The Great #GROWExperiment — IT’S ON!
What involves thousands of crops, hundreds of veg beds and almost 200 people? Why it’s the great GROW experiment!
We’re really excited with progress so far in what may well be the world’s largest permaculture citizen science experiment. These numbers are rising weekly, as more people start to participate.
In the Great GROW Experiment, people grow their own trial comparing a three crop polyculture to a monoculture of the same crops:
- Climbing green beans “cobra” variety — Phaseolus vulgaris “cobra”
- Spinach “matador” variety — Spinacia oleacea “matador”
- Radish “cherry belle” variety — Raphanus sativus “cherry belle”
You can still join in — lots more about why we are doing it is in this fantastic post by Naomi van der Velden.
Its fascinating to see how people are chronicling their progress, using the hashtag #GROWExperiment, on twitter, facebook, instagram, on their own blogs and in our Forum.
Here’s a roundup of just some of the fab #GROWExperiment people and places.
Blogging about the #GROWExperiment
Allotmenteer Janna from Sweden has a gardening blog, with an ever-growing number of posts about her progress so far.
Below, we’ve selected her summary article, which explains her story.
Tweeting about the #GROWExperiment
There are a number of tweeters chronicling their own experience of the #GROWExperiment. Diane Schofield, Flo Greaves and Claire Jones are three regulars.
Facebooking about the #GROWExperiment
Adela Nistora is not only growing the crops, she is photo-logging its progress. She is a photographer, with a really interesting website of images, many with an environmental theme, from climate change to waste. It’s well worth a look.
Below is her facebook album dedicated to the #GROWExperiment, with really interesting information accompanying each picture, whether its peat free growing (with biochar help!) or reusing plastic bottles for watering (like in the opening picture to this article).
There are so many evocative images in there, it’s hard to choose one - and it’s fun watching the trial as it continues. Let’s go with the moment the baby spinach emerges….
Instagramming about the #GROWExperiment too!
Instagram is made for photos, and there are plenty of experimenters on this platform too. These include Caroliono, Lauren Lewis, newishgardening, Tonje Meyer and Ionut Barbu.
And of course we have our GROW Observatory Forum, where all of the above and more can hang out and chat. We encourage you to join in in the coming weeks, join the forum and let’s get GROWing!
