runner beans

The concept is an intriguing one and of course laden with what ifs, whys and wherefores, none of which I have the answer to. It certainly places vegetable-growing in full public view and that in my opinion is no bad thing. People whose only relationship with a kale is a glimpse of a few leaves in a transparent plastic bag when they pass the salad section in Asda may now witness the plant itself in all its curly glory. And not just once perhaps, but they might see it every day on the way to work, and begin to feel something of a bond develop as it slowly matures and enlarges. They may begin to appreciate the time it takes to form those salad-bag leaves.

A few of my young plants.. broad beans, french beans, mange tout, spinach, lettuce, mizuna and rocket

It's unlikely however that they will fully appreciate the time taken to construct and plant these incredible edibles unless they happened to join one of the Edible Mach volunteer days to do exactly that. I found myself turning up for the second time at the volunteer event last Sunday, a couple of us a little the worse the wear after the previous night's joint birthday party for five people (so we had to party five times as hard).  As the only willing vegetable-planter volunteer with a car with tow-hitch it fell to me again to be the driver, towing a trailer around filled with tools, wheelbarrows, willow stalks, blackboards, thermos flasks of tea, and the like. 

A moth contemplates the enigmas of existence on one of my tomato plants

Our mission was to create a circular raised bed on a patch of grass near the Leisure Centre and fill it with edible plants. It was to be three metres in diameter, have concentric rings of kohl-rabi, lettuce, calendula and yes, kale, surrounding a central willow sculpture of Machynlleth's clock tower with nasturtium climbing up it (you can eat the nasturtium flowers).  And if that wasn't enough we were also tasked with making a fourteen-metre-long path past the bed, with timber edges filled in with wood chippings.

A perfect circle had to be carved out of the stubborn thin and rocky ground and the plastic edging bent to fit. The topsoil was to be wheelbarrowed in from a huge pile a good five minute's walk away and mixed with soil conditioner from a pile in the other direction. We had to fetch the wood chip from the Centre for Alternative Technology a few miles away, filling the trailer from a wood-chip mountain in their barn. The path edges were to be laid out down the slight incline and hammered into place with wooden stakes, plastic lining fixed between and then the wood chip poured on. Beth was to spend the afternoon constructing the Clock Tower model with just a bit of help to reach the high bits. Oh, and at the end we shouldn't forget to pop the plants in. 

Amazingly, it all got done. As at first there were only four of us it did seem a rather daunting amount of work but throughout the day more people drifted in and helped out, until eventually we could stand back and admire our handiwork. It really did look pretty good. Just don't ask me in a few months time how it has fared from the antics of the local youth and passing dogs with full bladders. I'm not sure I want to know.

P.S. I got the irrigation pipe working again by detaching and blowing through the top section... such a relief to have the water flowing again!