Climate Café no.5 was on in Aberdeen last night. If you live in Aberdeen I highly recommend this series. It’s an initiative of Aberdeen Climate Action, a community organisation for which I’m a volunteer, and we are spreading inspirational messages to encourage our communities to tackle the problem of climate change. Inspirational is absolutely the right word for our monthly Climate Café talks. Last night’s talks were particularly inspiring.
Bob Donald from One Seed Forward talked about his initiative to give seeds to individuals and communities including schools, eco groups, and allotments. The idea is that one seed is given forward and two seeds are given back – for every seed potato they give they ask that you give two back in return. Every attendee last night went home with a bag of seed potatoes, including me. In 2017, One Seed Forward gave away 400kg of seed potatoes and 50,000 spring onion seeds – all for free! This year they have 625kg of potatoes to give away.
We also heard from Alan Carter about starting a community garden and how to make it work. Then Greg Walsh talked about The Allotment Market Stall which collects excess produce from allotments and sells it over the summer in Duthie and Seaton Parks. This reduces waste and returns some money back to the allotments for help with projects and maintenance. I’ll write up my summary of the talks on the Sustainable Aberdeen site later this week.
If you want to join us the next Climate Café is on Hydroponics and Permaculture and will be on April 3rd, 7pm, at Waterstones Bookstore, Aberdeen.
rachel.blog 
What great ideas! Please keep sharing them.
Thank you! I will.
♥️ the seed initiative! I’ve just joined a community garden for the first time, and I’m really looking forward to it.
That sounds wonderful. Community gardens are great places – they transform an otherwise derelict space into a place of beauty and they also encourage community.
As you know Rachel, I’m not a vegan but I can really relate to this post. Dinner tonight for us was a vegan meal – roasted veges with apple sauce. Apart from the oil, salt and pepper it was completely sourced from my garden. Potatoes, carrots, parsnip, onion, garlic and rosemary plus the apples. A bit too early for the pumpkins though we could have added sweet corn, tomato or courgettes. Crazy time of year as I try to keep up with all the garden produce, getting it dehydrated, frozen, bottled or pickled. You should see my late peach trees! Catherine
That’s fantastic, Catherine. Sounds delicious! There’s something so nice about a meal made with food you’ve grown. When we grow our own food I think we eat more healthily because we end up eating less processed food and more whole, fresh foods.