Category: Uncategorized
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Soil and data everywhere
It is hard to imagine now in the wet and cold of early November that in the summer many of us were growing borage in some of the hottest weather we have seen in decades. As we head towards the deepest darkest depths of winter, the EQUI-Food team are in the throes of finalising the…
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Soil analysis
Once you have signed up for the project you will get sent a kit, including borage seeds, pH meter, cotton strip and pre-paid envelopes that you can send samples of soil to the Royal Agricultural University’s soil science laboratories. Here, the soil is weighed and some chemistry components are tested, including pH, organic matter content,…
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Urban Growing: An Easy and Accessible Growing Activity for Everyone
Urban gardening or urban growing refers to growing plants, herbs, fruit, or vegetables in more urban environments, instead of traditional rural farming locations. In the UK, 1 in 8 households do not have garden access. This highlights just how important it is to have these alternative types of growing methods [1]. This inclusive method to…
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Kits are ready and being posted!
Last week I (Rachel) was mainly working on getting the kits packed up and ready to ship out to people to start the study. While the kits and what’s inside appear to be fairly simple, packaging all the bits and pieces, making sure everything is labelled and in the right order has been taking a…
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Join EQUI-Food! Participant recruitment NOW OPEN!
Would you like to learn more about soil and take part in our exciting Citizen Science project? We are absolutely thrilled to announce that EQUI-Food is now recruiting participants to join us! We are looking for 120 people to join us as we study urban soils, food growing, health and well-being. If you’ve never grown…
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Borage and Soil – The perfect ingredients for our project
Beneficial & Beautiful Borage Are you wondering why we decided to use borage in our research? Borage is a Mediterranean flowering blue herb that was introduced to the West by the Romans. Their belief was that this pretty, flowering herb could chase away sadness. As well as being visually attractive, borage has traditionally been utilised…
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Presenting our work at Plant-Soil-Ecosystems conference
This month we presented a poster at the joint conference of the British Ecology Society Special Interest Group – Plant-Soil-Ecosystems and the Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology, on Aboveground-Belowground Interactions, in Marseille France. This meeting was host to over 80 participants from across Europe; it featured keynotes and sessions on Plant-Soil Feedbacks, Decomposition, Mycorrhiza…
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And we’re off!
Hello, I’m Rachel, one of the research team on the EQUI-Food project responsible for developing resources so people can get involved with the project. I’m excited this week since we have officially launched the project sharing our webpage, promoting on social media and giving out flyers. More than this I’m so pleased that I get…
EQUI-Food 