I wanted to try camping alone because it felt crazy learning survival skills https://t.me/TheGrowingProject/37?single and owning a bug out bag & not even having camped before. I did not expect to enjoy it so much.

*Cooking is one of life's tedious necessities for me but cooking outdoors - what a treat!

*I could do everything alone apart from take out the tent poles. I'm definitely going to start strength training again.

*Scrunch your sleeping bag back in the bag, foot end first. So much easier than rolling it up.

*I love people but I often crave alone time. Camping & the potential to wild camp has opened up another avenue for solitude. In these crazy times solitude to quieten the mind is essential.

*It's very likely I won't enjoy camping as much in the cold & rain but while it's hot I'm going to get a few more trips in.

What tips do you have for a beginner?

Sonia

http://instagram.com/TheGrowingProjectUK

http://t.me/TheGrowingProject

What we've been up to: Balcony growing musings from first-time grower Sonia

A quick update on my growing progress since I started in May. I'm not the most organised grower so I'm behind on repotting. The courgettes that I started from seed likely need a garden home as they're not doing too well.

One of my tomato plants is happy and producing fruit. I've given away a lot of plants (ones I started from seed) and I've had reports that they're thriving too.

I'll be trying growing potatoes in a bag soon.

In the food pic the tomato and all the greens are from my balcony.

As a complete novice who had no skills before May, had a lot of house plants die on her and has a tendency to be quite lazy, I'd say if I can do this anyone can.

Sonia

http://instagram.com/TheGrowingProjectUK

http://t.me/TheGrowingProject

#growyourownfood #exitthesystem #keepcashalive #shoplocally #independentbusinesses

What you've been up to: clever use of space

My relationship with plants and nature has definitely changed since starting growing. Now while I'm out and about and see a plant one of my first thoughts is can I eat it 😁

I'm also often looking out for inventive ways of finding space to grow. These pics are some good uses of space I've seen around London.

Are you using space really creatively?

Sonia

http://instagram.com/TheGrowingProjectUK

http://t.me/TheGrowingProject

#growyourownfood #exitthesystem #keepcashalive #shoplocally #independentbusinesses

12.08.22. Community MATTERS interview #8 with Sonia & Jen of The Growing Project: A group of people documenting their journey to exit the system & live more in tune with nature whilst also sharing knowledge with local communities.

These amazing ladies are doing incredible things with their fantastic team & leading the way in creating sustainable ways of living independent of the current elite-serving system. When we take back control of our food-supply we start to take back control of our lives. The name ‘The Growing Project’ is so meaningful on many levels as we move into new, holistic ways of living & being: from tiny acorns mighty oaks grow!

Follow the journey, get inspired and get involved here:
https://www.instagram.com/thegrowingprojectuk/
t.me/TheGrowingProject
Email: TheGrowingProject@Protonmail.com

Join us every Friday with new guests introducing their community-focused passion projects & explaining how these can benefit YOUR local community and how we can all get involved.

@astandintheparkuk

What you've been up to: tools to help us live out of the system

We make the system irrelevant by finding ways to buy, trade or get services directly from each other. Here are some people doing really interesting things:

*Maria created The Brainy Chef Club while homeschooling her children. Using baking to teach core academic subjects others are now using her lesson plans. https://t.me/thebrainychefclub Check out a free lesson plan here. Add $0 at checkout https://linktr.ee/thebrainychefclub

*Micky from MD Survival has set up this great swap group: https://t.me/swapuk

*Buy, Sell, Exchange or Barter for the awake community:
https://t.me/AwakeMarketplace

See our last post on tools to help us live out of the system:
https://t.me/TheGrowingProject/68?single

Sonia, Jen and team

http://instagram.com/TheGrowingProjectUK

http://t.me/TheGrowingProject

#growyourownfood #exitthesystem #keepcashalive #shoplocally #independentbusinesses

What you've been up to: creative use of space

We loved seeing these pictures from ECJ. A lot of care and love has clearly gone into this.

"I rebuilt my garden myself last year and started growing this summer.

The canopy is to protect my veg from the sun (south facing) tomatos cucs aubergine chillis growing in planters on wall up herbs and other salad leaves in the tins.

I grow using the square foot gardening philosophy - divide into square feet and plant within each - am learning as I go along - grew all my tomato plants from seed and many of the others...next phase will be a watering system - I am lucky because I have been able to invest some money on the project but did pretty much all of the work myself and it brings me enormous satisfaction and joy to go out into what was once a pretty awful back yard." ECJ

Sonia, Jen and team

http://instagram.com/TheGrowingProjectUK

http://t.me/TheGrowingProject

#growyourownfood #exitthesystem #keepcashalive #shoplocally #independentbusinesses

What you've been up to: celebrating the rain

Until this week it had been a very long time since we had had rain in London so a topic of conversation with strangers has been how happy we are now it's come.

This lovely, joyous man was ecstatic about the rain and we had a great conversation about how nature renews itself and is so much more powerful than humans.

He also pointed out that a couple of days ago the grass across from us was completely dry and yellow and it only took the downpour a couple of days ago for green patches to start appearing. 

It's only since I started growing that I really appreciate rain.

Sonia


http://instagram.com/TheGrowingProjectUK

http://t.me/TheGrowingProject

#growyourownfood #exitthesystem #keepcashalive #shoplocally #independentbusinesses