Obviously any project looking at regeneration needs to look at food. Food is the centre of many of the complex interconnections between cities and continents , chemicals and consumers.

With this in mind we devised three avenues, or roots, of investigation.

We set up stall in the small interzone of public and private space outside Waterstones, by The Bullring (sic)

Participants were equipped with a map, a feral food guide, and some stickers. At 2pm we gathered together a (small) waiting crowd for the first activity:

A2RT Takes The Piss

The aim of this challenge was to find out through a game of chance whether a particular wild food was a diuretic or not - that is , does it take the piss? Dare you sample the edible weed? Using the booklet we set off to explore the delights of food for free.

After wandering down past Selfridges we immediately found some bounty; some beautiful council planted marigolds. Further into Digbeth, plantain, clovers, cleaves and other flourishing examples were noted and sampled. There was general amazement at the amount of feral food growing in a what appears to be a dead and industrial landscape.

After 20 minutes the elements intervened to divert our investigations but that was fine because the walk had turned into Guerilla Gardening. Guerilla gardening was pioneered in the housing projects of New York with unnofficial community gardens springing up in derelict land. We created 3 gardens in nooks and crannies before the event, featuring tomatoes in drawers, pumpkins in tyres and courgettes in old computer cases.

Our groups spotted these fairly quickly with the aid of the map and after the rain ceased we took advantage of the fertile ground and located a site suggested to us by a participant. It is a wonderful site, hidden in the epicentre of the city, surrounding by car parks and offices, in direct view of Selfridges.

Everyone quickly set about digging and planting (onions in the gaps between bricks, tomatoes in old water containers and lettuce in old boots) and within about an hour there was a gorgeous diverse garden. With regular watering there should be a decent crop to supliment any purchased nourishment, giving a tantalising glimpse of the possibilities of urban food production if , as predicted, industrial agriculture plummets in the face of the impending energy crisis. Unfortunately the rain put a stop to our last game - a game of supermarket sweep.

Using specially designed 'Foodmiles' stickers which highlight the amount of miles food travels to get to our plate and the resulting pollution this entails we intended on running a small challenge where participants would get points for the number of packages they relabel, revealing the true cost.

There was also some 'Ugly Veg Needs Love too!' which put the case forward for 'normal' veg to be celebrated as opposed to the cosmetic variety that is pushed as a standard.

All participants received a batch of seeds (hardy perennials , rocket, carrot) for their troubles.

Thanks to Hopwood farms who kindly donated some plants to complement our home grown varieties, and to our foragers and guerillas who made it a fertile day for food in the city.