Whitehawk community food project

Apples ready for pressing

After I finished the course I started looking for volunteering opportunities and luckily in Brighton there are quite a lot to choose from. I decided to try the Whitehawk community food project because they were using permaculture design along with organic and biodynamic techniques that I wanted to get some hands on experience of.  The first day I went it was beautiful and sunny, once I'd climbed the very steep Whitehawk hill I found a green oasis with a fantastic view of the sea. When I arrived I was immediately offered some freshly pressed apple juice, it tasted delicious and I realised the last time I'd had fresh apple juice was about 5 years ago when i'd bought a juicer whilst on a detox. It struck me as sad that most of the people in the 'supermarket generation' have never tasted really fresh food picked straight from the ground, plant or tree and for all the convenience of year round access to all types of fruit and vegetables we have sacrificed something really fundamental in our relationship with food, taste!

The guys who run the project have been doing it for about 10 years and are all really friendly and happy to share their extensive knowledge with whoever comes to volunteer. You also get a share of whatever produce is available in return for your efforts and for someone brought up on supermarket vegetables and salad there is something really special about picking your food fresh from the ground or plant and taking it home to eat it, it felt quite magical to me.

The chickens in their 'tractor'

Mesmerised by chickens
I was soon introduced to the chickens who play an important role in a permaculture design, often used on courses to illustrate the differences in inputs and yields between intensive farming and permaculture, the former being more energy intensive for yield return than the latter. One of the volunteer days I helped make a chicken tractor, this was a very simple version which was basically a portable fence. Chicken tractors are used to move the chickens around different parts of the plot to get them to scratch over and clear the soil of weeds and pests whilst fertilising it with their droppings and are a great example of beneficial connections, where the needs of one element in the system are met by another. I found the chickens quite mesmerising and spent ages just watching them do their thing all the while feeling aware of just how disconnected I had been from real life during the decade I had spent most days staring into a computer screen whilst designing the virtual world. I decided chickens were much more interesting.

Mutant squashes, the worms are in for a treat!  

Mutant squashes and other delights 
During my time at Whitehawk I tried my hand at many different things like clearing mutant squashes that were the result of an unplanned union between marrow and courgettes, planting green manure, transplanting strawberries, picking snails off brassicas to feed to the chickens, moving compost, helping re-build raised beds, apple pressing and catching chickens to put in the tractor. There is always something new to do and learn under the friendly guidance of the people running the project but one of the best things for me was that everyone is made to feel welcome regardless of situation or circumstance and treated as equals. The only hierarchy you have to contend with is the chickens pecking order, so different from the corporation which ironically treats people like battery hens!