Ale Festival, Apple Day, Incredible Edible Festival, Urban Bees, AGMs - events this weekend and beyond

This is a late post, but I'm hoping some of you might catch it in time to attend some of the following events.  This weekend is a good one to stay south of the river unless you're inclined to join demonstrations because it's going to be tricky to get north of the river by road.  Trafalgar Square and surrounds will be unpassable on Saturday due to the Stop the War Assembly, and Westminster Bridge will be blocked on Sunday due to the anti-Health and Social Care Bill Block the Bridge event.

But there are plenty of autumnal ways to eat, drink and be merry in Kennington this weekend:

There's the Garden Museum's Incredible Edible Big Harvest Party.  The Garden Museum is over in SE1, in the old church next to Lambeth Palace.  They're celebrating local food growing with community stalls, seed bomb making, an Incredible Edible scrapbook(!?) and the opening of an insect hotel.  Visit (and bring your own seeds) on Saturday 8th October from 10:30am - 4pm

Then there's the annual autumn Roots and Shoots Apple Day 2011 where there will be over 100 different types of apple to sample, along with juicing and fruit preservation workshops.  That's at the top of Walnut Tree Walk, just off of Kennington Road.  There will also be activities for children; apple bobbing, corn dolly making, story telling etc. - This is one of my favorite days.  Go and visit on Sunday 9th October from 11am - 4pm.

Then the Old Red Lion pub (42 Kennington Park Road) Ale and Food Festival with stalls, music, a hog roast and a fine selection of ales.  It's held on Saturday 8th October and Sunday 9th October from 12 noon.

Also, some future dates for the diary...

Don't forget on Monday both the Kennington Association and the Vauxhall Civic Society are holding their AGMs on Monday 10th October (oops!).

The Kennington Association AGM will be held at the Durning Library, beginning at 6:30pm.  Their special guest is Val Shawcross, member of the London Assembly for Lambeth and Southwark.

The Vauxhall Society AGM will be held at St Stephen's Church, St Stephen's Terrace, SW8 1DH at 6.30pm to begin at 7pm.  The guest speaker will be Sue Foster, Lambeth's Director of Housing.  She'll be speaking on regenerating Vauxhall.

On Saturday 15th October, there's an Urban Bee open day and Foragers Walk, starting at noon from St Agnes Place Keeper's Lodge (in one corner of the park).

Then, on Sunday 16th October, Keyworth Primary School in Kennington (that's Faunce Street in SE17) is to be turned into a pop-up restaurant by food writer Philip Dundas in aid of "Magic Breakfast".  You'll need to book, but for £30, you'll receive a three course meal (with wine).  To attend, please RSVP philip@pip-dishes.co.uk or call 07764 336 220.  Magic Breakfast is a charity that provides free health breakfasts to schools in which over 50% of children receive free school meals and who might not otherwise eat a health breakfast.

Spring is nearly sprung (hopefully) so it's time for gardening

Careful readers of the blog will know that I'm interested in cultivating rooftops and areas in which others might not have thought about gardening. I'm very interested in planting veg (and fruit?) in areas that aren't overly exposed to traffic fumes. I'm quite excited by an idea for growing tomatoes in old plastic bottles that I found on a website this weekend. I also sent off for a book on container gardening, since not actually having a garden can be something of a constraint and I want to branch out into vegetables! It must be said though, that the beautiful chilli plant, bought for £2 on Camberwell New Road is sprouting new chillies happily in the bathroom! I'm sure I'll still find some space for strawberries and tomatoes on the balcony though (which has the advantage that squirrels, birds and slugs don't have easy access).

Inspired by the enthusiasm of residents in Lambeth Walk / Old Paradise Street, who, according to the Prince's Ward Councillor blog (Labour administration), are attempting to investigate the possibility of a community garden, a weekend visit to the Museum of Garden history cafe (next to Lambeth Palace) and finally a quick wander down from the museum past a potential allotment site for the Museum staff, I've decided it's time to expand the gardening efforts from inside the flat (whose balcony is still beautifully decorated with winter flowering pansies and viola) to the wider area.

Since the weather is getting warmer and the evenings are getting longer (well, slightly), I've joined the Guerrilla Gardeners forum in a bid to attempt to enlist some willing guerrilla gardeners for the SE11 patch (and its surroundings). Plants don't much care about postcodes so it would be great to hear from any readers who would be happy to explore the area and venture a little further out to make the Kennington/Vauxhall/Riverside area a little more attractive...

C'mon, you know you want to do gardening in the middle of the night! :-)