Vulnerable

Vulnerable

When you choose to garden without toxic chemicals your plants become vulnerable to insect attack. If you are at all identified with your crops you can feel under attack yourself. You might find yourself saying such things as “I put a lot of time and effort into that and now look at it “It is your food after all, you might even say something like, “dam it”.

However, before you go marching off to the shop to buy chemicals please look carefully at the picture bellow

I had been away for four days providing raw food cuisine at a festival with muriel and friends. When we came back our Brussel sprout patch was crawling with cabbage white caterpillars. What had been a few small caterpillars had in the few days away become an infestation. I am wishing that I had taken a picture then as it would have been a brilliant before and after study. I was too devastated to think of taking a photo. However, if you look at the scars on the lower leaves in the picture you can estimate how badly the plants were damaged. In fact, the whole crop was skeletal. And it crossed my mind to cut my losses and pull them all up.

I didn’t pull them up, trusting in the amazing powers of recovery that the cabbage tribe possesses. there followed a week of picking the caterpillars of by hand. It is amazing how cleverly they can hide at first it seemed that though I removed loads, they were back next day in undiminished numbers. Gradually though, through persistence they were visibly diminished, then just a few lingers, then the odd one or two then finally gone and my ragged patch began to recover. I guess it was a little over a month later I had that “oh my god” moment when I realised that the Brussel Sprouts had recovered beyond all expectation and We were going to get a crop after all.

The resulting picture is a great symbol of recovery of hope, of not giving up. Not only did they recover but (I don’t know if the picture really shows this) but with such tender new life

Another spin off of keeping to the “ chemical free way” is that I have a growing population of Ichneumon wasps. Look at the picture below. Not just an amazing insect in its own right, but also a valuable ally in keeping the cabbage white under control next year as these wasps predate on them.

If I had poisoned the caterpillars these wasps would have been killed off too, along with a small but highly significant part of myself, and my relationship with the environment, which brings us back to the beginning. Its…. vulnerable.

p.s I have just pulled this couple of photos of the internet. Our Brussels looked like this or worsre.

       

Tips on making and using compost

tips on making and using compost.the second video shows a stand of mixed sunflowers and grazing rye. very mature compost can be scattered in between the plants. Incidentally the sunflowers have reached maturity at such a small size because they were sown after the longest day and they had to race.I will be harvesting the seeds to use as green manure seed next year.I am very curious to see if the sunflower seeds actually ripen to the point that they can grow. will they be very small seeds ?wait and see




Any crop can benefit from this top dressing of mature compost. Although I would be  careful with lettuce or anything else that I was going to eat any time soon Not to get compost into the leaves..It is a great way to feed your growing crops,and improve your soil at the same time.

Tips on making and using compost

tips on making and using compost.the second video shows a stand of mixed sunflowers and grazing rye. very mature compost can be scattered in between the plants. Incidentally the sunflowers have reached maturity at such a small size because they were sown after the longest day and they had to race.I will be harvesting the seeds to use as green manure seed next year.I am very curious to see if the sunflower seeds actually ripen to the point that they can grow. will they be very small seeds ?wait and see




Any crop can benefit from this top dressing of mature compost. Although I would be  careful with lettuce or anything else that I was going to eat any time soon Not to get compost into the leaves..It is a great way to feed your growing crops,and improve your soil at the same time.

The power of push

I am very grateful to my fellow allotmenteers at Stanmore Winchester for having the good sense to have invested in a manual lawnmower. It was such a joy to use. I had to wonder why petrol or electric lawnmowers have ever become so popular, inasmuch as this lawn mower, being so much lighter than petrol ones was just as easy to push. It has the advantage of being fairly quiet. The simplicity of its mechanism makes it low maintenance,and extremely long lasting.

Furthermore petrol lawnmowers (obviously)use petrol, which is not just a financial burden ,but a moral one when you consider the strangle hold the petrochemical industry has on the planet.

Maybe a motor mower has the edge for large estates with acres of lawn(horrid)but for us the lightness and maneuverability and quietness of a hand pusher is definitely the way to go.along with a grass hook for longer patches of grass and herbs.

If you are thinking of getting a grass cutter i urge you to be kind to your neighbours ,to the planet,and to yourself, and consider a hand pusher.

Oh another thought .A hand pusher might just save you some gym bills

what can we consumers do about over packaging?

The below is a sample letter I sent to a company in which i suggested that they change their packaging policy.I think it is polite even friendly,and to the point. It is my hope that if enough of this type of letter came from us to the producers it could make a difference.What do you think?


  Dear sir or Madam. 

I am the proud owner of one brand new dorma bed sheets.I am very impressed with the quality of the product,and grateful for the sense of luxury on opening the new package.

What did concern me though,and slightly detracted from the pleasure was some considerations on the plastic covering.

I do appreciate that the packaging added some sense of quality to the presentation, but surly i am not the only one who might be looking for a pure cotton product out of some consideration for the environment and the environmental cost of disposal Surly i am not the only one who realises that whether burned or buried, heavy duty plastic is a real problem? 

I am therefore asking you to consider the following ;please look into the possibility of a packaging which not only looks good but which is also benign to dispose of. (compostable).

i thank you once again for a quality product

please feel free to send this sample letter to all of your friends. And get this thing rolling.Below are two examples of excessive packaging.current practice in the uk for disposal of this material is to incinerate it. which causes massive health problems for local populations of people plants and animals. It is much better to cercumvent the problem and insist on  compostable packaging

Eddie Morgan

                What  is this beautiful old cast iron bath doing on legs?

virtual prize for the correct guess

Overcoming Addiction part 3

Dealing with the Devil

I have been doing some subjective arithmetic on the question.    What are the odds that any particular person with a severe addiction will ever recover?   personally there are two people who I know of whom I can put my hand on my heart and say they have made a recovery, one from alcohol, one from heroin . On the other hand I know of the same amount who have died of related causes and twice as many again who are in their addiction and kind of stuck.so roughly speaking 2 in 10 recovered.

In other words if you are in an addiction. looking at the bare statics the odds are stacked against you and there is a very good chance that you will die from it.

On the other hand and over and above these negative speculations the two guys I mentioned are two of the finest men I know , and have become so through their journey to recovery. Therefore ,if you do take the challenge,its going to be so worth it, not just if or when you succeed but every step of the way.

I find it interesting that what ever else they had to go through both guys did what I call a deal with the devil.

"John" decided he wasnt going rto be a hercin addict , he was going to be a weaver. He bought himself a loom ,some colored threads of linnin ,cotton and wool. where ever he moved the loom came with him and i can only immagine that he went through many a difficult time inthecompany and solace of this craft.Eventually he told everyone that he could weave buitfulfrabrics and that he was infact a weaver.

"Deric"told himself thatin giving up his alcohol addiction and all thet went with it , he would always have music to listen to, no matter what it cost.and indeed every time i visited him we eventually listened to some choice recordings.

 Both these solution, were not in  themselves with out cost..I mean how many weavers do you know?How easy can it be to have amazing music available to you when you live in a caravenon a remote hill side on scotlands west coast?

However they achived it, and it is clear that whatever it cost it was worth it. Interestinglythe weaving and the music became centeralthemes in the lives of each men "Deric for instance went on to become a music teacher. Sure enough they had their quirks they mcarried some scars, but both became exceptional people

 So in the light of these considerations lets return to the  a grim prediction speculations I started with , 10 to 2 death by addiction. Quite a grim prediction .Heres another reality. Every time you take a step to over come your addictoion , every time you take responsibility, The odds become better. Please feel free to contact me on this blogg. I would love to celebrate with you your 25/75 mark, your 50/50/, your 75/25mark your hand on your heart Ive made it moment. 

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