I got the Veggiestan cookbook for Christmas, now the blog tells me what to plant.
Planning time is here again
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Defrosting the freezer
The deepest layer of the freezer had rhubarb from Spring 2010 and some undated bean chilli. Higher layers contain the remnants of undated Buy two get a discount deals which turn out to be buy one, store one and throw it away later. And the top of the freezer had in-date seafood and peas. It’s far too long between defrosts!
The household already has an exercise book for recording family food decisions, so this is going to get turned into a freezer log with item, date in, best before and date taken out. Maybe I’ll even use a calendar to defrost the freezer more often. Perhaps this is the enthusiasm that comes after the dollop of guilt when throwing away kilos of freezer-burn meat and it won’t last; we’ll see.
Note to self: items from Jane Perrone’s The allotment keepers handbook
Just going to donate the book to charity, but wanted to keep a note of a few things that haven’t cropped up elsewhere
- Michael Pollan’s Second nature: a gardener’s education
- National lists of varieties that must be distinct, uniform and stable are defined in the Plant varieties and seeds act 1964
- guttering for pea seeds
- harden off then plant out. give the seedlings a good soak an hour before transplanting — it’s the most stressful time of their lives
- Another book: Antonio Carluccio’s Vegetables
Theory informs, but practice convinces – George Bain at the Galleries on the mound
First committee meeting of the Saughton Mains Allotment Association this morning, where I learnt about the role of treasurer and the bean-counting that entails. We also heard about the other assets and duties that the committee is responsible for, which includes maintaining the composting loo. There was a diversion into the relative merits of sawdust versus leafmould for the bulk material that goes in a composting loo, and a move to get some training on how to maintain our loo. I think this is a critical piece of infrastructure and allows us to recycle the nutrients, so I’m keen to get involved.
Coincidentally, the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia has just published this piece on urine closes the NPK loop.
I then had some time to kill before I collected the family coming back from Glasgow, so popped into the galleries on the mound to visit the exhibition on George Bain and Celtic Art [1][2]. It’s not a big exhibition, yet it touches on both celtic knotwork theory and examples of rugs, ceramics and a bracelet. I was particularly taken by the phrase theory informs, but practice convinces.
This exhibition is tucked away at the back of the galleries. That’s great because near to the exhibition space there’s a few paintings from the late C19th which focus on vegetables and the horticulture trade. Arthur Melville’s Cabbage Garden was shown at last year’s blockbuster Impressionist Gardens and there’s a couple of other stunners. I always love the chance to look at these pictures. I’m intrigued by the note that I only saw today, that “vegetable garden subjects were popular among artists throughout Europe in the late 1870s and 1880s” — perhaps scope to follow up here.
The vegetable stall, William York MacGregor
A cabbage garden, Arthur Melville
Where are you of? Notes from Fife Diet’s Food Revolt
I was excited to be attending my first Fife Diet event: Food Revolt on 12 November 2011. Here’s some notes and thoughts about the day, and presentations from the day are available here. Update: some photos from the day are here.
Trading Officer as well…
Aside
Further to my election to Saughton Mains Allotments Association treasurer, I find it also comes with the role of Trading Officer for seeds, potatoes, onions and fertiliser.
Spare raspberries go to a good home
More on localised food production, but this time it’s the social and economic benefits that I’m concerned about…
Last year I bought some Summer-fruiting raspberries (Glen Ample) which I planted down the allotment. Bought 10 but realistically there’s only space for 7 in the plot, so I expected that a couple would not take and I’d be fine. But they all rooted successfully and have been growing well for a year, and I have 3 spare. Offered them to friends and then spent a couple of pleasurable hours yesterday morning transplanting the canes from the plot to their house. On the way out of the allotment, I also took 3 quick blackcurrant cuttings for them.
3 raspberries
The rasps are on a nice South-West facing fence and I think they’ll do very well, and the blackcurrants will take a year to get established and then moved to their final position. Give it a couple of years and there should be a good crop of rasps and blackcurrants to complement their existing apple tree. Which reminds me: I got a cuppa and a bag of apples to take home — a nice gesture.
I’ve got a hunch that a mature fruit-producing garden, or any kind of productive garden, will add value to a house. Not found any research to back this up (I’ve not looked) but I did see some research from Portland, Oregon which indicates house prices rise when there are trees in the garden or on street. More research needed for the UK situation, I think.
Food security begins at home
I was quite excited to hear that the Society of Biology was running a symposium on food security, partly in response to Tim Lang’s talk at the RSE back in February (slides from Tim Lang’s talk are available halfway down this page.) But when I found out it clashed with an Extraordinary General Meeting of my allotments association, I had some prioritising to do.
From the start I guessed that a symposium from the Society of Biology would emphasise the biotechnology aspects of food security, and would probably be quite conservative in the sense of providing technological solutions within the current economic system. With this in mind, I arranged to go to the allotment association EGM and catch the last of the talks at the Society of Biology. So Saturday had a flurry of food-related activity in the late morning.
Spuds out; garlic, onions and broad beans in
Last harvest from the allotment today: 3 kgs of Fellside Hero potatoes that had been sitting for a while. The tubers are quite small ‘cos the shaws got damaged just as they were growing, but I’m hoping they’ll still roast well.
Harvesting the spuds cleared the one of the big beds, which I had hoped to fill with alliums but the stock I had wasn’t enough. I usually buy from Garden Organic so I expect a certain amount of stuff from an order and I guess I wasn’t paying attention when I bought Taylor’s stock. 1 head of Lautrec Wight garlic only had 6 cloves, when I usually expect 10 cloves per head; and there were 40 usable Senshyu Yellow onions in the pack, when I expected 120 onions in a pack. Anyway, shouldn’t grumble, caveat emptor and all that.
That only took up a third of the bed, so I planted 40 Super Aquadulce broad beans in the remainder. Bang goes my grand plan for keeping the big beds in a formal beans, allium etc rotation, but it gives me more space to follow the Permaculture Association’s mixed vegetable polyculture research programme. You can see some photos of last year’s trials here, and a progress report is here.
Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile, Thursday 27 October
JEAN BAREHAM launches her book on the hidden gardens at this free event. By revealing the hidden growing spaces that are in our city, and the history behind them, Jean shows us a model for sustainability in cities: actively used greenspace, community and diversity. I think she’s great, and I’m really hoping I can get to this event.
http://www.word-power.co.uk/viewEvent.php?id=2929
I’ve been on many of her tours, and blogged about the first tour I went on.
