Tuesday 28 August 2018

September's Coming Soon




I've had a more occupied few weeks than I'm normally inclined to allow myself, which meant it's been over a full week since I got the chance to get down to the allotment - the place where, all other things being equal, I'd always rather be.  I came back with all this:


Kale, apples, corn, rhubarb, squash, chives and basil.  All my own work.  Well, nature's work.  But I'm a human so I like to take the credit.

I'm not sure the corn's quite as ripe as it could be, but more or less:


I shredded half the kale and threw it into my slow cooker to pad out one of my endless soups.  No idea what to do with the squash yet.  I like how squash can last for weeks and weeks and weeks, thanks to their thick, thick skin.  A handy vegetable for a man without a fridge.  By way of comparison, I present to you the following photo I took in a supermarket this week of a thing that actually exists:


No further comment.  Here's a little YouTube video for you:


The apples and rhubarb are for Sarah, as per her request.  She has grand post-foraging plans.  Stay tuned for more.



Related posts


Fruits of the Forage
Never-Ending Soup
Eating From the Bottomless Pickle Jar
A Soup Made of Scraps
Slow Cooker Simple Vegan Chilli
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Monday 20 August 2018

The Past, Present and Future of Tiny Houses





By the way, here's the video from Chris Coates' fascinating talk he gave to the Manchester Pocket Community group last week, as mentioned here.  My apologies for the shoddy camera work.  Just posting this here now for future reference.



If you're in the North West of England and you're interested in getting involved in any kind of communal living/eco village/tiny house/community land trust arrangement in the next few years, here's the Facebook group.  If you're not on Facebook but would like to get involved, just comment below. 

Chris Coates is a founder member of Lancaster Co-Housing, and a long-term editor/contributor to Diggers and Dreamers, both of which are good things.






Related posts

Good Things are Happening
More of this sort of thing
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Saturday 18 August 2018

Fruits of the Forage



Yesterday was great.  Sarah had big plans for a foraging trip that she thought I already knew about, but which I insist I didn't.  This made for a wonderful surprise.  We drove up to the area around Jumbles Reservoir (a delightful name if ever there was one, mere minutes from me but which again, I knew nothing about) where Sarah had previously spied an abundance of rosehip bushes.  We parked up, and began to help ourselves.



We came back with a hefty bag full, discussing what we might do with such a quantity.  Jam?  Syrup?  Chutney?  Tea?  Quite possibly, all of the above.



 We found several sloe bushes too:


There was more.  Elderberries (not quite ripe), rowanberries, and tiny plums.  We stocked up, and began to fantasise about sloe gin making.  I don't even particularly like gin that much, but I like the idea of making it. 

It was also pleasing to learn that the whole yalley in which we foraged in fact belonged to me.  All I've ever really wanted from life is a valley to call my own.



It's a pleasant little valley, with lots of trees and water and life.


We borrowed a ladder from Jumbles Cafe to pick the tiny plums.

In the afternoon, Beverley came over, and we set to work on the blackberry bushes around my allotment.  Between the three of us, we gathered over 2.5kg.

Cheap farm labour.
I also helped.

Sarah had come prepared.  She'd pre-order demijohns and the necessary chemicals and we picked up these and lots of sugar and began to make my first ever jar of blackberry wine.  Take a look at this:


That's over four litres of pre-wine right there.  The jar was Sarah's too: now it's mine.  When it's empty I'm going to turn it into a terrarium.

We moseyed back to mine for tea as it started to rain and divided up our spoils: apples, plums, blackberries, rhubarb, rowanberries, sloes, various plums.  It was an afternoon of laughter and sharing.  These are the things in life that matter.







Related posts

Sunday in the Park, Then Soup
Another Walk in Another Park
A Soup Made of Scraps
Life Flows On Within You and Without You


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Monday 6 August 2018

August on (and off) the Allotment




I like to keep a visual record of my plants and vegetables as they grow.  Have a look at the progress of the largest of the squash on my plant over the course of 2 - 3 weeks:







We can assume that my left hand has stayed the same size during this time, meaning this here squash has more or less doubled over the same period.  This is remarkable.

Also remarkable enough to remark upon was the onion harvest:

Also pictured: elephant garlic.
It feels to me like I've harvested enough onions to turn into other things, though not enough to constitute a "supply".  The same can be said for my potatoes: harvest enough to put into a big ballsy sack, and that's a supply, but less than that, you've got maybe a "stash".  Anyway, I decided, in the spirit of stockpiling, to make some onion chutney.  I used this recipe.  It made enough for 2 x 190g jars, but not quite enough for three.  So I heated the remaining mixture back up, and added in some broccoli and ginger, rendering two conventional jars of onion chutney, and two more experimental jars of broccoli and onion chutney.

Spot the difference.
Meanwhile, blackberries continue to ripen all over the place, providing ingredients for MORE JAM.  Even after giving a few jars away to a friend, my Brexit stockpile continues to build.

12 jars of jam, 4 jars of chutney.
Back outside, and it was time to remove the trailing nasturtiums, as they start to die off, droop, and drop their seeds.  Nasturtiums drop an extraordinary amount of seeds.  I don't know why nasturtiums haven't taken over the world yet.

Little green testicles.


It's immensely satisfying to see a dynamic ecosystem at work beneath.



It's not too late to sow new seeds, either.  Here's a row of borlotti beans making their appearance.  They inspired me to sow some more elsewhere.



Purple sprouting broccoli, likewise.

July 22nd.
August 5th.

Even some forget-me-nots I sowed on a whim seem to be doing their thing.


Inside the shed, now adequately shelved, I've some space to continue growing microgreens.  My first tray of pea shoots is up and running (after a couple of false starts involving too little water and too much direct sunlight) and the next is on the way.  A tray of these sown every 2-3 days should keep me in a steady supply for munching on, using in soups, and maybe even a chutney or two.






Related posts

Summer on the Allotment
Summer Harvest, and Beyond
Microgreens!
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Sunday 5 August 2018

Good Things Are Happening




Tonight I'm going in to Manchester to attend a talk I've helped set up by Chris Coates, the founder of Lancaster Cohousing and editor/contributor to Diggers and Dreamers.  His talk is called "The Past Present and Future of Tiny Houses" and I'm really looking forward to it.

It's not something I've mentioned yet on this blog, so a little catching up.  In February Sarah and I became the admins for a Facebook group called "Manchester pocket community (tiny house eco living)" - a group we didn't start but which the original founder/admin didn't have time to continue herself.  Sometimes these things just happen.  From the group description:

The cost of living in the UK has sky rocketed over the last few decades and for many the dream of owning their own home is simply that, a dream. There is a housing crisis, an energy crisis, a community crisis. So many of us are caught in a rent trap and can not escape. Across the world however people are taking the situation in to their own hands, self building projects and tiny homes are popping up all over the place, allowing people to live in their own property, enjoy a high quality of life whilst also doing good for their environment. In the UK however planning restrictions have really slowed the development of these fantastic projects.

What we are proposing is a pocket community, a small housing estate with 'tiny houses' (ranging front 1 person dwellings to 4 person dwellings) similar to a residential caravan park or log cabin holiday home yet all year round. The homes could be powered by solar and wind, the land could come with communal gardens, allotment, car park, play area, tennis courts... a football pitch? There could be a community base on site for use of groups, office space even a small shop... all the houses will have the creature comforts such as a dish washer, bath, awesome Wi-Fi but will just use the space more effectively.

House prices could range from £10-50,000, a percentage of the price of most family houses today and would offer a life style beyond what many of us could hope to achieve in this current climate.

Of course there is a long journey of planning, fundraising and hopefully one day building, but all of the greatest journeys start with a single step 

The Facebook group has 358 members as of today, from which a "core" group of about ten has started to form to work out how we might make this dream real.  (A lot of people seem to join Facebook groups just to "lurk" and click "like" on things, which is fine, but also a bit frustrating when the point of the group is to genuinely do something).  It's actually really exciting stuff, if a little abstract at the moment.  Everyone wants to find a better way to live, but we're not exactly sure how.  (By "better", we mean more communally, sustainably, beautifully - how this might work in practice is something that will, I hope, emerge).  We've had seven meetings so far; connections are being made, friendships formed, ideas shared.

One practical possibility is setting up a "Community Land Trust" (CLT), where a group buys a plot of land, which they then decide how to use for the benefit of the community.  The entirety of the "housing market", I must admit, is a total mystery to me - I've only ever rented, and have only the vaguest idea of what words like "mortgage", "interest rates", "equity release" and so on and on actually mean - and I do sometimes wonder if that's at least semi-intentional.  Keep the mundane esoteric.  This suits those in power.  Or maybe I'm just an idiot.  Anyway, CLTs seem pretty great.  Down in Bristol, the Tiny House Community is making a lot of progress towards a similar dream.  Next Wednesday there'll be an online chat with their founder member, which I hope to be able to record and share.  Likewise for this evening's talk.

What of tiny houses?  Well, again, this is one possibility, but not the only one.  If you're going to a build a community (and I do stress community, as opposed to commune) in this day and age, tiny houses seem like a good way to go.  Get some land, and build genuinely affordable homes on it.  "Affordable" meaning something normal people can actually afford.  A CLT has to be not-for-private-profit; meaning any profit a community happened to make has to be channelled back into the community itself.  This, as far as I'm concerned, is good, and I don't know why it doesn't happen more often.  Well, I do of course.  Money.

This is just a frantic post to bring you up to speed.  I'll have a lot more to say on this soon.



Related posts

The Past, Present and Future of Tiny Houses
More of this sort of thing

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