Inspired by #Foodival2016? Everyone can have a Tooting home farm by sprouting seeds!

A new idea at this year's Tooting Foodival was to celebrate local food together by encouraging home seed sprouting.

 Measuring out seeds to give away as trial packs at the Foodival (and checking the spelling)

Why sprout seeds at home?
It's easy, fun, accessible to all (no allotment, balcony or windowsill needed) and you produce fresh  nutritious food with zero food miles and no waste.

How to do it?
Growing your own is easy with our Successful Seed Sprouting at Home handout.

Soak the seeds (there are so many kinds you can use) for a day, then rinse them every day until ready, then enjoy them while beautifully fresh within a week of starting them off.

These sprouted seeds are nearly ready to eat

After the Foodival one family sprouted a mix of lentils and teff

We had good conversations about sprouting on the Saturday at the Foodival. Most people have heard about it....but maybe only ever had those big supermarket bags of bean sprouts. Some people may have a sprouting kit tucked away, or maybe it's a completely new idea.

Enjoy!
Enjoy in many ways - in salads, in pitta bread, mixed with a yogurt dressing or salsa, in a stir-fry, as a topping to add crunch and life to many dishes - and to school lunchboxes.

PS why teff?
In TTT we've become interested in teff cereal grain during our year and half working with refugees and asylum-seekers at CARAS in our Rooting in Tooting project. Teff is native to the Horn of Africa: in Ethiopian restaurants in London you'll be served injera, fermented bread made of teff grain.

Tooting teff

We've grown teff this year in the Tooting Community Garden, and we're going to get some hands-on advice about how to save the grains....so there can be plenty of future sprouting in Tooting.

Foodival Supports Zero Waste Week 2016

TTT is supporting National Zero Waste week which starts this coming Monday 5th Sept.  People and organisations all over the UK have made pledges to reduce waste in their lives and committed to help spread the message of how zero waste can be part of all of our futures.

As a group we are pledging to create zero food waste at next weekend's Foodival Soup Disco by collecting all the food scraps at the event for composting at the Tooting Community Garden. Plus, bring a container with you and you can take home any left-over soup. What can you pledge to do next week?  Maybe you could join in with some office colleagues or friends?

Are these pledgers copying our poster?

There is still time to sign up and make your pledge here and help spread the word using #ZeroWasteWeek.

And come to the Soup Disco on Sunday evening to celebrate your wastelessness!

BYO

Today we are launching our Bring Your Own (BYO) campaign for Foodival 2015.  In an effort to reduce our environmental footprint and waste caused by the event, we ask you to BYO plate and cutlery to Samaj Hall on Sunday September 13th.  It seems appropriate on the day we hear that 90% of seabirds have plastic in their guts, a horrible example of human waste culture.  We will have biodegradeable alternatives for purchase on the day, but would love to see as many of you as possible BYO!  For more on waste, plastics & fossil fuels see a longer post on the TTT main blog.