Permaculture-ish Experiment

Snow's gone, so I've finally got around to giving the allotment a bit of the permaculture/no dig treatment. The idea is to try to maximise natural processes and minimise the effort that goes in. A big part of this is not walking on the soil which compacts it and ruins its structure, so I dug a couple of paths to keep feet off the beds. Then I spread compost over the bed to add organic material which the worms should process down into the soil. The last thing I did was to spread some horticultural fabric on the soil to keep weeds down. I'm going to plant through the fabric on at least one of the beds.

Here's before:



And after:



I'm not 100% sure about this approach, I have to admit - at the minute it looks very artificial and not very wildlife friendly. And I may have dug the paths a bit deep, so they may need flags or gravel in case they get muddy. We shall see...

A clear route from farm to fork...

Yesterday I had a lovely, warming lunch in Blackfriars cafe in Newcastle. Even better were the placemats which showed you where they get all their produce from in the region. Nice one.

Cooking up a storm...

A strange cooking urge comes over me when I have a young baby in the house. I don't know whether it is some kind of hunter-gatherer-protect-the-young-instinct, or just the fact when I cook, I want to cook, not just heat stuff up. It's a paradoxical thing - I'm meant to have no time at all (baby, toddler, 1.6 jobs), but I'm spending about an hour almost every evening cooking (one evening a week is usually a junk food binge). Sometimes, like tonight, it gets me in trouble if people are hungry...

So what's this got to do with sustainability? Food makes up a huge chunk of our carbon footprint - and then you add in all the other environmental issues - nitrogen run-off into rivers and lakes, pesticide use, land use, biodiversity loss, soil erosion.

If you cook from fresh, you can choose where each ingredient comes from and, to an extent, how it was produced - I try to get as much as possible from our allotment (not a lot!) and from Northumberland and rural Durham - our city's agricultural hinterland - and organic where possible. You can also avoid all the gunk that processed foods use to bulk out food and try to make it moreish. There's more I'd like to do - get more from the allotment and do a bit more foraging - although my attempt at using dandelion leaves instead of rocket this summer didn't quite work out. I must dig out my copy of food for free.

We can go a little deeper as well. Like many people I believe we need to reconnect to the natural systems we rely on - and our food choice is probably the closest conscious interaction we have with that world. So cooking properly with good ingredients is my little way of connecting, living life properly and giving two fingers to the myth that we're all too busy.

Coming clean: my 10:10 commitment

I've been mulling for a while on what to do for my 10:10 commitment. According to the Carbon Detox method of counting, my carbon footprint is about 18% below average*, so I've done the quick wins and much of the more difficult stuff.

So, I've decided to:

1. Cut my meat intake to a maximum of once per day when I've got a choice.

2. Make a much bigger effort on the allotment this year so I'm both producing more food and providing a carbon sink in the soil by using permaculture and no-dig methods to build up humus (more on this as I get stuck in).

3. Putting another 4 inches of sheep's wool insulation in the loft and growing some climbers up the north wall of our house - the latter will provide insulation and a habitat for wee beasties.

* Actually, the method would now give me an even lower footprint since Jimmy was born as things like heating and car use would get shared between four rather than three, but that seems a bit of a cheat!

Harvest...

It's that time of year to collect and eat the allotment bounty. Problems include:

1. Some things are too big and heavy for some of our workers (see above).

2. What do you do with all this food arriving at once?

Well 1. will sort itself out in time and 2. - well it's the chutney season (below). Plums, tomatoes, onions and apples from the allotment, plus some vinegar, sugar and sultanas from the shop*. Shame is you have to leave it for 3 months before trying... The marrow has gone into a lovely marrow, pea and mint soup.



* I should be honest here! Some of the onions and tomatoes were shop bought - the former to get the quantities right, the latter because the home grown toms were too tasty to put into the chutney so we swapped them.

The apples of my eye...

Went down to the allotment yesterday for the first time since our holiday and was astonished by the crop of apples from our tree. Actually the tree looked ill-prepared for it too as a major branch had split under the weight. So I picked a month's supply (at least!) for us and left the rest on, but a lot of people are going to get a bag of apples as a pressie in the next few weeks. This is both a nice thing and a pain about growing your own - you get too much of one food in a short period of time. Pain as it makes playing at being Tom & Barbara Goode impossible, but nice as you get to share. Got some onions and tomatoes in more sensible quantities and I'm still plucking the odd strawberry off some plants in the garden too.

As I mentioned earlier in the year, I'm trying my best to keep some blooms all year around. In the garden it's all gone a bit green, but our huge buddleia and a couple of other stalwarts are keeping the insects happy, and the sedums (seda?) are on their way. In the allotment we have some beautiful Dahlias which were crawling in bees yesterday, the sunflowers are about to open, but despite its beautiful white trumpets, the bindweed is mercilessly ripped out.

Speaking of insects, I got nature's full spectrum of beauty and the beast when I went for a run on Wednesday. A raptor of some sort took off up through the trees at my approach, a kingfisher flitted along the river and a wasp went out of its way to sting me on the elbow, all within 2 minutes. They seem to be going for me this week, don't know why...

Bitten by the allotment bug

Two Saturday afternoons in a row on the allotment and I'm addicted. Our allotment was always my partner's territory and I've resisted taking on another commitment apart from the the odd bit of humping and dumping of manure or whatever. But she's pregnant, so I was talked into doing some digging and I've had a Damascene conversion.

As well as the low carbon/impact fruit and veg we get from our plot, there are many other benefits:

1. Exercise in the fresh air

2. Peace to listen to some sport on the radio

3. Birds, bees & butterflies

Let's see how long it lasts!

Pigs, Productivity & Pitchforks

One of the godfathers of the permaculture/organic farming movement, Masanobu Fukuoka, once said:

"If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork."

We've had the first confirmed case of swine flu in our town, Newcastle upon Tyne, someone who'd recently visited Mexico. She's OK and so are his flatmates, and the infection numbers in Mexico are stabilising, but with a pregnant woman and a toddler in the house, it is hard not to worry a little bit.

And why has it happened? We create an industrial style of agriculture where disease flourishes without intervention, then export it to poor countries where costs are low and standards are lower (the two obviously relate) and on top of that we misuse antibiotics to promote growth further. And what happens?

It's another case of where our "success" in raising our standard of living in the West is coming back to bite us (cf climate change, AIDS, drought). Commentators in the press may sneer at the organic movement and say "it's OK for those who can afford it", but the question is, can we afford not to do it?

And, of course, once again, it is the poorest who have been hit hardest.

Allotment Interlude

In between the Easter weekend's epic compost odyssey (more soon, not quite finished yet) and drinking beer in a deckchair (one of two found in a skip), I was summoned to 'our' allotment to do some digging and plant some potatoes.

Allotments are great - most of the materials used are reclaimed (our greenhouse is made from old window frames and pallets), the lack of fossil energy on site means everything is muscle powered and all the water is collected from the rain. And, of course, with food being one of the biggest parts of our ecological/carbon footprints, this is one way to make a real difference.

And it's not just me who thinks so - according to the Guardian, there's a 100,000 strong waiting list, um, waiting for one of the 300,000 plots to become available. This is keeping us on our toes - we've been given a quiet word once or twice over the last couple of years about keeping on top of it. This is partly due to our laissez faire approach to tidiness (we like to think of it as "wildlife-friendliness") and, anyway, our fruit trees and bushes will produce food every year with very little intervention. I've got a big book on no-dig gardening to read to see if we can turn this into a win-win. We've also enlisted some help, but this is frowned upon in case it turns into a surreptitious way of passing the plot on to a mate bypassing the waiting list.

We'll just have to keep those spades and forks working!

Springtime in North Yorkshire

Every year I say the same old thing - leaves, buds, flowers, lengthening evenings, heating off, solar panel kicking into life... well it's true, I love springtime, the renewal, the light, the life.


Well this year I got whisked away by train to the North York Moors to stay in a converted barn on Red House Farm in Glaisdale to celebrate my birthday. Glaisdale is on the wonderful Esk Valley Line, a railway so beautiful and meandering it is a surprise it survived Dr Beeching's axe back in the 60s. On trips like this, the journey to and from the destination is part of the holiday itself.

From an eco-living point of view, the trip scored highly - public transport only, spending money in the local community (all our food was bought in the village shop and the brilliant butcher's), eggs from the farm, walking on the moors, wood fired heating, local organic ale in the pub... absolutely brilliant in every way.

Eco-Living Myth No 2: Small things matter

Despite what you might read in the press and many books, you will not save the planet simply by reusing your plastic bags, switching off your TV at the plug or putting your recycling out. You should do them, of course, but that's not eco-living. In fact these things are pretty much mainstream now.

In the West our ecological footprint is huge and small stuff won't make much of a dent. You will only cut that footprint significantly by hitting the big ticket items:

1. Food: buy local and organic, less meat, avoid processed foods, use leftovers and plan your purchase of fresh food to avoid waste.

2. Transport: walk, buy a bike, use public transport, work close to home (or at home), holiday locally (cycle touring is a top option).

3. Heating your home: insulate, insulate, insulate. Set your heating controls to what is comfortable wearing suitable clothes.

4. Consumerism: buy second hand, buy quality over quantity, spend your money on services (haircuts, pampering, sports, renting DVDs etc) rather than stuff, don't buy anything at all if you can help it.

So, yes, do the small stuff, but you're not eco-living unless you're doing much more than that.

Meat the Press

I still find it funny (peculiar and a little haha) that when someone in a lofty position something that everyone has known for over a decade, it can still make the headlines. Today the Observer led on the chair of the UN's IPCC telling us that we should eat less meat to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (meat is reckoned to be responsible for about 20% of manmade sources of ghgs). I remember discussing this earnestly with a group of treehuggers over a bottle of wine on a woodland conservation holiday in about 1995. It's a bit like the furore when Sir David King said climate change was a bigger threat than terrorism - stating the bleedin' obvious to the rest of us, but 'controversial' in the eyes of the meeja.

Anyway, chez Kane had already decided to cut the beef a bit. Made a lovely spicy aubergine and bean stew topped with bulgur wheat last night to kickstart the new resolution. Mmmmm...

Food waste again...

You can tell when a politician is really on the ropes when they get pilloried for making an eminently sensible remark. Now, I'm no fan of Gordon Brown, but when he said we should waste less food, he was damn right.

There was a great article in the Guardian yesterday with tips on how to avoid food waste. One of the points was to ignore sell-by dates for most products - I assume the 10-years-past-its-best-before bottle of Lea & Perrins I found that the back of our spice cupboard is an exception - I wasn't going to try it!

Weekly Tip #19: Get an organic veg box

Organic veg (and meat!) box schemes have come a long way in the last year or so. We've just swapped to a scheme where we get doorstep delivery (rather than to a volunteer pick up point which can be a real pain) and internet orders the night before. Look around and find a scheme that suits you.

Orange Green Babies

No, I'm not dipping a toe into the cauldron that is Norn Iron politics (I was brought up there, I know better).

Rather, with organic baby food hitting a whopping 70% of the whole market, you may have noticed a wee side effect. Tomato based meals often have carrot added to keep them a nice rosy red colour while avoiding the evil E numbers. If your little pixie eats too much, they start to take on a distinct, but harmless, orange tinge. Apparently GPs have been besieged by worried parents and their glowing Munchkins. The solution is simple - switch from pasta bolognese to macaroni cheese for a while.

BTW I've found that having a little'un saves on food waste from our main meals - any leftovers are bagged, labelled and in the freezer in the blink of an eye. No orange glow either.

Weekly Tip #16: Say "Bog Off" to BOGOFs

To avoid waste, never take the freebie in a Buy One Get One Free if the product is perishable. You won't feel as obliged to use it in time as it is free so it is more likely to end up in the bin.

This will make you stop and think...

According to WRAP, every day in the UK we throw away:

5.1 million whole potatoes
4.4 million whole apples
2.8 million whole tomatoes
7 million whole slices of bread
1.3 million unopened yoghurts and yoghurt drinks
1.2 million sausages
1 million slices of ham
0.7 million whole eggs
0.7 million whole bars of chocolate and unwrapped sweets
0.3 million unopened meat-based ready meals or takeaways
0.3 million unopened packets of crisps

Weekly Tip #13: Grow Your Own

Now spring has sprung - why not plant some food plants in your allotment, garden, yard or windowbox. Zero food miles, organic and tasty (your own food always tastes better).

Time to rearrange the fridge (& the fruit bowl)

If you've been reading this blog for a while you'll know my view that food is probably our biggest impact on the environment - land use, pesticides, fertilisers, transport, processing, refrigeration, packaging, retail and waste all add up to a huge impact. Wasting food is obviously a bad thing and, of what we buy, a third is wasted, half of that unnecessarily (the rest is tea bags, peels, skins and 'endy-bits' that we can't eat).

Well I'm going to have to change my fridge habits (bung it all in except marmalade - horrible cold on hot toast) having read this interesting article in the Guardian about food storage. I've always assumed that cooler = better preservation, but apparently it is not the case for many vegetables - it actually cuts their shelf life. So it's going to be a busy weekend.

I've already evicted the bananas from the fruit bowl. I knew the ethylene they offgas helps ripen tomatoes, but I didn't realise they over-ripen other fruit, leading to them "going off" earlier.

Every day is a school day...

Weekly Tip #4: Support your local deli

It will always be more enjoyable than shopping in a big shed and the carbon footprint of the food tends to be lower as its transportation from farm gate to the shop is usually more direct.