Duck steps

There was a bit of a duck population explosion a few years ago (from three to 10 or so ducks) at Chris Dixon's. The increase in duck feet meant that the soil on their regular route down to the pool had been eroded and the tree roots steadily exposed. On top of this, the change in weather patterns over the recent years has increased the occurrence of sudden downpours of rain. The huge quantities of water hurtle down the stream (raising the level of the water) and causes further damage to the banks.

All in all, the instability of banks had been playing on Chris’s mind. He had experimented with using bundles of long thin lengths of wood (he called them fascines) and laying the fascines on contour across the slopes so that any leaf litter, twigs etc would get caught behind and create steps/areas where plants could eventually grow. You can see Chris’s work on the left of the picture (the duck house is at the top of the slope). Our job was to add the fascines to the slope on the right (the fascines are already layed in place) and create steps for the ducks to take a different route down to the pool.

Chris had already made up a good supply of fascines and had identified a willow that we could take lengths of wood off to make stakes to keep the fascines in place. The rest was straightforward really, but it took us all of the day to lay and secure the fascines and weave a stairway banister/barrier for the ducks.

The next day we needed more wood and stakes to make the steps down to the pool and generally finish off. It was great to have the right kind of wood just growing on site (we took more from the willow used the day before). I wove the steps while Craig (Transition House) ferried well-rotted compost from another part of the garden to fill in the steps. The infilled steps covered the worst of the exposed roots.

Mac (the dog) hung around with us for the two days. She thought it was great fun to help us move the sticks, although they always end up rather chewed (we resorted in the end to hiding the pieces we needed in the duck house).

Apparently the ducks have taken to the steps like ... ducks to steps. Actually Chris assures me they're doing pretty well. I'm pleased.

Just so that you know, Chris is now back to just three ducks (the others have been rehomed). The small number of ducks is not causing further erosion, so the banks should be able to recover.

Comfrey day

Tuesday, the first day volunteering at Chris Dixon’s. We hadn’t really discussed what I’d be doing, only that it needed to be something that I could get on with on my own. Craig (Transition House) was at CAT attending a thesis module for his masters.

(Oh, the reason I was volunteering is on Craig’s blog)

It was a gorgeous sunny day, a good day for working outside. After a cup of tea, Chris explained that his comfrey needed sorting out and asked if I’d be happy to do that. Of course I was.

Chris’s comfrey bed is next to his polytunnel, in the enclosed formal productive garden (by formal I suppose I mean more allotment style garden as opposed to food forest). The gates to this area are kept shut for most of the time (as far as I could tell), which meant that I couldn't be distracted too much by Mac (the dog) and Scamp (the lamb (that kind of thought she was a dog because she’d had been reared in the house)). It also meant that because Chris’s khaki campbell duck slug patrol unit do such a good job at eating slugs outside of this area, it’s worth scooping up any slugs found within the fencing and giving them to the ducks (I didn’t find any slugs).

Chris makes a liquid feed for his vegetable and fruit garden from the comfrey plants (the feed of course needs to be diluted before it’s applied). The latest crop of comfrey plants were big enough to transfer into the comfrey barrel for fermenting into the liquid feed, but before that could be done, a few things had to be tackled first.

1. Take out the buttercups, wild raspberry and other “weeds” from the comfrey patch.


2. Trim the surrounding hedge


3. Add the “weeds” and hedge cuttings to the causeway (water slowing and filtration system, more about that later)


4. Empty the comfrey barrel of the last batch of liquid feed


5. Take the old comfrey leaves out of the barrel.


6. Add the fermented comfrey leaves to the compost


7. Straighten the barrel (it was sitting a bit on the wonk).


There are two things to know about comfrey, the first is that some people have a slight reaction to handling the plant (where it touches the skin it can bring you out in a rash), the second is that fermenting comfrey leaves smell, I mean really smell.

So on this sunny day, I kept my long-sleeved hoodie on. Which was probably a good idea anyway. And I tried my best to keep my distance from the stinky comfrey.

Thankfully when I got to step 5, Chris was on hand to help empty the barrel. Boy did those leaves smell! Probably Chris reckoned five seasons worth of plants. Blimey! – I stayed up wind as Chris pitched his fork into the barrel and heaved the soggy, stinky mass out and into the wheelbarrow. The top of the barrel was almost at shoulder height; Chris did really well not to get any of the contents on his clothing. I was really glad that he was doing this, if I was doing it, I just know I’d end up smelling of old comfrey for the rest of the day.

Lunch was great, a fried duck egg and probably the best salad I’ve ever eaten all straight from the garden, it was also a good time to chat with Chris and Lynn (I’d also taken Chris up on every tea break he had offered as I wanted to talk about permaculture design with him as much as possible).

After lunch:


8. Cut the comfrey crop and fill the barrel


9. Place cardboard along the poly-tunnel edge for extra weed protection


10. Cover cardboard with straw


11. Plant extra comfrey plants to fill in any gaps


12. Mulch the comfrey crop with horse manure


13. Tidy

Job done.

It was a good piece of work to do as it was completed in the day. Excellent job satisfaction. I know that Chris was pleased with the work, which makes it even better.

At some point during the day, I think it was as we were emptying the smelly leaves from the barrel, I commented to Chris that Craig (Transition House) would be disappointed not to be here. I think Chris thought I was joking, but I was serious, and I was right. Pretty much as soon as we got home, we made our own comfrey bed, see Craig’s blog. Fab.

Thanks Chris for all the excellent tips and for providing us with the plants to divide to make the new bed.

Don't leave it to the last minute

The last few hours have been quite intense, but I've done it, with a day to spare. I've writen all the comments I can think of about my council's Local Development Framework Core Strategy and Issues document (nice title).

Blimey that was a huge document. Not surprising really as it sets out how the council will develop the district over the next 15-20 years. 15- 20 years! I felt it was important to try and influence the process in my own little way. I won't bore you with the details of my response, but it included peak oil (can you believe there was no mention of that in the document at all!), green dragon standards, the Happy Planet Index (in relation to measuring economic growth), leading the way in feed in tariffs, to name just a few.

What a way to spend a bank-holiday afternoon, but hey, the sun wasn't shining (much).

All councils in the UK are creating a similar documents at the moment, so if your council is still in that "consultation" phase, I urgently whisper to you that if you have things to say about how you want your city/town/village to look in the future, find that document now and submit your comments about it. After all once it's written, it's going to take an awful lot of persuading (almost impossible?) to get them to change it until the next consultation in 20 years time.

Democracy. You've got to stand up and be counted in order to say "I told you so!" I hope that isn't the case in this instance. If they only take on board one of the things I said, it will be worth the effort this afternoon.

Kettle on, cuppa, teabags, oh

I love visiting the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales, there is always something new to see, and of course there is their shop. I know, I can shop online, but nothing quite beats flicking through new books. So when Craig (Transition House) said he had to go to a thesis workshop at CAT for his MSc, I jumped at the opportunity to join him for the week.

Initially we thought that Craig would need to be at CAT all day everyday (he was going to attend the straw bale building modulebut in the end he was just there for just over a day (he’s postponed the module)), so I arranged to volunteer to work with Chris Dixon at his permaculture holding at Tir Penrhos Isaf. You might recognise his name. Chris has recently featured on BBC2’s Natural World program - A Farm for the Future – more about my experience at Tir Penrhos Isaf in later posts.

We rented a small cottage for the week that had spectacular views across the Dyfi valley and a gorgeous bluebell wood just along the lane. First impressions were good, small glass and metal recycling boxes outside, paper and plastic recycling bins inside. Fantastic. Kettle on, cuppa, teabags, oh… What do I do with this then? I spent the next few minutes walking around while balancing a spent tea bag on a teaspoon, trying to find a compost bin. Bokashi bin in the cupboards? No. It had to go into the landfill bin. I have to say, that was a very odd experience. I can’t remember the last time I’d put compostable waste into bin destined for landfill (I managed to persuade the caretakers at work to give me space for the “team worms” – the wormery behind the bike shed – ages ago). It was surprising just how easily the small green changes at home and work had been incorporated into my life and that not recycling just felt alien and wrong.

I’m not going to even get started on the light bulbs or heating, suffice to say, I'd have thought that even if a small business isn’t particularly environmentally minded, the money saving aspects of energy saving light bulbs and thermostat controls would be a no-brainer.

There, I’m done.

We did have a loverly time (we kept passing the bus to Bangor, but no, we didn't go).

The bargains I picked up at CAT were;

• Do It Yourself 12 Volt Solar Power by Michel Daniek,


• The Human Powered Home by Jamara Dean, (looks like we’re going to be busy)


• The Handmade Basket Book by Rebecca Board,


• The Solar Food Dryer by Eben Fodor (mainly because I expecting a bumper tomato crop and love sun dried tomatoes), and


• The Little Big Vegetarian Book (reduced from £12.99 to £5.99 – bargain!) By the way, it’s national vegetarian week this week.

All interesting reads.

'In Transition' film

"In Transition" is an hour long film about the worldwide Transition movement. It will premiere online at 1.45pm on the May 23rd - but there is nothing to see at that link yet...

For those of you not in the UK, here are the dates and times for your part of the world. I hope you can make it.

In the meantime here is the trailer.

Bokashi blunder

There had been an odd smell in the kitchen for a few weeks. We just couldn't work out what it was. A blocked sink u-bend? the pot of coriander? Something at the back of the fridge or cupboards? Everything was checked, but the smell continued.

We didn't think it could be the Bokashi bins because they're not supposed to smell, but, as it turns out, it was.

The Bokashi bins had been great during the winter months, using them meant that we didn't have to traipse all the way down to the compost bins at the bottom of the garden (because the wormery, which is closer, had practically gone into hibernation and you can put anything into a Bokashi bin).

When the wormery warmed up and the worms were happily munching their way through our kitchen scraps we had (I'm extremely sorry to say) neglected the bokashi bins. Plus we had only read the beginning part of the instructions propery, the bit about filling it, so had forgotten that once the bin is full it's only supposed to be left for two weeks max before either adding to the compost bin or digging into the garden.

It had been about two months since we'd filled the second bin! Whoops.

Having said that, I'm not sure that the smell was just due to the length of time the materials had been fermenting. During those two months, we hadn't been draining the liquid off regularly either. Or possibly we hadn't added enough of the innoculated bran...

What is for sure, it that we'll definitely be paying more attention this time round.

I wasn't really sure that to do with the contents of the bins. I don't know if they will still have the same beneficial properties of properly made bokashi (probably not), or whether they are going to kill any plants that grow near it (I hope not!), so I decided to add one to our main compost bin (on the grounds that it's only half full and it will be diluted) and one to a flower bed.

Craig (Transition House) had recently moved a buddleia to a better position. The area that it was growing in is sandy, nutrient poor and dry. Hopefully the mixture will improve the soil. My guess is that any organic matter would improve that soil, but I'm not going to risk my veggies in it just yet!

Tetra pak purse

I was given one of these rather super recycled tetra pack purses recently and need to know how it was made, so I took it apart.

I'd volunteered to make a load for the local food initative. They are running a stall at a country show and are looking for some interesting things to draw the crowds in. I think they'll need a few more ideas, but hey, it's a start!

It turns out that they are really easy to make. I reckon they would make great party bag gifts for eco-conscious mums, or as an unusual crafty present for any green friend.

The rest of this post consists of instructions for making the purse. If you can't get your head round the stages or don't have enough time to make one and you've decided that now you know they exist you simply can not live without one, please just send me an email and I'm sure I can sort something out for you; transition dot housewife at google mail dot com (removing all spaces and were "dot" = "." and "at" = "@").

Instructions for making a tetra pak purse

1) You'll need some tetra pak cartons. For this purse I used the tall 1 litre type.

2) If you're going to save up the packs and create a lot of purses in one go, rinse out the cartons as soon as they are empty (reduces the likelyhood of that final drop of juice going mouldy and smelly while you store them).

3) Cut off the top and bottom.

4) Clean thoroughly, then dry.

5) Neatly fold (concertina) the sides of the cartons inwards, so that the carton lies flat.

6) Decide which what side of the carton you'd like to me most visible and put that side on the table.

7) Fold the bottom of the carton towards the top, and the top towards the bottom, so that it has three (aproximately equal - but the top can be shorter) parts.

8) Cut down each of the four orginal corners from the top of the carton to the nearest (top) fold.

9) Cut away the top sides between the cuts you made in step 8.

10) Round the top of the flap on the external side of the carton.

11) Cut the internal flap to about 1.5cm (half an inch) above the crease and diagonally cut from about 1cm along that edge to the nearest corner (on each side).

12) Fold the bottom of the carton to the middle

13) Put the shorter flap over and inside of the bottom compartment. You will need to secure this some how. I've used a paper clip in the photo because I couldn't find a darning needle to make some holes and sew the sections togther - that would be my preferred method, but you could glue the flap in place.

14) Make a hole in the middle of the top flap about 1cm from the edge. I used a hole-punch.

15) Put an elastic band through the hole, then through the elastic band and tighten.

16) Loop the elastic band around the purse to secure the contents.

17) Hold the complete purse up and feel jolly proud of yourself.

18) Recycle any of the bits you cut off at the nearest tetra pak recycling bank if you have one.

If you can't be bothered with all of that, but really really want one of these fabulous purses, please send me an email at; transition dot housewife at google mail dot com (removing all spaces and were "dot" = "." and "at" = "@").