Vegan vegetable grower on Gardeners World

I haven't watched Gardeners World for years, but Friday night a friend rang me to say that there was a vegan vegetable grower featured. So yesterday I watched it on i-player.

The section on the vegan's vegetable growing was very interesting. Monty Don was definitely impressed!

He does use manure (which makes him a vegan by diet rather than a someone who practises vegan gardening. However, the manure was only mentioned in passing. Instead was featured how he used old path mulch (I didn't take it what it was) which is sieved 3 times and each sieving used for a different purpose. and how he fertilised his tomatoes EVERY day.

He uses nettles, comfrey and potash. I don't have nettles except the occasional small plant. I used to do liquid comfrey fertiliser but then the comfrey stated getting rust so have to pick the leaves when they are small, so only small quantities now. I do have plenty of potash from the wood burning stove. Each week over the winter I put it on to the bed that is going to have tomatoes next season. This winter I am going to put it into a thick plastic bag and then make liquid potash fertiliser when the tomatoes start fruiting. I will also get some comfrey pellets from the organic gardening catalogue.

The organic gardening catalogue has already arrived; it is usually worryingly late! I have had my first go through, ticking what I would like. I will now have to go through again, reducing the order to what I have space for and can afford.

Nice bike ride this morning, to Victoria Park in Hackney along the towpaths. First time in 2 months because the towpath was blocked off during the Olympics. However successful the Olympics were, and I know lots of people really enjoyed them, I don't think they justified the cost or the amount of public space taken.

Pesky foxes

Out in the garden to pick autumn raspberries for my breakfast (which have benefited from the recent rain) to find two pots knocked over and my one and only asparagus pea dug up. Presumably foxes playing and looking for worms.

There is also a hole dug under the fence between my garden and Piers' and Charmaine's. Piers will not be pleased! He goes to great lengths to keep cats and foxes out of his garden and almost succeeds. Now they have an easy route. We will have to block it and hope, having had the idea of digging once, they don't try the same trick again.

Rain bringing me to my senses?

I have often got very nice clothes which receive compliments from "Nomads" , a fair trade catalogue.

In the autumn/winter catalogue just received is a patchwork high collar coat which I was very tempted by. It is rather expensive for me, but very nice, and I could wear it for best for years and years. So I was seriously considering buying it.

But today is very wet, so I am being reminded that, not having a car, I need something to keep me dry as I walk the mile to Leyton or Leytonstone tube stations, or wait at the bus stop for a bus to Walthamstow Central. This cuts down when I could use it quite considerably

It can be a drag being green and sensible!

Further thinking needed!

old jam-jars banned!

"Please take note: this looks like a spoof but it's not" .warned the Churches Legislation Advisory Service leaflet I received at work

They warn you reuse jam-jars at home and for private gifts for friends, but you are not allowed to  make jam, chutney, etc, and put in reused jam-jars to sell or give away at a public event!

CLAS contacted the Women's Institute,on the assumption that if there were a flaw in all this the WI would have spotted it. But no luck!

I know someone who makes a lot of jam and chutney which is sold by various local groups she supports. The fruit and vegetables come from her allotments and from hedgerows, but the sugar etc she donates. The extra cost of buying new jam-jars would be very unfair.

And why? What danger in practice does reusing jam-jars cause?!

Tiny crops

Here is a picture of my one and only cucumber:

And my one and only carrot:

Lucky I am not relying on my vegetable patch to eat!!!

slow picking of sloes for gin

According to the books, if you wait till after the first frosts to pick your sloes for gin you don't have to prick each sloe berry as the frost has softened the skins. The one time I waited, I found the berries had all dropped from the bushes.

So today, a bright, sunny September Sunday, I went to Epping Forest to get sloes for sloe gin, wondering what I would find after our rather odd Spring. Found a great long hedge of sloe bushes but very few berries - though those I did find were a good size. So I picked what I could find, and reach. Then came a few bushes that had lots of berries on, so finished filling my soya dessert tub with no problem.

I walked a little further to check the sloe bushes where I used to pick my sloes, to find separate bushes had grown and spread into a thicket - with not a single sloe.

I have just pricked all the berries and put into a jar with sugar and gin. Official quantities are 450 g (1 lb) sloes, 100g (4oz/1/2 cup) sugar. Put together in a jar, shake every day until sugar has all dissolved and then leave for 3 months. Pour off sloes into bottle. Use the gin-soaked sloes to make sloe brandy (sloes, brandy and more sugar).


I've now tried instructions from Pete F to get paragraphs in my post - fingers crossed!

Kittens make it curtains for curtains

I had some padded curtains in my bedroom that I got years ago at an Oxfam shop. Getting 2 14-week old rescue kittens nearly 3 years ago meant they were badly ripped. They semed to have calmed down so I thought I would get some replacement curtains. I don't go for expensive curtains, especially as the cats might decide to dig their claws into the new pair, but I found some gold ones in a catalogue (my bedroom is dark wood with gold/golden yellow). The curtains are very thin material with very thin linings so they are letting in a bit more light than the old pair, even allowing for the old pair's missing stuffing! The catalogue also sold thermal linings, but black-out, thermal linings. I like to open one eye and tell whether I can roll over and go back to sleep or doze until the alarm goes (autumn and spring) or be able to tell at a glance at the clock if there is time to roll over and go back to sleep even though it is already light without waking properly (summer). When I did a thermal lining curtain workshop with Transition Leytonstone last year I made black-out, thermal linings for the spare room curtains as the window is not far away from a street lamp. At New Year I warned a friend that they were black-out linings but the significance didn't sink in and she would have overslept if I hadn't been up and about watching the time! Hopefully I will see Jan, who ran the curtain lining workshop, at a Transition Leytonstone even and she will have some thermal curtain linings I can buy.