Seeing as working in a ‘zero waste’ fashion requires thinking about the whole lifecycle of our produce, Louiza and Adam have been establishing even closer links between our garden and kitchen. One thing that they immediately discovered they were mutually excited to try, was growing a loofah plant! Loofahs are vegetables in the gourd family, most commonly picked, dried and skinned then used as sponges. If we could grow these here at Minstead Study Centre, even if we only managed one and used it just as an educational tool, we could take our showcase of how we use our own garden to support the reduction of waste in our kitchen to another level! Throughout 2019, we grew a few plants, of which some dazzled us with loofahs (supposedly they are very difficult to grow in this country!). We now have a couple of dried sponges, one to use and one to keep hold of for teaching. We are very excited to have our own homegrown, natural kitchen sponge on site – completely biodegradable and entirely packaging/plastic-free!

One of the first zero waste experiments we busy with is upgrading our composting systems. We have always composted our kitchen peels, skins, cores and ends, having visiting children get involved with the process in the garden for one of their sessions each week. We wanted to take out compost one step further, attempting to find a way that we can repurpose ALL edible food scraps that come out of our kitchen, as well as the plate scrapings from meal times in the dining room.

Bokashi is a Japanese word that means ‘fermented organic matter’ – and bokashi composting is the process that produces just this! By layering food waste in a sealed bucket with a sprinkle of a specific inoculated bran between each layer, we create the right environment to ferment the scraps before they are then used within a usual composting system or wormery. The process is anaerobic, meaning there needs to be as little air as possible - pressing it down tightly on each layer is as important as keeping the lid shut. The bokashi will also need draining every other day or so, so a tap at the bottom of the vessel is essential too. The ‘Effective Microorganisms’ (EMS) in the bran will be set to work right away and after about two weeks, will have created something that smells more pickled than gone off. There should be a white mould on top and an aroma that is more appetising than you’d imagine (any other colour or bad smell may indicate that something has gone wrong).

By using bokashi at the centre, we have been able to compost ALL of our food waste, including meats, dairy and cooked food. This has meant that nothing needs to be thrown in our landfill bin and we are now able to soak up and use all of the goodness from all of our edible kitchen scraps to nutrify our compost and feed the next generation of crops in our garden!

As for at home, bokashi is a very easy process to do given that you have space for a bucket somewhere near your kitchen. The bran can be purchased online or made, and the bin reused time and time again.

One thing that we have been working on for a long, long time here at the study centre, is maintaining a vibrant, fruitful edible garden that serves not only as an educational experience for our school groups and visitors, but that also provides as many ingredients as possible to our kitchen... And one sure way to totally bypass the unnecessary packaging of supermarket fruits and vegetables is to grown your own!

Since the start of our Big Grow project in 2017, our head gardener, Adam, has transformed our garden so that we can eat from it all year round. We have salads & greens, corn, raspberries, potatoes, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, peas, pumpkins, parsnips, beans, celery, leeks, onions, garlic, herbs… the list goes on and on. Not to forget our many fruit trees on site too, that our groundsman David looks after throughout the year. Our garden is inspired by Permaculture – a practice that closely observes and mimics natural rhythms, patterns and behaviours in order to work with nature, not beside it, nor against it. By focusing a lot of energy into what, where, when and how we grow, we establish a deep-seeded connection with our produce. As humans, we have evolved to eat seasonally, and as cooks (domestic or professional) we are curious about our food; by developing a relationship with our ingredients whilst they’re in the ground, we build a strong understanding of processes involved with producing out ingredients, as well as an ever-growing gratitude for what’s on our plate. This appreciation makes us much more conscious and precious in the kitchen, from which, automatically, we tend to generate far less waste!

By using homegrown produce, we also reject the wasteful practices that are seen throughout our food supply chain. As mentioned above, we clearly avoid the needless, disposable packaging that wraps so much of the fresh produce sold to us in shops, but we also say goodbye to the food & resource waste associated with industrial farming, large-scale processing, global transportation and rigid supermarket practices like ‘best before’ dates and strict cosmetic standards. Hurrah for our beautiful garden!

It has been a while since we’ve updated the Big Grow blog but the garden has been even more productive this year! The gardening team do a great job of documenting what’s happening in the garden and putting their wonderful pictures on instagram so rather than copy it all over onto the website as well, why not follow progress by going to https://www.instagram.com/minsteadstudycentre/

Or click on the little camera icon at the bottom of the page!

Look our for new blog posts on our latest project: #zerowasteminstead - we are trying to cut our plastic use to the bare minimum, starting in the kitchen. Find out how we get on by checking in on these pages over the coming months!

A decent crop of Giant Bolivian Achocha...how shall we eat them?

Loads of loads of tender young salad growing nicely in the greenhouse - we’ll be able to pick and eat this over the winter, so that all our visiting children will be able to taste produce grown on site.

Tomatoes finally came out of the greenhouse. They were still growing healthily but we need the space for winter salads. The greenhouse feels enormous now.

Poo! What a great resource. Courtesy of our kind and generous neighbours! A large delivery of manure today to go on the Big Grow garden.

We had a bumper haul of squash this year after all that sunshine….

A few packets of sunflower seeds has become several jars!