There’s a lot of people in Hackney Wick, and we know a lot of them either don’t know about us, or don’t know what we’re trying to achieve. Help us get the information into their hands! We want them to know:

• We exist!
• We’re here to make organic food as cheap as chemically grown food
• We’re a community organisation, established to provide a service, not make a big profit
• We’re empowering local residents to take control of their food supply
• We’re ultra local – we don’t want to grow, we just want to serve the area we live in as best we can

Spread the word, make a poster, leaflet your building – we’ve added a couple of posters you could use, or you can download our logo below to knock up something yourself, just keep it legal!

Poster 1 | Poster 2

Download the logo: Photoshop | PNG

Here’s a few pics of our first order (and a ridiculously happy me).

Thanks to everyone who’s helped us along the way so far, now we just have to keep it up next week and every week thereafter.

Photography by Michelle Yarham

I then dug a bit more and found a website that revels all the unethical project in which banks are involved : arms trade, nuclear industry, oil corporations…
Okay, the website is a bit scary with its conspiracy look (and you can’t download the bank’s profiles with the English version). But what really scared me seeing this website was not that this bank or this one finances the worst evil forces of the universe. What really struck me was that I didn’t have a clue on who is benefiting my money; I had no way to control it, to verify it, to decide…
It’s my money after all; shouldn’t I be allowed to decide who is going to use it? Or at least who is not going to use it?

Of course I should, and thankfully I can : here is a good article on the subject of ethical banking.

The Co-operative bank has got quite an interesting ethical policy, it is not giving loans to any companies involved in the arms trade, or whose conduct violates human rights. It supports enterprises with positive social and ethical intentions.

Triodos bank invests only in organisations that benefit people and environment (Organic Food and Agriculture, Art and Culture, Renewable Energy).
You can find on this map who they lend their money to.

I will transfer my money to one of their saving accounts this month.
How happy I will feel knowing that doing so, I will save a few tons of CO2 from being emitted in the atmosphere, I will avoid any risk to help arms trade or any other dirty business and my money will probably help a small local organic food producer!

“The board will be running advertising campaigns for nine months of the year over the next three years, entitled: Why I Love Organic.

They want to put across the message that there is nothing elitist about organic foods and to highlight what they consider to be the advantages, both to a person’s health and to the environment.

This is good news for organic farmers, whose trade has been diminishing as shoppers continue to tighten their belts and look upon organics as a luxury they can no longer afford.”

We love news like this! Anything that promotes organic food, especially to those who might normally dismiss it as too expensive or elitist, is awesome in our books!

Read the full story here

The flyers arrived in record time. A big thanks to Solopress for getting them to us so quickly!

We’ll be distributing them around the neighbourhood over the next week or two (we really should finish this website, too!). If you know anywhere we should put a little stack let us know!

If anybody wants a little stack to hand out to their friends & neighbours, get in touch!

PS. Don’t worry, they’re printed in vegetable based inks on 100% recycled paper!

This wall is not an ideal spot for moss to grow – it’s dry and in direct afternoon sun, so it’s going to take a lot of care to get it to spring back to life. I need to keep it damp at all times, and these bricks seem to wick the moisture out pretty fast, so we’ll see how it goes! If it fails, I’ve got a plan B involving old tights and grass seeds! I’ll put more pics up to chart the growth (or failure).

You will need:

• Natural yoghurt, sour cream or buttermilk
• A teaspoon of sugar
• A healthy helping of moss
• A splash of beer
• A blender

First, you need to gather some moss, but be responsible. Don’t go to your nearest mossy wall and rip everything off. Take a cycle around and collect a little here and a little there, so you’re not wantonly destroying micro eco systems.

Gently wash any excess mud from the moss in tepid water, and put it in a bowl to drain for a few minutes. Drain off the excess water and add the yoghurt (or sour cream/buttermilk), the splash of beer, and the sugar, and blend until you’ve got a pretty gross looking smoothy.

I warned you it was gross.

And there you have it! Paint it liberally somewhere cool, damp and out of direct sunlight and it should take hold. To encourage it to grow, mist it occasionally with some water mixed with yoghurt and sugar.

I was cycling past Mile End Ecology Park today, just as a lovely fellow was putting out a 1m x 2m piece of card out with the recycling.  Just what I’ve been needing to get to work on a big stencil of the OrganicWick logo for some moss ‘graffiti’.  After a lot of careful cutting I’ve now got a 1m diameter logo stencil hanging in my roof.  Perfect!  Now I just need to make a moss smoothy…

And here are the left overs, which I’m already hatching a plan for.

I’m pretty chuffed already, can’t wait to see it growing in some lovely moss!