Hi, just a reminder that you’re receiving this email because you subscribed via our web site or at an event.

As promised, this issue includes great tips on growing your own, eating seasonally and local food events,
but you may unsubscribe if you’re no longer interested.

Having trouble viewing this email? View it in your browser.

Friday December 10, 2010

Update

Festive local food
Go local this Christmas with Harvest's guide to local festive food and drink. Not only will you find some tasty foods for holiday meals and parties, but local foods like chutneys, jams and vinegars make lovely gifts and stocking stuffers too! Find out where you can stock up.

Love Christmas food, hate waste
It's easy to cook and buy too much food over the holidays, but the Love Food Hate Waste campaign is here to help! Their website has a handy portion sizing tool to help you get your quantities right, lots of tips and tasty recipes and even a top ten list of ideas for stocking fillers to help you and your loved ones waste less food. 

For the birds...
Some of us may enjoy the thrill of a snowy day, but birds have a tough time in colder weather so spare a thought for our winged friends. Not only are birds a joy to watch in the garden, they also help keep pests like aphids and catepillars at bay. Find out what you can do to make sure they get a decent meal when it's cold out! 

Back to top

This months growing & eating tips

In the kitchen...with the festive season upon us and freezing weather continuing, party food and warming winter dishes are firmly on the menu. Keep your kitchen and belly warm by using your oven for cooking. This tastybroccoli and stilton flan is perfect for a holiday party, classic cauliflower cheesealways goes down a treat, or try a warm salad like thisbutternut, beetroot and fetadish. Soup is a winter staple, but how about some home-baked soda bread to go with? Check out more winter recipe ideas in the Harvest recipe archive.

In the garden...The ground is frozen, folks, so now's a great time to sit back on the couch with a gardening book and plan what you'll do with your garden once it warms up! The Harvest team polled Food Partnership staff and volunteers on their favourite gardening books and these were the top five. Might make a perfect stocking stuffer for a gardening friend or family member, or a nice gift-to-self...

1. The Vegetable & Herb Expert by Dr D G Hessayon 
2. Organic Gardening by Geoff Hamilton
3. Food from Your Garden ~ All you need to know to Grow, Cook and Preserve your own Fruit and Vegetables by The Readers Digest
4. The Kitchen Gardener: Grow Your Own Fruit and Veg by Alan Titmarsh 
5. Crops in Pots: 50 Great Container Projects Using Vegetables, Fruit and Herbs by Bob Purnell

Here are some tips for what you can do in December to maintain your garden.

Back to top

Funding & Project Support

Free trees!
Professor David Bellamy has 500 trees to give away for planting around Brighton & Hove this winter. Sponsored by Family Life, the trees are all broad leaved native species. Trees must be collected on 15 December and supplies are starting to run low so click here to read more and sign up for your free tree.

Ready, Responding and Resilient Grants
This funding programme helps groups hit by the recession. Groups can apply for up to £1000 to purchase products and services from local organisation. Hurry, though, only a few grants remain! Click here for more information.

Good Food Grants
This funding scheme, administered by the Food Partnership, is open to community groups and schools for projects involving healthy eating, cookery, food growing or helping people to access healthy food. Deadline for applications is 11 February. Find out more.

For more funding ideas, check out the Groups section of the Harvest website.

This will be the last newsletter of 2010. Have a lovely time over the holidays!

The Harvest Team

Back to top