Be Vigilant

I was walking about town the other day, and I saw this sight. Masses and masses of autumn leaves in plastic sacks. This set off alarmbells straight away. The fact that the leaves were packed in heavy duty plastic sacks ,as apposed to compostable sacks, made me realise that the council had no intention of composting these leaves,and were planning to incinerate them instead. .As an organic farmer you can imagine how destressing this was to me 

I rang the council (Ealing London) and had it confirmed that the leaves were destined for land fill or incineration.,the reason being that there was too much  contaminate in the leaves, in the form of heavy metals.and litter.

This reason was in reality only a half truth in as much as A there wasnt much litter in amongst the leasve.B with very little effort the litter present could have been selected out at point of collection.C any remaining litter,of a noncompostable nature could easly be sifted out at the final stage of composting.
then there was the original question Why were the leaves in plastic.noncompostable bags anyway?Even though the council had decided to land fill with the leaves,compostable bags should have been an essential.the reason being that the councils decision to use heavy duty plastic is extremely distructive and poluting to the land fill process itself,inasmuch as,firstly any material that composts in plastic will be anarobic therefore producing a lot of greenhouse gas methaine. secondly the plastic residues themselves pose a long term toxic legacy in the landfill site.and thirdly should the land fill site catch fire ,a not uncommojnn event,then the plastic will release a cocktail of some of the most poisiones fumes known to man ,including the notorious gas dioxin, in famious for causing cancer birth defect, cronic illness and death. Further more the problems of incinerating plastic, has been well documented too.
Again the considerations about heavy metals in the leaves do not really stand up to close examination. It is my fear that all leaves whether they were collected in the vicinity of heavy traffic or not(example parks or relatively low traffic streets)were going to be treated in exactly the same way. What a waste of clean leaves!
Actually incineration of heavy metal contaminated leaves is also a very ill-considered method of disposal as any heavy metal will be released into the air via vector smoke along with a cocktail of cancer stimulating chemicals. or into ground water via vector ash which would contain the heavy metal in an extremely water soluble form, once again along with the cancer inducing chemicals which are an unavoidable result of burning autumn leaves and  especially plastics.

 If the leaves were composted, the heavy metals would be released into the soil slowly over a period of up to five years, as apposed to a couple of hours. during this five years the heavy metals would be exposed to continuous moderating enzymatic influence of bacteria and fungus, which would have an extremely moderating effect, making it much less harmful to people plants and animals.
All in all it is clear that the council has adopted a policy wich is corners cutting. Perhaps one could be a bit stronger.neglent? short sighted? polluting? irresponsible?
What do you thing.? anyway thats what our councils are up to thats how they choose to spend our council tax. and apparently its up to us to insure that they step up to the line. Dont let them get away with it. If we are going to protect our planet we really have to stop interfering with the trees natural service of cleaning up .
 I would like to see this page turning into a Champaign to (A) move the traffic out of our towns and cities (B) move more trees into our urban spaces(C) compost and use all of next years fallen leaves as soil enhancing  plant food.

what is that horrible smell?

A couple of days ago someone queried a horrible smell in the neighbourhood. It was Identified as slurry spreading. It was interesting to read the reaction from various peeps .It ranged accepting it as an inconvenience to living in the country through to being something benefical to ourselves and to wildlife in general No one thought of it as being some thing out of order.

what people dont realise is that there is the world of difference between manure which has a very acceptable smell,and slurry from slurry pits, which has a vile smell. .Not only does it smell disgusting it is the icon of industrial farming. it is the smell of animals being raised in the inhumane conditions of slatted houses.It is the smell of chemically exploited land raped year after year for nothing but profit. It is the smell of genetic modification and momoculture .It is the smell of our bees going extinct. It is the smell of the death of our rural communities. In fact it is the smell of death and in my opinion ,it is not an acceptable smell.

Save seeds for the future no1

saving seeds for the future no1

this short video is to encourage you to save seeds from your favourite flowers and veg.Its probably easier to do than you think.There are a number of advantages of allowing your plants to go through their complete life cycle . you will be protecting the genetic diversity of your food plants. you will be attraction a range or beautiful wildlife into your garden. also you will save on the cost of seed purchase for yourself and hopefully your gardening associates.(start a seed swap club.)
Not only that I am sure that seedsaving will deepen your gardening experience,and your relationship with your garden plants

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