New Zealand oca tubers. Photo: Garden Organic
Time to harvest your oca!
Schools Oca Growing Experiment update
In Spring 2015, as part of our Grow Around the World project 70 London schools joined our school’s experiment to see if oca could rival the potato on their school dinner tables! For those of your who were lucky enough to order your oca, we hope you have had fun growing them. You should now be thinking about harvesting your oca plants.
The recent frosts may have caused the leaves of your oca plants to have wilted and died. Don’t panic as the frost was only short lived and should not have damaged the tubers in the ground but try to get them dug up in the next couple of weeks.
If you haven’t been affected by the frost
Your plants may still be growing and the leaves will still look fresh. If you want to harvest the tubers now you could just ‘lift’ one plant to see how large the tubers have become. Don’t be disappointed by their size, if you remember when you planted them how small they were.
Oca for your Christmas dinner!
If your plants are still growing you may wish to leave the plants until December, as we mentioned in our November schools e-newsletter, and then you could add them to you school Christmas dinner as a ‘roast potato’ alternative! You can sign up to our free schools e-newsletter here.
Harvesting your oca
To harvest the oca tubers use a garden fork to lift up the whole plant similar to how you would harvest potatoes.
Record your crop – as part of the School Growing Experiment
Whatever the result please take some photos of your crop and PLEASE fill in the results form and send them back to us (Experiment Form). This gives Garden Organic very valuable information about how well oca’s grow in our climate, contributes to people science, and is great for student learning. Please send your completed oca growing experiment form, oca recipes, photos and drawings to us by Thursday 17th December 2015.
Growing oca again next year
If you would like to grow some oca again next year keep a few of your best tubers to plant in late March as you did this year. Keep as many tubers as you want plants or have space for. Using the best tubers you have harvested will ensure your crops improve year on year. Make sure the tubers you keep are dry, put them in a paper bag and store in a cool dry environment, NOT in your classroom as this will be too hot. An outdoor shed or unheated storeroom should be fine.
E-newsletterspecial: Time to harvest your oca! (Nov 2015).
24 November 2015
Food Flagships – November 2015 update
GLA Food Programme – The Food Flagships boroughs are making great progress with all the projects up and running. Additional work areas are also progressing. The School Garden Grants programme – a partnership between the Mayor of London and Whole Kids Foundation was launched in October and is offering edible garden grants to schools in the flagship boroughs. On 11th November 2015, the first Edible walking route in London was launched in Clapham Common. This is an exciting partnership between Incredible Edible Lambeth, Food Growing Schools London (Garden Organic) and Incredible Edible Todmorden and the aim of the route is to bring together those who are passionate about local food in and around Clapham Common including schools, Lambeth College, the Business Improvement District, and others. We are hoping to see this community-led initiative replicated in other areas. For more information about the Food Flagships visit: Community – Local Authority
16 Nov 2015
School Food Matters are recruiting!
Intern – Corporate Fundraising
School Food Matters is looking for an intern to research and identify new corporate funding opportunities for a range of food education programmes. This is a freelance contract funded by Santander and it provides an excellent opportunity to contribute to the growth and financial stability of a small but influential charity. The internship is paid and the successful applicant could work from home or at our office in SW14. The hours are flexible and the term of this contract is negotiable.
It is important for applicants to have experience of the corporate world, an understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility and an interest in fundraising. Work on this project will begin in January. Please click here to find out more and to download the Job Description and application instructions, or forward this email to anyone you think might be interested. All applications must be received by 5pm on Friday 4 December with interviews taking place on Friday 11 December.
Note: School Food Matters is committed to employing the best staff for a given post and ensuring that all staff are recruited on merit. We will endeavour to make new opportunities available to a wide variety of eligible candidates to promote diversity and equality of opportunity.
5 November 2015
Trees for Cities are recruiting!
Edible Playgrounds Development Coordinator (Maternity cover)
Location: London, UK
Salary: £22,000 per annum pro rata
Trees for Cities is an independent charity that works with local people to transform urban spaces in cities across the UK and overseas. We work with local communities and partners to plant trees and green cities through urban woodland, neighbourhood tree, and edible playground projects.
This is an exciting opportunity for a highly-motivated, confident individual to join our Development Team through our Edible Playgrounds programme.
Reporting to the Development Director, you will be responsible for developing edible playground projects in schools in London and other UK cities; and for raising corporate income for our edible playground programme. The role involves working with schools, partners, businesses, and Trees for Cities delivery team.
We seek someone with experience in corporate fundraising and experience of developing projects, together with strong organisational, inter-personal and communication skills.
This is a full-time maternity cover position based in Kennington, London SE11.
Trees for Cities is an ambitious, far-reaching organisation.
Trees for Cities is the only charity working on a global scale focussed on planting urban trees. We work in 25 cities across the UK and overseas to transform outdoor spaces through planting trees. We are a game-changing, ambitious organisation which sets the standard for urban tree planting.
The sort of person we’re looking for.
- An individual with the relevant skills and experience
- Attention to detail
- Works well on own and as part of two teams, gets a buzz from team achievement
- A positive, “can-do” attitude, hardworking and dedicated
- Passion, integrity and energy
- Responsive to a fast paced organisation
Closing date to apply: 9am on Monday 23 November 2015
Interviews: week commencing Monday 30 November 2015
Visit the Trees for Cities website for information on how to apply, a for a full job description, application form and equal opportunities monitoring form: Trees for Cities.