Allotments All the Rage

The BBC is reporting that allotments are all the rage. A combination of the credit crunch and eco-awareness is driving a huge interest in vegetable growing. National waiting lists for allotments are said to be over 100,000. According to the BBC:

In some areas, it's more difficult to get an allotment than it is to get in to the most exclusive London clubs, with waiting lists running to 10 years - those that have not been closed altogether.

In order to feed the demand, the National Trust is releasing enough land for 1000 allotments. What caught my eye about the story though was a link to Landshare.net. With a strapline "Linking people who want to grow their own food to space where they can grow it", it struck me as a brilliant idea whose time has come. The ubiquitous Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall appears in a video on the site explaining how the idea works. Or at least that's that it says - I couldn't get it to play. But from what I can gather it seems to be encouraging people to offer their underused gardens in exchange for some of the produce.

So if you can't get an allotment why not sign up to the Landshare website and see if anyone near you has a garden you could use to grow some produce? Or if you have good intentions to do something with your garden but you never seem to actually do it, why not offer your land to someone who desperately wants it? You get to see your garden looking cared-for and productive. You get a share of some of the produce. You get to build up relationships with people in your local community. It's a real win-win arrangement.

R.I.P. Hugg

Two days ago Hugg died. Hugg used to be one of my favourite websites - run by the fabulous Treehugger, it was like Digg for green stories. I used to submit Bean Sprouts stories to Hugg to get a few more hits here, and a few of them made the front page. I never made the front page of Digg. And I also read Hugg to get a heads-up on upcoming green stories. It rocked.

But really Hugg had been sick for a long time. It started to die about a year ago, when Treehugger relaunched it with much fanfare. Except new Hugg was a bit like new coke. It sucked. It wasn't half as good as old Hugg. The readership of Hugg dwindled. The amount of traffic it brought to Bean Sprouts dropped to about nothing. The number of good stories on there dropped to only slightly more than nothing. And I gave up on it. So it's not really a surprise that Treehugger gave up on it too.

R.I.P. Hugg. We really need something to replace you.

Farms Relieve Stress

I was interested to read about a study showing that visiting a farm relieves stress and tiredness. According to the BBC:

Scientists said they found that after spending a few hours on a farm, 95% of those analysed were less tired, 91% less tense and 55% felt revitalised.

It went on to say:

Anger and hostility levels decreased for 70% of visitors, feelings of confusion and depression both decreased for 80% of visitors, vigour increased for 55% of visitors, tension and anxiety levels decreased for 91% and nearly all visitors - 97% - said they felt a reduction in fatigue.

Those figures are remarkable, but somehow not surprising. It passes the "reality check": visiting farms and rural locations has the same effect on me. How about you?

I have just finished reading A Good Life, a biography of John Seymour, the father of the self-sufficiency movement. I don't think he'd have been surprised by this research either:

To John all of the foundation of human happiness was based on the deep seated urge and need for human beings to be closely associated with the land that they came from. Not the country but the very earth itself beneath their feet. Every form of human joy in one way or another swelled from this single point of view.

I do wonder how to reconcile the amazing calming and restorative powers of nature with the terribly high suicide rate amongst farmers - about twice the rate of other workers. Perhaps it just underlines the desperate situation British farmers are in.

Zilok Launches in the UK

I've still got a big weedy area on my allotment that hasn't been cultivated for years. It's a total jungle, we couldn't possibly tackle it all by hand. So we investigated hiring a strimmer and a rotavator to get it all under control.

Our nearest tool hire place wants £33 a day for a strimmer and £52 a day for a rotavator, which is pretty expensive.

There's probably somebody I know who has a strimmer and/or a rotavator in their shed. I've been asking everyone who I think is likely to have one, but I haven't got anywhere so far. Wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of database of who has what tools? Then when you wanted a strimmer or a power washer you could look up if anyone near you had the thing you want and was willing to lend it out. I'd pay money for a service like that.

It would work both ways wouldn't it? For example, my apple press and scritcher get used just a few days a year. If I could hire them out to other people I could recoup some of the cost. Or, as it was a gift, I could bring in a bit of income. I'm sure there are other things in my shed that don't get much use. The steam wallpaper stripper, for example, the kiln, the router. They could become nice little earners.

Fortunately someone has already thought of it. Zilok.co.uk is a Rental Marketplace where anyone, individual or professional, can rent or rent out anything (from a fancy handbag to a drill, from tuxedos to digital cameras or even cars or baby strollers…). They call it “peer-to-peer renting”, or an eBay for rentals. There are star ratings like on Ebay so you can protect yourself by only renting from (or to) people with an established reputation. Or you will when it has been up and running for a little while. It was only launched this week, so when I went on it I couldn't find any strimmers or rotavators, and nobody has any stars.

I'll be keeping my eye on it. It sounds like a brilliant idea and I'm dying to try it out when it's properly running.

Waitrose 1 - Poynton 0

Not long ago the Poynton Against Tesco campaign celebrated a victory over Tesco when their planning application was rejected by the council.

But now a very similar proposal by Waitrose has been accepted, perhaps due to less vigorous opposition by residents. We know that Tesco are appealing the original decision, and now that the Waitrose development is going ahead perhaps they will be more successful next time. After all if there is to be one large supermarket in Poynton, why not two?

I think if campaigning is to continue it needs to shift its focus. I was never very happy about being anti-Tesco in the first place because I don't naturally like being anti-anything. I'd much rather be pro-something. So now I'm going to be pro-local shops. I won't say "I'll never set foot inside Waitrose or Tesco", if they do get built. But I'm going to go all out to give Poynton's local shops as much support as I can.

What's New in the Sustainable Blogosphere?

For the last two weeks I have been too busy to keep up with my emails and blogging, and now I'm catching up. Here's a few of the things that landed in my mailbox that I thought worth sharing with Bean Sprouts readers.

Earth Day

First of all, this coming Tuesday is Earth Day. Earth Day has been going since 1969, but the time is right for it to really take off. I'd love to see it become bigger than Christmas (which is a religious feast for Christians like me but tends to be just an excuse for an orgy of over-consumption and wastefulness for, well, for Christians like me and everyone else as well). Earth Day is for everyone who lives on Earth. You'd have to be living in a cave not to notice Christmas when it comes around. Earth Day should be the same. Every time you buy a calendar or a diary it should have Earth Day marked on it already. So do something. Spread the word. Send an e-card. Give gifts of LE light bulbs and organic wine. Invite friends around for a meal of local food, obviously. Blog about it. Spread the word.

Swaptree.com Donates to the Sierra Club

In honor of Earth Day this Tuesday, Swaptree.com, the website where you can trade the books, DVDs, CDs, and video games you have, for the ones you want, for free, will be donating $1 dollar for every trade made on Earth Day to The Sierra Club. Swaptree is like Ebay but cash-less. British readers of a certain age will remember Noel Edmonds' Multicoloured Swap Shop which used to be on TV on Saturday mornings. Young viewers would send requests to swap a Bay City Rollers scarf for an Action Man with eagle eyes and so on. Swaptree is much swankier - you type in the bar code of the book, CD, DVD or video game you have and the clever Swaptree software figures out 2-way, 3-way and even 4-way swaps that mean everyone gets the things they want. You don't pay Swaptree for the privilege. It doesn't cost you anything apart from postage, and Swaptree can calculate the shipping cost and print out a mailing label so you don't even have to go to the post office. You give and receive feedback so you can feel confident you won't be ripped off. There's a video tour so you can see how easy it is. But sadly it is only available in the United States at present. As soon as it comes to the UK I'll be the first to sign up.

Penguin Classics Partners with The Nature Conservancy

Staying with the topic of books, I have some news about one of my favourite publishing imprints, Penguin Classics. On April 1st, 2008, Penguin Classics began their support of The Nature Conservancy's ambitious reforestation plan to plant and restore one billion trees in Brazil's Atlantic Forest.

In bookstores everywhere, bookmarks (printed on recycled paper) featuring three of Penguin's favorite environmental classics, Rachel Carson's Under the Sea Wind, John Muir's The Mountains of California and Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature and Selected Essays, will encourage readers to visit The Nature Conservancy's website, donate a dollar and help plant a billion trees.

There's more information about this partnership here.

Downshifting Week

International Downshifting Week starts today. Yippee! Thanks to Rebecca from Sallygardens for the reminder. Last year it was just National Downshifting Week, so it's growing fast. Visit the website for ideas of how to take part, including:

• Book a half-day off work to spend entirely with someone you love, no DIY allowed


• Cook a meal from scratch, using locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, preferably organic


• Cut up a credit card

I'll have a think about what I'm going to do this year, and I'll let you know later in the week. Please leave a comment and tell me what you'll be doing for IDW.

Take Back the Filter

The indomitable Beth Terry from FakePlasticFish has started a new campaign to urge Clorox (the company that owns Brita in North America) to take responsibility for the millions of plastic Brita water filter cartridges that are disposed of each year. It's called Take Back The Filter and has its own homepage. Here in the UK we can recycle our Brita cartridges. The FAQ page of the Brita UK website says:

All components of the Brita cartridge are recyclable. Cartridges returned to Brita will be returned to our own recycling plant in Germany where the component parts are separated and processed for secondary use. For information on BRITA In-store recycling contact the BRITACare team on 0844 740 4800

And the recyclenow.com Top Tips at Home webpage says:

In line with growing consumer demand for greener living, BRITA has launched a new in store recycling scheme. Recycling bins are now situated in a range of high street stores such as Robert Dyas, Argos and Cargo. Other major retailer collection points will be following soon.

The BRITA branded bins will be located next to the existing water filter category in store. Customers can recycle any BRITA consumer product filter cartridge, including those for the new BRITA water filter taps.

So once again this is more relevant to US readers than to our home grown readers. But the Internet is an international medium and I'm glad to support Beth's campaign.

This Bill's Got No Balls

Here's one specifically for UK readers, though. 'This Bill's Got No Balls' - the new short film from I Count - follows three hilarious scenarios where the protagonist, Bill, confronts three eyewatering situations - on the football pitch, in the office and on the street - that clearly demonstrate that he's lacking a sensitive part of his anatomy. Click here to watch the film.

Viewers are encouraged to visit the I Count website, from where they can put pressure on their local MPs to vote for a Climate Change Bill with balls when the new law is voted on in the summer. The film can also be viewed on myspace and facebook so please feel free to forward it to your friends.

Mathew Horne - of BBC3's 'Gavin and Stacey' who provided the voice over for the film - said:

The Climate Change Bill needs balls if we're ever going to tackle climate change. I will be putting the squeeze on my MP to make sure we have a tough bill. You should too.

The Broke Vacationer

Sally Thompson of TravelHacker has written an article called The Broke Vacationer: 100 Ways to Get Free Stuff When Traveling. I like some of the frugal tips in this article, although I don't really want to encourage people to fly all over the world on their holidays. Have a look at the article and decide for yourself which of the tips fit your own ethical values and which you might prefer to pass.

Home Gardening Tips

Bill Stanley, author of Home Gardening Tips, got in touch to ask if he could add Bean Sprouts to his blogroll. Bill has been a home gardener for over 20 years and enjoys sharing his gardening tips with friends and family as well as the rest of the world. As well as tips on plants and gardening, Bill has recently added articles about saving the environment whilst gardening, buying flowers online and those slimy little buggers, snails. Just for the record, I'm always delighted when anyone adds Bean Sprouts to their blogroll, or links to Bean Sprouts in a blog article. You don't need to ask permission, but if you do I'll check your blog out and maybe write about it, just like this! So email me and say hi.

We Dig for Victory

Rob Burns has built a mini campaign site called We Dig for Victory. He has created a little sticker and his website says:

By using this sticker on my blog or site I'm digging for victory by...
1. Growing some of my food at home or at an allotment - however modest.
2. Eating locally and seasonally where I can and reducing food miles.
3. Buying from small, local shops where I can and supporting my local economy.

There's a bit more about the campaign on the page titled About This Site. Why not add the sticker to your own blog or website and spread the word?

Thats it, I'm all caught up with my emails now. I only wish the same were true of my laundry .

Bear Convicted for Honey Theft

I've been both very busy and rather poorly for the last week or two, so I've been mostly blogging about news stories, books, other blogs and so on. But my dad has now gone home to Ireland and my cold is much better, so I am determined to blog about things I'm doing - checking on my loft insulation, digging the allotment, raising seedlings and so on.

But I couldn't resist sharing this news story - a court in Macedonia has convicted a bear of theft and criminal damage after repeatedly attacking a local beekeeper's hives. I loved this bit:

For a while, he kept the animal away by buying a generator, lighting up the area, and playing thumping Serbian turbo-folk music. But when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, the bear was back and the honey was gone once more.

I wonder if Jethro Tull would have the same effect?

Being a wild animal, the bear had no owner, so the court ordered the state to pay compensation to the beekeeper of $3,500 (£1,750 or 2,238 euros). I wonder if it is possible under UK law to sue a mouse?

And in case you're worried:

The bear, meanwhile, remains at large - somewhere in Macedonia.

Religion and the Environment

I noticed two interesting stories about religion and the environment yesterday. The Vatican has listed seven new mortal sins, including polluting the environment, causing poverty, and accumulating excessive wealth. I'm a practicing Christian and my environmentalism and personal ethics come directly from my faith, so I'm delighted with this new list. I'm also very surprised to see the Pope (particularly this Pope) so in tune with my own thinking. I know a lot of people might find this news story totally irrelevant, but I found it very welcome.

The other story that attracted my attention was about the Southern Baptist Church in the USA. Church leaders have announced that man-made climate change is real and their members have a duty to prevent it. I'm not knowledgeable about American politics, but I know the Southern Baptist Church has a great influence on the Republican party in particular, and a knock-on effect on the Democrats as well since they cannot ignore what the Southern Baptists say and do. Another major influence on Republican politics is the energy industry, and green commentators have blamed this influence for President Bush's infuriating inaction on climate change. Now that the Southern Baptist Church has taken this position, it will be very interesting to see what effect it has on Republican policy.

Photograph by Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency.

Hello Observer Readers

The Observer has included Bean Sprouts in its list of The world's 50 most powerful blogs. We come in at #34, which is a big thrill, especially so soon after the blog was recognised by Amnesty International. It's all terribly subjective, of course, but it has already brought a lot of extra visitors and links which I always like to see.

I hope some of you will stay a while and have a look around. Why not browse the archives, leave a comment, subscribe to the feed or participate in our monthly challenge? There's usually a new article every day, so hit "favourites" and save the link so you can visit us again.

Hello also to Bean Sprouts' loyal readers who have stuck with it all along, especially to everyone who gets involved by commenting, participating in the challenges and so on. I hope you have that nice feeling of having discovered something before it became "cool".

International Women's Day

It will be International Women's Day on March 8th. I wasn't planning to do anything special for the day, but I am very pleased that Amnesty International UK has chosen me as one of its favourite female bloggers to celebrate the day.

To be mentioned on the same page as The Huffington Post, Dooce and Rachel from North London cheered me up on a day when I was feeling a bit low. I have two important concerts this weekend, and I am starting to come down with the same cold that flattened Ed for several days. Poor me. Come to the pity party.

Anyway, my dad is arriving tonight for a week-long visit. I'm going to be singing two wonderful works in inspirational settings this weekend. The garden is full of spring flowers. And Amnesty International likes my blog. So what reason is there to feel sorry for myself? No reason at all that a big glass of whisky and hot lemon can't fix.

The picture is a drawing of me by my 8-year-old daughter Eleanor, which she drew for a mother's day card this year. See, even more reasons to feel good.

Poynton 1 - Tesco 0

Today the Macclesfield Borough Council have unanimously rejected Tesco’s application for a supermarket in Poynton during their planning meeting.

That means Tesco have three options: give up the idea of building a store in Poynton, second, appeal within the six months, or lastly, submit a new or modified scheme.



From Poynton Against Tesco website.

The bad news is Waitrose have also applied to build a supermarket in Poynton. This is receiving more of a mixed reception from Poynton residents who seem to like the idea of upmarket Waitrose more than the low-brow appeal of Tesco. But all the reasons I objected to Tesco - the risk to local traders, the influx of extra traffic, the loss of local jobs and the siphoning of money out of the village - also apply to Waitrose or any other chain supermarket. So I'll be objecting to Waitrose too.

White Knight Revealed

You may recall that the Big Green Gathering was saved by the 11th-hour intervention of a mystery "white knight". Well the BGG's January newsletter revealed that the white knight is Stuart Galbraith

...whose previous productions included the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park in 2006 and the Live Earth concert at Wembley in 2007. Stuart's new company, Killimanjaro Live Ltd. (KLL), is providing the finance to settle our debts, but the BGG's democratic one-share-per-person structure has ensured that we retain the control of the company and the event.

The newsletter spells out emphatically that the BGG has not been taken over, it hasn't sold out, it hasn't diluted or altered its original vision.

I don't get the impression, though, that Stuart Galbraith is prepared to pump money into a bottomless pit, so BGG still needs to be able to be profitable (as it always was until Mendip District Council and Avon & Somerset Police added around £120,000 to the costs). So the board of directors decided to increase the cost of shares in BGG to £80 from March 1st. If you hurry, you can still buy a share (you're only allowed one each) at the original price of £40. Go to The Big Green Gathering website to apply for a share in the most exciting green festival in Europe.

Bird Flu

Defra have confirmed that three wild mute swans in Dorset died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu. As a keeper of backyard chickens, I have a keen interest in stories of bird flu in the UK. There have been a few outbreaks which have so far been contained. But the odds are that sooner or later it will become a widespread bird disease in Britain and we will have to learn to live with it.

I'm not too worried. From my experience with beekeeping I know that we can learn to manage animal disease. The bee parasite varroa destructor came to Britain in 1992, and you can pretty much say that every bee colony in the country is now infected. But all British beekeepers now know how to monitor and control the mite to minimise the damage it does.

Of course varroa causes no harm to humans, but H5N1 bird flu has infected several hundred people worldwide since 2003, and killed almost 2/3 of them. All those infected have caught the disease from close contact with infected birds, but it mutates very quickly and scientists fear that it could mutate to a form that passes easily from human to human.

All UK poultry keepers, even people like me who only have a couple of backyard chickens, should be ready to confine them indoors if necessary, somewhere the birds can live humanely for as long as need be, out of all contact from wild birds. My chickens have a palatial coop with checky red curtains and it would be no trouble to keep the door to the run permanently shut if bird flu was detected in our area. If that ever happened, I would stop the kids from having contact with the chickens, and I would take additional hygeine precautions myself when feeding the chickens, cleaning their coop and collecting eggs. If need be I'm ready to slaughter them, or take them to be slaughtered. It would be very sad, but it might have to happen so I'm ready for it. But for now I don't need to do anything special. It's a theoretical risk, something that might happen in the future but it hasn't happened yet.

Christmas at Friends of the Earth

If you visit the Friends of the Earth website, you'll find plenty of Christmas crackers.

They're giving away 50 Lavera natural skincare kits as competition prizes. If you win, you could keep the kit for yourself or give it away as a present. And if you don't win, there are lots of ideas for gifts at the Friends of the Earth shop.

I know some greenies get hot under the collar about the hundreds of thousands of trees which are pulped every year to create the greetings cards we send. But I can't get agitated about that. Compared to other things we do, sending a letter is a pretty environmentally-benign way to stay in touch with the people we love and spread some goodwill at Christmas time. But if you'd prefer, you can save a tree and send a Friends of the Earth ecard.

Christmas Quiz

Here's a quick quiz about last Christmas:
1. What did your partner give you?
2. What did you give your partner?
3. What did your parents give you?
4. What did you give them?
5. What did you give your kids?
6. How much did you spend?

I'm not really interested in the answers, I'm interested in whether you found the questions easy or hard. In a recent BBC news story:

...more than half of men have forgotten what their partner got them last year. And women were also forgetful of their gifts, with 43.2% unable to recall what they received from their partners.

Here are a few more questions:
7. What's the best Christmas gift you ever received as a child?
8. What's the best Christmas gift you ever received as an adult?
9. What's the most memorable Christmas gift you've ever given?

I bet those questions were easier to answer. Think about your answers. Can they help you choose better gifts for your loved ones this year?

Here's the last question in the quiz:
10. What do you really want this Christmas? What gift would make this the best Christmas ever?

Does anyone in your family know you want this? Maybe it's something quite inexpensive and simple but if no-one knows about it you're unlikely to find it in your stocking. Maybe it's inexpensive but would be time-consuming to organise. You need to let the person who loves you most know about it well in advance. Maybe it's expensive - but if everyone who usually gives you a gift clubbed together perhaps they could afford it between them, instead of giving you lots of CDs and chocolate that you don't really want. One year everyone gave Ed money instead of gifts on his birthday (which is at the end of November) and at Christmas. It wasn't enough for the 6" astronomical telescope he wanted, but with some money he had saved himself he was able to buy what he really wanted. Now he wouldn't swap his telescope for all the novelty socks and tins of shortbread in the world.

Big Green Gathering is Saved

Great news from the Big Green Gathering AGM report:

Shareholders meeting in Glastonbury Assembly Rooms on Saturday November 24th voted to keep the Big Green Gathering company in business after the dramatic appearance of a ‘White Knight’ businessman who promised to put new capital into the company.

I said that if they saved it, then I'd attend this year. So that's a date then. See you there.

Big Green Gathering Update

I have written before about the financial crisis at the Big Green Gathering, Europe's biggest green festival. Green Radio, "a community radio station which broadcasts green politics and lifestyle to summer festivals and to the world at large", has created a short radio article about it. In it, the presenter interviews Brig Oubridge and Roger Smith of The Big Green Gathering, Margaret Robinson of Mendip District Council, and representatives of other festivals affected by the same legislation . You can listen to it using the little doodad - just press play (that's the button with a triangle, dad).

I'm still trying to find out what happened at the AGM on November 24th. There is nothing about it on the BGG website, the Save the BGG Facebook group, or anywhere else I can discover. If anyone knows what happened, please email me.

Dilemma!

I have a terrible ethical dilemma. Perhaps you can help me out.

Tomorrow (Saturday 24th November 2007) is Buy Nothing Day.

It's a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. The rules are simple, for 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

It's organised by the awesome culture-jamming organisation, Adbusters. You can send an e-postcard, download a computer desktop or a poster, join a BND Facebook group, participate in an event near you, or do anything at all except shopping.

So where's the dilemma?

Well on that same day, and that day only, The Guardian newspaper is giving away a 100 page baking guide by bread guru Dan Lepard. To get the free guide you have to buy the newspaper.

Do you see my problem?

I've decided to be loyal to Buy Nothing Day, and not go out and buy The Guardian that day. But I'll ask in my local Freecycle group if anyone got the paper and didn't want the guide. I'll ask on Freeconomy as well. And I'm asking you chaps, is anyone prepared to post me an unwanted baking guide (I'll refund your postage, of course)? Don't go out and buy The Guardian just for me. That would defeat the point. But if you get it delivered anyway, and you didn't want the baking guide yourself, that would be great.

Have a happy Buy Nothing Day.

Freeconomy

Tracy from Eco Street brought this website to my attention:

Freeconomy allows people to make the transition from a money based communityless society to more of a community based moneyless society

Sounds very interesting. You can sign up for skillshare, toolshare, spaceshare and landshare. It seems to be a bit like an extension of Freecycle, but instead of offering unwanted used goods for free, people can offer to share their skills, tools, space or land for free.

Tread Lightly

I've been asked to let you know about a new initiative from The Guardian called "Tread Lightly":

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site, which aims to encourage online communities into reducing their CO2 emissions through making weekly pledges and recording their actions against their pledges. The idea is that every pledge is simple, straightforward, and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

I've had a look and there's some interesting stuff on there. For example there's a chance to win an electric car, and if you complete 12 pledges you get a free eco shopping bag. Why not go and check it out, and maybe pledge to make some reductions in your CO2 footprint.