Ornamental Kitchen Garden revisited

If you didn't catch it, I urge you to watch Alys Fowler (should be Flower) and her Edible Garden series on BBC 2. The first of six episodes was on Wednesday, so you can still watch it on i-player. Alys, I think, is a modern day Geoff Hamilton and this series is at first glance is a new twist on Geoff's wonderful Ornamental Kitchen Garden series from 1990 (hmm, showing my age, or perhaps not as I do own a copy of The Geoff Hamilton BBC Collection (40th Anniversary Gardeners World DVD Box Set) which is also brilliant).

Nevertheless whatever interest you have in gardening and growing your own food, from beginner to expert, this series will be inspirational and just lovely to watch of an evening with a bowl of freshly picked beans to munch on.

If having watched the first episode you desperately want to get to work and create your own edible garden, or if you are outside the UK and can't access the BBC site, don't panic, Alys has a book out "The Edible Garden: How to Have Your Garden and Eat It". Timing eh? Brilliant :)

What's even more brilliant is that the BBC are giving away FREE seeds with instructions and stickers (don't you just love stickers). Just visit the www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/digin website, fill out the form and you will be on your way to self-sufficiency!

Earth Hour 2010

8:30pm 27th of March 2010. Sign up for Earth Hour 2010

Bad GCH pushing my GSH

When we first moved into our second Transition House (which I'm going to call TH2 from now on and TH1 for our previous house), the first thing I noticed was that none of the radiators had thermostatic valves. That didn't really bother me, because I didn't really use them in my previous house. A room was either being used with radiator on and the door was open, or it wasn't radiator off and door shut.

The second thing I noticed was that there is no wall thermostat to control the heating - this I thought very odd and further investigation showed that there is no control for the hot water temperature either! It's very old.

The central/water heating does have a timer and it can be on twice a day for the hours we choose. There is also a switch to decide whether it is off, heating the water only, or radiators and water.

Due to my panic last week, the radiator heating is off and the water heating is only when we need it. The result of course is that the house is very cold, but I am pleased with the graph :) - we are now only using the same amount of gas in TH2 with no heating, limited hot water and cooking as we were in TH1 when the lovely gas-condensing-combi boiler was keeping us lovely and warm with hot water on demand.

So I guess I need to go through a few of the major differences between TH1 and TH2.

Insulation
TH1 - Cavity wall insulation and 250mm loft insulatation
TH2 - None.

Windows
TH1 - Double glazed and no draughts between the glazing and the walls.
TH2 - Double glazed, but badly fitted, so draughts between the windows and walls.

Doors
TH1 - Came with the double glazing - insulated and double glazed, no draughts.
TH2 - Oh my, you can see light underneath the front door!

Heating and hot water
TH1 - Gas-combination-combi boiler, thermostatic valves for everything, totally controlable.
TH2 - Gas, timed, no thermostatic controls.

Cooking
TH1 - Electric
TH2 - Gas

Ability to make changes
TH1 - Limited only by money and time (we owned the place)
TH2 - We rent this house, so can't make major changes

So what next?
Well, there are plenty of things we can do within the scope of our tenancy agreement to help us save money on our bills (and of course reduce gas use and all the associated environmental effects).

The first thing we have done is shut the doors to the rooms that we are not using, so that we don't have heat escaping to those spaces.

The next thing I am going to do is sort out all of the draughts. That will be the next blog post.

OMG I have just had a fright

Long story short. We've moved house, into rented, loads of things different, will tell you more in later posts. Just inputting the meter readings into readyourmeter and shock HORROR our gas readings are over 300 times larger than the house we moved out of!!! PANIC !!! check and double check readings ..

Was the gas measured in cubic feet before? find bill, yes
Is the gas really measured in cubic meters now? check meter, YES.
Have we really used 232m3 in one month? YESSSSSS
Is the data input correctly into readyourmeter? YESSSSSS!!!!!
Is it really showing as 300 times more gas used? YES! ARGGGHHHH
Is the heating on now? YES
Is the heating on now? NO!!.
Dare I tell Mr Transition House? ...


...


gonna have to ....

We panic together and Mr Transition House quickly works out how much it will cost.

SHIT

I double check Mr TH's calculation, only to find he didn't convert cubic feet into kilowatt hours correctly, (he'd forgotten about calorific value and correction factors).

[I can't really type what I thought]

Then Mr Transition House notices the "Gas used (100s cubic feet)" on the bill from the last house. Thank goodness. I'd input all of the data for the previous house at 100th of the actual gas used.

Phew. We are now only using 3 times as much gas as we did in the first transition house!

Brilliant! (but not of course, 3 times as much, that's really quite bad - I'll write about why and what we do about it in later posts).

The heating is still off. We have put on a few more layers of clothes and think ourselves lucky.

The new graph showing (correct) old house and new house meter readings is below (and to the right).

I'll show you mine if you show me yours ...

electricity and gas meter readings that is ;)

Many thanks to the readyourmeter guys for adding the embed graph functionality to their site. I hadn't ever thought that a few graphs could be sooo much fun.

You can really see where we whacked up the heat during that snowy spell over Christmas - look at that gas use spike! And I was wearing lots of jumpers!! Now to be extra frugal to try and get those graph lines to go down again.

At least it has stopped snowing (actually I love the snow, it's snow much fun!! - pictured Ginger the snowman and me) so it should be easier to keep warm, I suppose not spending all afternoon building snowmen and getting freezing will help too.

10% in 2010

Lets face it the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was a total COP out. It's time to ignore the politicians, get serious about climate change and do whatever we can with or without them. The 10:10 campaign is something that is tangible and totally do-able plus it will help reduce household bills too. Beat climate change and the recession all in one go - something every thrifty housewife should want to do!!

The 10:10 campaign is all about reducing your carbon emissions by 10% in the year 2010. The website gives all kinds of advice about how people can achieve that so go there now - no after you've read the rest of this because the 10:10 site doesn't say how as an individual you can baseline your carbon. There are a few carbon calculator sites the Transition House site reviewed last year.

If you really want to reduce your household carbon emissions you need to take notice of your electricity and gas consumption. www.readyourmeter.org is a site created by David Mackay (top geezer) and colleagues from Cambridge University. The site draws lots of nice graphs for you once you've added in your meter readings and it very kindly works out for you your CO2 emissions - very clever stuff.

By being interested in the charts it's almost impossible not to try and get those lines to go lower and lower (and horrible when it's winter and you have to turn the central heating and watch those lines rise (yes I am wearing several layers of jumpers)). Look out for electricity monitor free give aways too, the devices tell you which appliances are using the most electricity - some libraries have them to loan out to you like books ask your local library about them (and if they don't lend them out, suggest that they do!! :) ).

You can even compare your emissions against other houses, search for the "Transition House" stats. To check out how we are doing.

So join me and thousands of others and go for your 10% in 2010. Good luck and let me know if you sign up for the readyourmeter site so that we can compare charts.

Global Age of Stupid premiere

Just in case you didn't know it's on the 21st / 22nd of September...







It's going to be one hell of a premiere!! www.ageofstupid.net

PS. Sorry about the silence, lots of things going on. I'll be back soon...

As if by magic

Just as I was wondering how, as a new vegan, I was going to ever eat ice cream again, a recipe appears!

I can’t wait to get Wheeler’s ice cream over here, but at least in the meantime they have produced a recipe book, The Vegan Scoop. Yay!

Wheeler’s have very kindly given me permission to post one of their recipes on this site. I can’t wait to try it, it looks delicious, unfortunately my local health food shop has run out of soya cream – could it be that the neighbours already know about the book?

I've just realised that the ice cream will have a third less calories approx than a dairy version. How brilliant is that?!! I love being vegan. Thank you Wheeler's.

Cinnamon Banana ice cream

3 bananas, peeled and sliced
1 cup (235 ml) soy milk, divided
2 tablespoons (16 g) arrowroot
2 cups (470 ml) soy creamer (I’m pretty sure this is soya cream in the UK)
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla extract
3 teaspoons cinnamon

In a food processor, puree bananas and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup (60 ml) soymilk with arrowroot and set aside.

Mix soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup (175 ml) soymilk, bananas, and sugar in a saucepan and cook over low heat. Once mixture begins to boil, remove from heat and immediately add arrowroot cream. This will cause the liquid to thicken noticeably.

Add vanilla extract and cinnamon.

Refrigerate mixture until chilled, approximately 2 to 3 hours. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instruction. I don’t have an ice-cream maker, but it looks like there are plenty of other ways to make the ice cream set.

Yield: 1 quart (approximately 600 g).

Update

At last! the soya cream is back in stock!! Boy was it worth waiting for. This Banana and cinnamon vegan ice cream is simply gorgeous (even when I made it!) and so easy to make even with out an ice cream making machine. The Vegan Scoop book is now officially on my wish list!

A Delicate Balance

This year seems to be a year for brilliant independent films. Watching “A delicate balance” by Aaron Scheibner was a life-changing event for me.

So what’s it all about, well it’s about food, nutrition and the escalating health problems we see in affluent countries – not just cancer, heart disease and obesity, but also autoimmune disorders too like diabetes, crohns disease and all the many different ways the body can attack itself.

The film is full of interesting things I hadn’t even thought to think about regarding the food that I eat. The facts are backed up by years of research by medical doctors and scientists at leading educational research institutions across the globe.

Before the film I was vegetarian (but still ate dairy in the form of cheese and eggs). So obviously, I had thought about the animal welfare aspects of my food and with the remaining food stuffs left to me I tried to eat a relatively balanced diet. My main reason for still eating dairy and eggs was so that I could get enough protein (I tried to ignore the welfare aspects of cheese, and eggs were always free-range). But this film isn’t about animal welfare (much). This film made me concentrate on the consequences of my diet on my health and it was incredibly eye opening. The result is that I am now vegan – no meat, no fish, no milk, no eggs. The good news is that I can get all the vitamins, minerals and everything I need, including protein and B12, from a vegan diet. I am about 10 days into the new diet and feeling great!

So friends and family, I will make you watch this film too, you may borrow my copy. Everyone else, I urge to either buy a copy of the film or go to a screening you can also pay to watch in online.

This film is about you and your health, if you care about yourself, you need to watch this film.

You can watch the trailer on the delicate balance website (the film is also covers meat production and climate change).

Seeds of change

I’ve got a bit of catching up to do on the blogging front. First up, the lovely people at Seeds of Change sent me some of their new chocolate bars to try. Whooohoo, free chocolate. Fab.

You’ll probably recognise the Seeds of Change brand, they’ve been in the UK since the late 1990’s with their organic sauces and soups (amongst other things). It was the American branch though that sent me the chocolate.

But what to do, I could just scoff all the chocolate and tell you that it’s scrumptious but where is the analysis in that?

I decided to rope my friend and chocolate connoisseur B, into a double blind taste trial. Which of course (cough) meant that we had to compare the bars against our favourite chocolate nibbles, which for me is Green and Blacks dark chocolate, and for B is Galaxy (by Mars). I bought the milk chocolate G&B bar too, so that we could compare that in the taste trial.

Now, on to the flavours; from left to right,
dark chocolate,
milk chocolate,
dark chocolate with mango and cashew, and
dark chocolate with cherries and vanilla.

We went “ooooh”, when we opened up the first packet. The chocolate is split into three individually packaged mini bars. Wrapped in plastic though, plastic?! Needless to say, I’d have preferred paper. B thought the three bar idea might help her willpower and resolve not to eat the whole pack in one go!

The results

Milk Chocolate
Seeds of change
B – nice smooth texture, more chocolaty that she would expect from a milk chocolate. Bit of a funny after taste though. Overall rank, second.
Me – Definitely chocolate, but I thought it had a slightly waxy texture. Overall rank, second.
Green and Black
B – creamy, smooth, but tastes of soya. Not bad though. Overall rank, third.
Me – I couldn’t really tell that this was chocolate (but I prefer dark chocolate). Overall rank third.
Galaxy
B – “mmm now we’re talking” – I think that about said it all really. Rank 1
Me – Sweeter than all the other two, honeycomb sugar taste, annoyingly I also ranked this the best of the milk chocolates. Rank 1 (on flavour and texture only).

Dark Chocolate
Seeds of change
B – It was amusing to watch her face as she analysed the flavours. I hadn't thought to ask whether she actually likes dark chocolate and didn't need to now, she spat the whole chunk out complaining that it was bitter and sour!
Me – not as chocolaty as I would expect from a dark chocolate (it’s 61% cacao). I would have said it was more milk chocolate.
Green and Black
B – decided that in the name of science she would continue with the trial. The chunk lasted a little longer before it was spat out, apparently it wasn’t as bitter.
Me – yep my favourite, definitely chocolate.

Onto the other two bars. It was odd that although the base chocolate was the same dark chocolate, B like both the flavours.

Dark chocolate with mango and cashew
B thought the bar was more mango cashew, I thought the opposite. We concluded that was just the way the chocolate chunked. A nice bar.
Dark chocolate with cherries and vanilla
Cherries, raisins, whatever. Fruity. Surprised to read that there was vanilla in there too. A little disappointed because we both thought was the more enticing combination of flavours to read.

Would I buy the chocolate? Umm, not for me (more because of what's happened since than because of the taste), but for a chocolate loving friend who hasn't tried it before as a gift - possibly. I couldn’t really tell from their website whether they have a fair trade policy for the ingredients, but they are organic and the flavour combinations were different. B will probably stick with Galaxy – she has no morals!

I have also discovered that you can now buy Seeds of Change chocolate bars in the UK. Looks like it was only the Dark chocolate flavour that made it over though.

In Transition film - online now

I've just watched the online screening of the "In Transition" film. It's not the final version, but it looked pretty good to me, a little bit of tweaking and I'm sure it will be a brilliant. It's only online for a few days, so catch it now, or else you'll have to wait for the finished product. It's about an hour long.

I'm familiar with the "Transition" concept, so I'd be really interested to hear what anyone who is new to the subject thinks of the film.

The idea of creating a positive vision of the future I think is powerful and necessary, but for me methodology the transition movement is generally using to get people to think about the future is a bit "new age" - but granted it does work (it tends to revolve around group meditation, which, if you are not used to meditation, either on your own or in a group, is uncomfortable - I just can't imagine that going down well with the majority of the people in my town!). The practical aspects, great. Some fantastic projects highlighted in the film.

By the way the film didn't play in Firefox. It was fine in Internet Explorer.

If you want to comment on the film to Rob, post your comments on the Transition Culture In Transition Film blog post.

If you want to watch the full 350 degrees animation, you can find it at www.350.org/animation.

Paper, paper everywhere

but no surfaces left!

I have had just about enough of the piles of magazines that have been building up. Even the wooden stool we made a few months back has somehow changed it's purpose and is now just extra space for stacking magazines on and under. Grrr.

We subscribe to a few different magazines (and read them!). I know we should transition to electronic versions, but for magazines, for me, nothing yet beats paper (if anyone would like to send me an e-book to trial please feel free, I'll happily review it for you!!).

The thing with the magazines is that we just don't want to compost of recycle them, the articles are too interesting and we know that will need to refer to them at a later date.

Time to file the magazines. The thing is how to do it without punching holes in the paper, or squeezing them into plastic sleeves? I didn't want to spend out on fancy embossed magazine archive files they are far too freaky. I found some magazine holder "clips" online that you use with ring binders that looked as if they might fit the bill, but made from plastic and then I'd have to buy some files.

The answer hit me when I found out that my workplace was going to bin a load of lever arch files. The files were old and the lever arch mechanisms had failed, you know the way they do when the metal pins that goes through the paper holes no longer match up, very annoying. But I didn't need the metal bit, just the file cases. My lucky day.

Here are the first finished magazine storage files.

After I had drilled out the rivets holding the metal mechanism to the board casing the rest was really easy. I wound string around the spine so the middle page of each magazine could be secured into place. Each lever arch file holds approximately 15 magazines. In no time at all, I will have my surfaces back. Hooray!

Feed-in tariffs

If you are in the UK and are thinking about getting photovoltaic solar panels, then a quick step over to Friends of the Earth could pay off, quite literally! They are working on a "We Support Solar" campaign to get feed-in tariffs (ie pay households for any excess electricity their PV panels produce) set at a good rate. A few clicks and you can let your MP know that you'd like them to support the idea. Or you can find out if your MP has already signed EDM 680: Solar Energy first and thank them!!

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" = "@").