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Hello from Lauriston Farm,
Welcome to the June newsletter. Last month, we loved joining in with North Edinburgh Community Festival, the Agroforestry Open Weekend, giving an update to BBC Radio Scotland 'Out of Doors' about the flax project, and being in the We Feed the UK exhibition in Glasgow. That exhibition is closing this weekend, but the project continues, and we want to say thank you again to photographer Sophie Gerrard and poet Iona Lee for the powerful words and images that captured our work, and to the Gaia Foundation for including us.
Back here at the farm, there's plenty for you to get involved with this month, plus some news and updates...
In this newsletter:- Healthy Plant Communities - special event to open the Community Kitchen (15th)
- Market Garden Update & Volunteering (Tuesdays & Thursdays)
- Wildflower Hill Volunteering (19th June)
- Tree Care Volunteering (26th & 29th June)
- Bird Survey Walk (29th June)
- Drop-in Volunteering
- Calling all Financial Experts - can you help with a short-term project?
- Community Navigator Vacancy (new role - apply by 9th June)
- Wildflower Nursery - plants now for sale
- Updates about new structures on the farm, buying veg, and cows
And from our Land Partners:
- Grass Roots Remedies volunteering sessions and workshops
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Healthy Plant Communities
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Saturday 15th June 1pm-3:30pm
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Come along to the official opening of our earthen-built Community Kitchen in our Community Allotments and Garden! The kitchen was made by and for the people in this community - but our community also includes all the plant and animal life too. This is why we have invited Scotland’s Plant Health Centre and other experts to join us for the afternoon. Together we will explore how plant health connects with wider community health. You can learn how to source seeds safely, spot signs of plant disease, get healthy compost, and protect the wider ecosystem when growing your own fruit and veg. Plus you can help us make a useful guide for anyone who has an allotment or veg patch. We’ll be screening a short film in one of the sheds. And you can eat pizza cooked in our new earthen oven!
It’s free, but we do need to know numbers, so please book a ticket here:
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volunteering continues Tuesdays & Thursdays in June
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It’s been a remarkably wet May. As a result, we are overrun with slugs and weeds, lots of our crops have failed and the ground is sodden, which has been slowing progress. We know many other market gardeners and farmers here and around the world are facing the same challenges (or an equivalent challenge with droughts) and global heating is going to bring more of this. It’s been pretty hard, BUT farming is hope-in-action... The swallows are back nesting, we’re seeing lots of exciting biodiverse critters, our seedlings are strong and folks will be delighted to know the tomatoes and cucumbers are in. We can still see the promise of abundance in the fields through the rain! We’re also delighted to have been working more with our new neighbours in the food production field: Grass Roots Remedies, Rhyze Mushrooms and the Wildflower Nursery. Having volunteers in the weekdays is really helping us - if you can lend a hand on a Tuesday or Thursday, please sign up here:
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Wildflower Hill Volunteering Session
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Wednesday 19th June, 1:30pm-3:30pm
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Throughout the summer, the flowering plants need a hand to make sure they can compete with the grass and offer a good buffet for the pollinators, as well as making a gorgeous garden for the humans. Come and help plant and tend the wildflower garden space on the viewpoint hill!
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Tree Care and Maintenance
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Wed 26th June, 2pm-4pm & Sat 29th 11am-1pm
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| Tree care continues! The saplings' high survival rate owes a lot to volunteers, weeding, mulching and ensuring posts and guards are secure. We'd love your helping hands. Please sign up here if you can join us to do some tree care in June:
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Saturday 29th June, 5:30am
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The fourth and final birdsong identification walk of 2024. Professor John Frank will lead a group around the farm, counting and recording the species you find on the day, and this will complete the 2024 survey. We have to restrict the numbers of people on these very popular walks, so it really is a case of the early bird catching the worm/spaces on the sign up sheet. And please do remember to cancel if you can no longer make it, as someone else would love to step in.
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Tuesdays & Thursdays 2pm-5pm
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Financial Systems - Can You Help?
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short-term project available
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We are seeking a Financial Expert (individual or organisation) to work with us on a short-term project to improve our co-op's financial systems, starting ASAP. Currently, we manage our finances through a combination of Xero and spreadsheets. It is not streamlined, takes too long to rationalise and is not a transparent system for the team. If you can help us sort this out, you could make a big difference to our everyday functioning and our long-term development. If you'd like to work with us and this is your kind of thing, click here to find out more. | |
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New Community Navigator Role
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We shared this in the last newsletter - this is a reminder that applications for this role close on Sunday 9th June! And for those who didn't see it before, all details and application process here: | |
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Wildflowers From the Farm
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Our Wildflower Nursery is bustling with activity! Our dedicated team of volunteers has been busy growing a variety of native Scottish wildflowers. If you're looking to add some beautiful, native plants to your garden to support pollinators, reach out to us at wildflowers@lauristonfarm.org to enquire about buying from us. Plus, we can grow plants to order for the following year - just let us know what you need! | |
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New Structures at the Farm
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We received some questions and concerns about some of the new structures being added to the farm, and the planning process. We have put a new article up on our website with more details and an annotated map of what's being added to the Market Garden, which we hope is helpful. Click here to read the article | |
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Thanks all who signed up to the request list for veg bags this season. We’re full for CSA Memberships this year, but don’t worry if you missed out - we’ll be running our farm market stall again this season with lots of beautiful veg, plus extras from Rhyze Mushrooms, Granton Community Bakery and Grass Roots Remedies. Keep an eye out for launch dates. | |
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Sorry, this one is not good news, but we think it's the right thing to do...
We know that lots of people were really excited about having Highland cows at Lauriston Farm (us too!). However, following repeated vandalism of our fences, we have become increasingly concerned about whether they would be safe. We have re-assessed the risks and decided not to go ahead at the moment. We haven’t ruled it out forever, but will need some things to change before we can support cows at the farm. Meanwhile, deer are doing a pretty good job as our 'grassland mangers' for the benefit of the nesting birds. Please remember the north field of the farm is an important habitat for endangered curlew and other coastal birds - you can help them by avoiding that field, especially with dogs, when you're at the farm.
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News From Our Land Partners
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Thank you for reading. Hope to see you at an event, volunteering session or wildlife spotting on the farm soon.
from all at Edinburgh Agroecology Co-op
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