Exploring the Nature Gap

I’ve recently been exploring the growing gap between nature and children, and the implications for our spiritual development, and that of our children. A couple of articles and some activities have come out of it so far:

Lessons from a ‘Poor old Billy tree’ – an article marking the solstice on the Mystic Christ site.

The spirituality of nature and children – an article in the diocesan newspaper.

Polly and I also bought together some nature based activities for children (and adults) aimed at nurturing a sense of awe and wonder – have a look and download them at: www.aeker.com/nature-activities/

Seeds of hope

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Sown in hope First signs of hope The (Green)house of hope via Flickr: My Photostream.

Grow Zones, Oxford – Spring 2012

Those of us that did Grow Zones in Oxford last year recently got together and decided that there was enough interest to do another season of visits in the spring.

Fancy joining us? We are meeting to plan the spring 2012 season of visits on the evening of Thursday 1st March. Contact me for details about how to sign up.

Another good Grow Zones season…

Making way for chickens…, originally uploaded by mattfreer.

We finished another great Grow Zones season of visits in Oxford the other week. This season we’ve prepared ground for a chicken house and a greenhouse, there has been plenty of veg bed prep for the winter, with green manure sowed, and lots of tidying up.

The shared lunches have also been of a very high homemade standard. All round great fun and rewarding work, with lots of chatter and laughter along the way.

www.growzones.com

House244 Garden

We’ve been living at house244 for nearly three years. One of the things that has changed the most in that time is almost certainly the garden.

From this…

To this…

I’ve setup a House244 Garden album on Flickr that I’ll keep adding to – you can see the full effect in a slideshow here.

Grow Zones – Joining Forces To Get Our Gardens Growing

The snow drops are out and it feels that Spring is just around the corner so a few of us at hOME have just got together some dates to start a Grow Zones Team in Oxford in the Spring.

Grow Zones is a community growing project that aims to bring practical help and inspiration to your garden. A Grow Zones team clubs together to share skills, tools and produce to eliminate food miles and turn gardens over to permaculture at whatever level they want – from a redesign of the whole plot to simply helping and sharing with someone else’s once or twice a year.

If you are interested in finding out more on the Oxford team visit www.oxfordgrowzones.posterous.com and register. I’ve been doing some work nationally on Grow Zones as well – and if you are interested in general information and want to start your own team visit www.growzones.com.