How does your garden grow?

Here's another feature with upcycling overtones that I wrote and never shared. Deep apologies for the delay! Food from the Sky is an organisation in north London that upcycled a grocery store's roof into a garden. Here, recycling tubs from the council are planters and CDs on strings keep the predators away. The venture is a great example of using and reusing resources in clever new ways and on a grand scale.

Again you'll need a microscope to read the text as it appears in the pics here, but please don't bother to get yours out of the attic; instead just read the feature below.

Shannon Denny meets Azul-Valerie Thome, the green-fingered activist whose work with Food from the Sky just might turn the world of supermarkets upside down...

While it’s quite a nice part of London, the streets of Crouch End are not paved with gold. On any given weekday, the central crossroads are a logjam of prams, black cabs, bobbies on the beat and Vespas. An Ocado truck lumbers past loudly as I head to the local Budgens store.

Inside on the ground floor, it’s not unlike any other supermarket up and down the Britain. In the neat aisles I can stock up on Alpen, get a can of Heinz beans and purchase whatever fragrant new product promises to get my laundry brighter and whiter.

Up above on the roof though is a scene that is absolutely unique in the country. Here, a bumblebee teeters on a poppy.  A feisty raspberry bush reaches for the sun. Bunting and CDs strung along a length of twine flit in the breeze, warding off the capital’s considerable population of pigeons. And Azul-Valerie Thome reaches out a compost-covered hand to greet me in this unlikely – but visionary – market garden.

Azul is a former silversmith and art consultant with a background in organic gardening, permaculture, design and community projects. When she left her leafy 50-acre smallholding in Devon to relocate to London’s concrete jungle, an image entered the activist’s mind every time she left the house. “I used to walk in the streets of London and literally had the vision of orchards and food growing from the roofs.” She couldn’t glance skyward without imagining strawberries hanging down and tomato plants shooting up.

Then Azul met Andrew Thornton, who owns the Crouch End Budgens franchise. “I shared that vision. And he said, ‘You know, I have a roof. It would be great to grow a bit of salad for the shop.’” They took a look at the space, and Azul immediately saw the possibility of her dream taking root. “I thought, ‘Forget the salad – it’s not just salad. This is about communities, people, education, biodiversity, sustainability, permaculture – a hub.’”

It was a fantastic fusion, and an unusual resolution of opposites. So often the supermarkets are seen as the bad guys who perpetuate intensive farming, contribute to unnecessary food miles and cripple plant species that aren’t economically viable. Andrew’s involvement in the project introduced a new way forward. By collocating the garden with the retailer, carbon emissions could be reduced. Food transport would no longer require expensive airfares and lengthy lorry journeys, while a customer could stock up on everything in one place rather than driving from farmers market to grocery store in a quest to tick everything – from household staples to fresh seasonal produce – in a single shopping list.

“When you have just half of a vision, you don’t have enough,” Azul affirms. “He’s got a foot in the food industry, and my background is in community work and sustainability. So it was like, ‘Cool! We can do this!’”

That determination carried the pair though a round of endless meetings to get the project literally off the ground. A surveyor assessed load-bearing capabilities, and happily discovered that the financial and logistical nightmare of additional structural work would be avoided. Landlords, insurance companies and the planning office meanwhile needed full assurance about a host of regulations and building issues. And several meetings with neighbours addressed concerns about everything from noise to smells.

While Azul and Andrew waded through forests of paperwork on health and safety, risk assessment and insurance, volunteers rallied under the new Food from the Sky banner to dive hands-first into some dirt. In February of 2010, they mustered the cardboard tubes from loo rolls into service as plant pots and sowed seeds in the carpark. When all of the necessary papers had been signed, sealed and delivered less that four months later, a crane lifted the fledgling garden up to its new home up above.

The local council contributed 10 tons of compost and more than 250 retired street-side recycling bins to serve as planters, while Azul’s team adhered to organic standards and biodynamic rhythms in planting an orchard, veggies, fruits and edible flowers.

As predicted, this 450-square-metre aerial allotment became home to much more than salad. What’s flourished? You name it. Pak choi, carrots, beans, peas, spinach, herbs, radishes, courgettes, squash, chickory, spring onions, cauliflower, loganberries, globe artichokes, kale, broccoli, tomatoes, beetroot, pumpkins, raspberries, rocket, mushrooms and melon. Grape vines and fig trees are growing too.

Meanwhile, a rich cultural diversity inside the store has led to adventures into off-the-beaten-path produce too. The Thornton’s Budgens team speaks no fewer than 31 languages and originates from a variety of lands across the globe. Thanks to the suggestion of store employees, a Garden of Bangladesh has been planted with lau, amaranth, puishack and coriander, and Sri Lanken employees are lobbying for a patch of earth for their native produce too.

Sustainability informs everything in the space, with pallets and other upcycled materials providing planting spots. Rain is harvested in water butts, while waste from the store goes into wormeries and compost tumblers on the roof. When the polytunnel fell victim to exposure in the first winter, Azul hatched a new plan. “The wind ripped the plastic to shreds,” she says. “So we’re going to make a plastic bottle greenhouse. We need about 3,000 bottles.” The lightweight, transparent vessels will be skewered lengthwise on poles, and these will form vertical building blocks for the walls of the structure.

A team of pioneering volunteers – who age from three to 74 – have utterly transformed the flat expanse of concrete, but even locals who don’t climb the steps to the lofty green space are benefitting from the dynamic initiative. Five weeks after the garden landed on the roof, the first produce and live plants entered the store for sale. These days, the Food from the Sky stall appears every Friday. So forget food miles – these meal makers travel only a distance of a few metres before alighting in prime retail position in the Budgens produce department.

The roof has proved an ideal growing ground. It’s about five degrees hotter than the earth down below, and the store’s heating and lighting systems contribute warmth to fight off frost. Predator numbers are lower too – foxes, slugs and snails so far haven’t figured out how to conquer the staircase that leads from the carpark.

On the other hand, pollinators have flocked to the urban plantation almost since day one. There have been over 30 insect species observed by volunteers, including red-tailed bumblebees, honeybees, wasps, moths, butterflies and ladybirds. “Pollinators are so responsive,” Azul observes. “Let things go to seed, especially the brassicas. They love it.” This attitude has led to a partnership with Buglife, the charity dedicated to maintaining sustainable populations of insects, spiders and earthworms.

“There is a responsibility to bring back our endangered species, heritage seeds and biodiversity,” Azul says. “We need to create environments for them to come to.” In another symbiotic relationship, Food from the Sky is also joining forces with the Heritage Seed Library. “Supermarkets were originally part of the cause why those species of vegetables and fruits are disappearing. Reintroducing them in the supermarkets is really exciting. It gives me shivers, so I know I’m on the right track.”

With a landscape full of flat roofs in the capital, the Food from the Sky outlook is catching on. The vision – “To grow life, food and communities on our most cemented places and to plant seeds in people’s heart” – resonates with all kinds of individuals and groups seeking an alternative to the tyranny of the big food chains. Azul  has acted as consultant on a flat roof garden at the London School of Economics, where produce is now used in the canteen. She also advised the South Bank Centre on their urban garden which blossomed among the concrete of London’s most famous brutalist structure. In addition to frequent garden open days, she gives one or more talks a week, and recently spoke at an architecture school about incorporating ideas for green roof growing into planning from the outset.

High profile supporters are throwing their weight behind the work too. One day last summer, Boris Johnson cycled from Islington to climb the Food from the Sky stairs and celebrate the thousandth Capital Growth site opening. Along with his food czar Rosie Boycott, he chatted with students from Highgate Wood School about their mushroom growing enterprise project, helped volunteers to pot some seedlings, picked and dined on yellow raspberries, and even sold a bag of roof-raised mixed salad, herbs and edible flowers to a store customer.

It feels a bit like Azul is rolling a green carpet across the skies. Hot on the heels of winning the Co-operative Bank’s People and Environment Achievement (PEA) Award for Community, she’s busy developing a program that will share lessons learned at the Crouch End farm so others don’t have to suffer through insurmountable challenges in implementing their own community ventures of this kind. What’s next? “Creating the model,” Azul answers, “a 12-step template, and then consulting and training in how to set it up.”

For individuals who aren’t quite ready to launch anything quite as ambitious as Food from the Sky, there is also a programme called Seed2Seed that takes place in the Budgens site. The course provides the basic knowledge and practical experience to grow food successfully in containers. It also introduces lots of different ways to increase your yields – from attracting pollinating insects and self watering containers, to using the powerful design tools of permaculture and biodynamics.

The twin tasks of maintaining the project and spreading it to others would be daunting to most people, but Azul relishes the chance to be a groundbreaker. “I love pioneering. I love that place on the edge, not knowing what’s the next step.” As a gentle wind stirs, I’m reminded that we’re several storeys up. Hopefully her adventures don’t take her too near the edge – I have a feeling we will continue to need her inspiration in years to come.

Speaking of which, I want to know what her dream is for the project. Not surprisingly, she’s more or less shooting for the stars. “Well, there are 3 million square metres of flat roof in London. I’d love to see them all covered in flowers and food and people learning about food, using what’s already there and not using any new stuff, meeting, being together, sharing skills, planting heritage seeds, having bumblebees and hoverflies everywhere.” Azul, it seems, likes to dream big. But dreams can come true, and I for one hope hers does.

foodfromthesky.org.uk

Join the revolution

As discussed, I have spent the last year living my life and not blogging. So naughty of me. But I've still been thinking about upcycling, I promise. Here's a feature I wrote for SurfGirl magazine's January issue on new year revolutions, little things you can commit to doing for the benefit of the planet.

Unless you have very good eyesight, chances are you can't read the text in the image above, so being a kind soul I have pasted it here...

New year revolutions: Four resolutions to focus your efforts on protecting the earth, one day at a time

Some new years resolutions are easy (“Eat fewer than five Kit Kats per day”) while some are not (“Learn to play the ukulele to professional standard”). But most resolutions exist around a quest for personal improvement. This year, why not focus some resolve on planet improvement? To help, we’ve fashioned four earth-friendly resolutions that are fun, achievable and pretty well painless.

Upcycle

Upcycling requires a little shift in thinking and a measure of creativity: rather than throwing things out, bypass the landfill and come up with new uses for old stuff. The benefit is that your bit of trash won’t be transported halfway round the world and it won’t be heated back down into its core material – two processes that require tons of energy and therefore make a big impact on the planet.

Every item of garbage from your household might not be a candidate for upcycling, but with an open mind it’s possible to reinvent old rubbish to serve new uses. In the surf world, there’s no greater proponent of this than Cyrus Sutton, creator of Korduroy TV and director of the film Stoked & Broke. Tune into Cyrus’ website and soon you’ll be converting soup tins into hobo stoves, resurrecting shipping pallets as sun loungers and making wetsuit changing bags from redundant tarpaulins.

Crafty girls are at an advantage, because if you’ve got sewing skills you can whip up a bag from old curtains; if you’re more of the cut-and-paste persuasion, lift lovely surf shots from mags and create driftwood frames. For a practical project, hit up your shaper for foam dust, pour into an offcut of tights, tie the ends to seal, and say hello to your new wax remover. 

Decontaminate

It’s a complete mystery: why are items that are inherently disposable now being made from materials that will never, ever break down? A cotton bud only ever gets used once – at the most – so why on earth is the shaft made of plastic?

There are earth-friendly disposables out there, and it’s essential to swap nasties for biodegradable options. You buy cotton buds, tampons and cotton makeup pads pretty much every month, so train yourself to look for ones that come in cardboard and paper wrapping, contain no plastic components and are made from organic cotton. Exchange your disposable razors for one where only the blade is disposable.

And if you’re guilty of flushing cotton buds, sanitary products, condoms and razors down the loo rather than the bin, then Surfers Against Sewage has a message for you. Think Before You Flush is a new campaign discouraging people from using their toilet as a tip, because this causes huge problems both in the sewage works and later on in the marine environment.

Barter

When you feel the urge to shop till you drop or jettison your junk to a skip, remember – bartering can be beautiful. This is the year to initiate cash-free trade among your gang, because one girl’s trash is another’s treasure. That super tiny thruster I accidentally bought on a whim could be just what you need to take your surfing to the next level, and a board you’ve outgrown could be my ticket to ride.

“Swapping is particularly good for surfboards because as you improve you generally want to go shorter and smaller,” says Finola O’Neill, who’s exchanged everything from a coffin bag to an epoxy fish with friends. “It’s a karma thing; everyone gets what they want and you don’t have to bin it all, which is a waste of materials.”

You can take the redistribution of resources a step further too. When I retired a winter wetsuit, a friend put me in touch with his flatmate. She was getting into surfing but wasn’t sure she was ready to buy a box-fresh wettie. She took mine off my hands; then, rather than giving me money for the tatty old thing, we agreed she’d make a donation to a surf charity. Truly – everyone’s a winner.

Forage

Foraging is much more fun and cheaper than going five-star. It’s also easier than gardening because you only have to show up for the harvest. Surfers are lucky because we spend more time traversing fields and country lanes than most, providing access to the ripest blackberries and the juiciest apples. With a freezer, this equals good eating all year long. The sea offers a bounty too of course, for those willing to take a closer look.

If you’re really keen on reducing food miles, resisting intensive farming and disrupting supermarket tyranny, outfits like Safari Britain and the Wild Food School offer courses in the foraging arts. Meanwhile Food for Free, the paperback Collins Gem by Richard Mabey, is a tiny compendium that fits in a backpack and shows all you need to know to rustle up tasty winkles, samphire, laver and goosegrass that you’d otherwise overlook. 

Rubble to riches story

Here's what's so appealing about foraging: No air miles. No pesticides. No packaging. These are all good things. One other thing that foraging does though is more personal. I think it makes you more aware of your surroundings and more alive to the possibilities of resources that we largely seem to have forgotten.

Now, being alive to the possibilities is a skill, and you don't even need to be on a country lane riddled with wild strawberries to put it to use. Here's proof: a while back I was commissioned to do an interview with Jenny Dawson, the founder of Rubies in the Rubble, for the customer magazine published on behalf of the trustees of Borough Market. Jenny's epiphany came when she couldn't bear to see good produce being abandoned at New Covent Garden Market. Today she and the Rubies in the Rubble team collect fruit that's past its sell-by date and revitalise it in the form of chutney. Read the interview here.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Someone kindly pointed me in the direction of a site called Bachelor's Degree Online; specifically I was encouraged to check out a post titled 80 Awesome Upcycling Ideas for Your Dormroom Decor. If you live in halls of residence - or even if you don't - then roll up roll up, read up read up. (I positively challenge you to resist the lure of the snow globe made from a baby food jar.)

Cut and run

Let's face it peeps; there's upcycling... and then there's upscale upcycling.

Some of us might have naff shopping tote bags to hand, and finding a new use for them is commendable. But how's this for an inspiring tale? Jeweller Sarah Stafford took two heirlooms belonging to a client. Altogether she had 88 diamonds at her disposal. From an old brooch and a pendant, two amazing rings were made. I've interviewed Sarah for a feature I'm working on - check out the tale of her uber-upcycling on her website, and while you're there you can also book a spot in her jewellery school to maybe render such sparkly miracles of your own.

Swing when you're winning

This week I finished writing a feature on hardcourt bike polo, an underground sport that touched down in London just three years ago. Here's a taster extracted from the story, with images courtesy of Chunk...

'With the sport still in its infancy, you won’t find a bike polo section in Foot Locker or Lillywhite's. As a result, borrowing and hacking are intrinsic features of the scene. Bikes are often cobbled together from spare parts, and Felix Cramer, a college student, illustrates how DIY skills have come in handy in fashioning his much-used mallet. 'It's a golf club and electrical tape,' he tells me. 'I played with it so much I broke the end off it so there was a massive hole. So what you do is put a penny on it or a cork and tape over it.'

Ski poles or bamboo are other common components used to serve as mallet shafts, while mallet heads are typically made from plastic piping requisitioned from building sites or roadworks. 'People find them, happily,' Felix divulges. 'The official rules say 12cm is the longest you can have. Drill holes take the weight out, or people will have one massive hole so they can scoop the ball with the side of the mallet.'

Wheel covers are another modification that calls upon a player’s upcycling savvy. These prevent damage to spokes, and also provide a tactical advantage. 'They’re quite handy,' Felix says. 'If you’ve got the ball on one side of you and the attacking or opposing player is on the other side of you, they can’t see the ball through the wheel.' In London, the ubiquitous signs of estate agents provide the perfect corrugated plastic medium for the job. One player’s wheels sport the unmistakable livery of one of the country’s most notoriously greedy agencies; 'I’m sponsored by Foxtons,' he grins."

For more information on rules and throw-ins (that's polo lingo for pickup games) check out the London Hardcourt Bike Polo Association site.

Teetotal thanks

PSFK consultants are trained to keep their eyes on the future. In the course of their future gazing they quite often come upon upcycling ideas...

Here's a recent one: upcycling credit cards into guitar picks.

And another: upcycling billboards into bags for sale at major retailer Target.

And yet another (warning: this is the weirdest thing ever): upcycling wee into whiskey.

Not only is this an innovative example of reuse, it's a potential solution to alcoholism. Now then, who would like to join me in climbing on the wagon?

Get up stand up

The New York Times recently ran a review of a new book about the spread of surfing across the world. The book is called Sweetness and Blood and it's by Michael Scott Moore. The review cites two examples of upcycling revealed by Moore in his book - apparently early Cornish surfers requisitioned coffin lids for their boards, while in Cuba surfers in the 1980s used plywood desktops. Gnarly indeed.

Late edition

What's that you say? You believe upcycled newspapers to be the covering of them there walls over yonder? Correct. Read all about it (ahem) at the online design mag Core 77.

Make my day

Two new books support the notion that making things and doing stuff with your hands is actually good for you. Can upcycling some old piece of rubbish keep you on an even keel and save you lots of money otherwise spent on therapy? To find out, read Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder or The Case for Working With Your Hands: or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good by Matthew Crawford. Or instead you could tackle some interesting and creative DIY project and find out for yourself.

For kicks

It's not just the host continent of the World Cup, it's also the cradle of upcycling. There's an article in the New York Times today about photographer Jessica Hilltout and her project to record the pursuit of the beautiful game not in glittering stadiums but on Africa's sandy beaches, dusty plains and cracked stretches of dried clay. Part of the project includes a series of shots of homemade balls she traded with her subjects, exchanging fine factory-made ones for their versions fashioned from socks, stockings, string and even condoms. Read the article here, or let the images speak for themselves by visiting Jessica's site here.

Coffee container

In the past we've seen shipping containers converted into swimming pools, and here they are upcycled into a cafe. Read all about it at Treehugger, where you'll find more shots of the green scene courtesy of B Alter.

Bag bunting

Soon the World Cup will start. I wish the USA and England weren't in the same group; for a dual passport owner like myself things could get ugly. So I am supporting the Ivory Coast. All I need to show my colours is buy a bunch of stuff from Sainsburys and Marks & Spencer. With some orange bags and some green ones, I could make weatherproof bunting. Want some bag bunting of your own in order to show your own true colours? See a fabulous online tutorial by Hannah of Seeds and Stitches at Amelia's magazine, where she writes a column on creative reuse.

Post script

PS - I Made This is a whole new wonderful world where coffee stirrers can be reimagined as necklaces. There are heaps of projects - most leaning toward the fashion end o' the eco invention spectrum - and a weekly newsletter, so get yourself involved. In the meantime, take a gander at the chandelier made from plastic water bottles shown here.

The mastermind behind PS-IMT is Erica Domesek, a writer in New York City. According to the website, her "creative motto 'I see it, I like it, I make it' reflects the belief that one can find inspiration anywhere and transform what one sees into something fabulous to wear, use or look at." To that, we say hooray.

gives me a charge

Curious to know what you're looking at? It's a sculpture made of discarded batteries by Michel de Broin, and it comes via the brilliant blog known as Designsquish.

Wishy washy

"I’m not saying you need a wash but when was the last time you saw a bar of soap?"

How can anyone resist a good intro like that? Don't resist, just visit my friend Clare's blog called Pass the Pattern to learn how one savvy soap seller - Nostalgia Organics - includes instructions with every bar on how to upcycle her natty fabric packaging into something wonderful...

That's what I call good clean fun.

LA story

My mom heard something cool on NPR recently, which is not surprising because NPR is filled with cool things and my parents listen to NPR pretty much from the moment their eyes open in the morning.

The story was about Recycle LACMA, a grand exercise in upcycling that you shouldn't miss. Pay a visit to see a 1960s Korean wedding coat transformed into a canteen cover or a textile from Uzbekistan made over into a travel pillow. They've made butterfly nets, beekeeper's hats, earmuffs and more. Any old ways, here's what the project has to say for itself:

"On January 14th, 2009 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that it was deaccessioning more than 100 items from its costumes and textiles collection. Once carefully collected, catalogued, and cared for, these items have now been cast back out in to the world. What will happen to them? Like any other useless item, they will need to be recycled or disposed of.

Recycle LACMA is a project of Los Angeles-based artist Robert Fontenot. At three separate auctions he purchased over 50 items deaccessioned by LACMA and is now trying to find new uses for these otherwise unwanted items."

(Un)do me

This comes from the braniacs at Conceptual Devices:

"A hoodie is not just a hoodie. In a world full of stuff, smart items should be transformable, editable. They should engage the possibility to be transformed into something else. We do not need a new object. We rather need to get rid of some of them, to reduce the complex network of things around us. Just undo it is a collection of reversible objects that could be made from a hoodie at no cost."

Someone there certainly has their head screwed on right. If you watch their videos and peep the how-to images, before you know if your hoodie will become: a backpack, a laptop sleeve, a pillow, a shoulder bag, a backpack... In the world of Conceptual Devices, less is indeed much, much more.

Seeing red

Ok so vintage on the Oscars red carpet is nothing new. But upcycled fashion? I think that is something to write home about. So does Livia Firth, who is in a bit of a better position to do so. As wife of Colin Firth, she's going to see that red carpet up close and personal - and she's going to do it in a dress by From Somewhere, which uses odds and ends of fabrics to create high fashion.

But do not take my word for it - hear it from Mrs Firth herself via her Vogue.com blog post on the topic.

See? Shells

Having spent the past week on a beach, I've been thinking a lot about packaging. The high tide line was strewn with orange, yellow, blue and green plastic debris, which although colourful is still ugly and heartbreaking.

A tiger clam shell however could never be described as ugly, and as all-natural packaging it biodegrades with relative ease. Still it holds opportunities for upcycling, as villages in the Philippines have discovered. Tiger clams are a part of their everyday diet, and previously the shells had been regarded as waste. But now they've been selling tiger clam shells to a spa company that's devised a way to use the shells in massage. Lava Shell massage is similar to hot stone massage, except the shells contain algae and dried sea kelp that, when blended with salt water, generate their own controlled heat for an hour-long massage. You can read more about it here.

In a seashell: some seaworthy trivia

Molluscs, the creatures that produce seashells, are among the oldest existing life forms on earth. The tiger clam survived the extinction event that wiped out nearly all other species on the planet and resulted in the Ice Age.

Seashells are composed of calcium carbonate, the same material found in our bones and teeth.

Tiger clams are a natural reducer of greenhouse gases; they process CO2 out of the ocean water, which in turn allows the ocean to absorb more CO2 from the air.

All clams, including the tiger clam, are capable of producing pearls.

Seashells are among the oldest forms of currency on the planet. Many of the first coins minted were emblazoned with seashells to show that they were currency. In fact, in some parts of the world they’re still legal tender.