Favourite varieties of potatoes - Telegraph

Favourite varieties of potatoes - Telegraph

Transition Durham

Please come along to our first special event for 2011 on Jan 29th at Alington House from 5pm til late. The event marks the soft launch of our new local food website, a celebration of Transition Durham registering as an official Transition group, a tour of our Fruit Map, Bread tasting from Elizabeth's new community bakery, a seed swap area, and a party to celebrate all these things (including Elizabeth's birthday)

Here's what's happening in more detail...

Start and arrive at 5pm doors open with tea, coffee, cake, an Imbolc (first signs of spring) welcoming and some bread tasting from Elizabeth who is planning to set up a community bakery this year.

There will also be a seed swap table, please bring your spare seeds to swap and share seed news

Then the main part of the event...

Starting at about 5.30pm there will be presentations, an overview and introduction to Transition and demonstration of the Transition Durham website, followed by the main presentation - a guided tour of our new local food website (which is not yet public but you'll get to see it first in its "started but not finished state" at this event)

We will then see the latest from the Fruit Group and their mapping adventures of 2010 and their fruit tree nursery plans for 2011.

There will also be brief news from other groups and projects including the Local Economy Project and Durham Exchange

From 7pm there will be food ready provided by Fiona of Jam Jhar and Foodcycle (donations will be welcome). This will be topped up with a bar, music and even a live band (the Future Primitives) taking us into a party mood and maybe even a bit of dancing!

For the earlier part of this evening event we will have laptops around connected to Alington Houses super fast Wi-fi so that you can explore our new websites, get to know them, make comments, contribute and maybe even get involved

By 11pm it will be time to go home or stay and tidy up

We hope to see you there. Please come and help us celebrate. Bring a friend who is new to transition and local food. Please forward this invite to your groups or folk who maybe interested and kids / families are welcome to come along as there is lots of space!

Alington House can be found at 4 North Bailey in Durham, DH1 3ET

http://alingtonhouse.org.uk/

First day at the allotment 2011. Everything pretty much flattened by the heavy snow. Some green shoots coming through the spinach, so cut back all the soggy leaves and covered with fleece. Had planned to harvest some Celariac but under the foliage there was no root of any size. Won't bother with it next year. Ditto Christmas potatoes of which there were none!

Managed to bring back some brussels sprouts which the pigeons had kindly left, and a few
parsnips. Definite hit of the winter is red cabbage 'Red Jewel' which is still crisp and bright, and has been harvested since Sept.