(Renewable) Power to the People

Growing up in Liverpool in the 1980s I was convinced that Margaret Thatcher was the sole cause of all ills, and that a Labour government would do a lot of good. Tony Blair severely disillusioned me about party politics. I started to believe that whoever gets elected, they just end up being the government anyway, doing all the same things that all the other governments do - go to war, blame the poor, help the rich get richer, help the powerful stay powerful, and feather their own nests in readiness for the day when the people grow sick of them and elect a different bunch, who will go on to behave exactly the same as the old lot.

But I've got a soft spot for the Liberal Democrats. For a while now they've been the most left-wing of the three mainstream parties. And now they also seem to be becoming the greenest. At the party conference in Brighton today they will vote on a motion calling for 30% of the UK's electricity to be produced from clean, non-carbon-emitting sources by 2020 - rising to 100% by 2050. The party leader Sir Menzies Campbell said

We should be working towards a carbon-neutral Britain by 2050. We should be working towards the elimination of petrol-driven motor cars.

That's radical stuff, and I was astonished to hear it coming from a mainstream party leader on BBC1 Breakfast. He doesn't mean nuclear power either, although I think there is going to be a heated debate about that, both in Brighton and in the rest of the country in the coming few years.

Cameron loves talking about climate change as well. How long before number 10 starts setting deadlines for a carbon-neutral Britain, and the elimination of petrol-fueled cars?

Review: Fruits of the Hedgerow

I picked up Charlotte Popescu's
"Fruits of the Hedgerow" in my local garden centre, which was kind of ironic. Our allotment harvest has been poor this year. The best harvest has been hedgerow forage.

The book covers 17 different British wild fruits, nuts and seeds. Each variety has a short description and then a plethora of recipes such as quince muffins, lemon and elderflower syllabub and hazelnut ice cream. I was particularly attracted by the recipes for rowanberries and haws, which grow profusely near me but which I've never gathered before because I didn't know how to use them.

There are no illustrations in the book, and this is a serious drawback. What does a medlar look like anyway? Even in black and white, a line drawing of the tree/bush, of the fruit and leaves, would have been invaluable. But this book assumes that you can already identify the fruits, you just need some recipes for them.

I'm looking forward to trying some of the recipes in this book, if I can tear myself away from just using them to make wine.

10 Things you Never Knew Could Be Recycled

If you recycle tin cans and drinks cans, did you know you can also recycle:

• Foil milk bottle lids


• Pie tins from ready meals


• Metal dishes from takeaway food


• Foil lids of yogurt pots


• Used aluminium foil (try to wash and reuse it a few times first)


• Metal lids of jam jars


• Metal bottle caps


• Paint tins


• Spray cans e.g WD40, hairspray etc


• The metal foil from cigarette and tobacco packaging

But you can't recycle shiny plastic like crisp packets, even though it may look like foil. The way to test whether it's recyclable foil or non-recyclable plastic is to scrunch it in your hand. If it stays scrunched, it's foil. If it springs back, it's plastic.

Cartoon from climatecartoons.org. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Piece of Cake

I set a competition on Thursday, asking "How can you cut an apple pie into eight pieces with three straight cuts?". The answer was:

Cut the pie in half with one vertical cut through the centre (that is, how you would normally cut a cake in two). Then cut it into four with a further vertical cut through the centre, at right angles to the first (again, all normal so far). Then stack two pieces on top of the other two, and make one further vertical cut through all four pieces, making eight pieces.

Some people offered a slightly different solution, cutting the pie horizontally after cutting it in four. I don't think I'd be pleased to get a piece of apple pie with no crunchy piecrust on top. But I didn't specify "eight equally appetizing pieces" so I accepted this solution.

There were seven correct answers in all, and the winner (pulled out of a hat this morning by Eleanor) was Matt Shacklady of St. Helens. Congratulations, Matt. I gave the books to your mum and sister as as I passed through St Helens today. They seemed really nice. Say "hi" to them for me.

Asparagus Peas

Peas didn't do well this year. The plants just fell over and died. I think their root systems must be sensitive to waterlogging. On the other hand my asparagus peas did well. Are they more flood resistant? Did I just happen to plant them in a well-drained spot? Who knows?

So what are asparagus peas anyway? They're one of those vegetables you never see in the shops. They're an exclusive privilege of vegetable growers, like cardoons and tomatillos. They must be closely related to peas as they look and behave much the same. But when the pretty flowers set, they form a long cylindrical pod with four weird-looking wings.

You steam them whole, a bit like mange-tout. The taste is delicious and delicate. Some people say it resembles asparagus, but I'm not sure about that. It's jolly nice, anyway. You have to pick them when they are only tiny, because otherwise they become inedibly tough and chewy. Sadly I learned that the hard way, after flinging a bunch of them into a mixed bean stew. The whole stew had to be composted. It tasted really good, too, apart from the woody asparagus peas.

I think I'll grow these again, if only as an insurance policy against floods wiping out my peas. But I'll remember to pick them more often.

Wine Sleuth

My damson wine stopped bubbling, which was a surprise. I expected the initial fermentation to last around three months or so, not two or three weeks. I tried giving it a good stir, but that had no effect. I moved it to a warmer place. No effect.

So I tasted the wine, to see if that gave any clues. The wine tasted pleasant, with no sign of mould or any other foreign microorganism that might have killed off my yeast. It tasted very slightly alcoholic, so the fermentation had been going well (as I knew from the activity there had been in the airlock before it ground to a halt). And it tasted very dry and sharp.

That was my answer. I had forgotten to add the sugar, and the fermentation had stopped when the yeast consumed the last of the natural sugar from the damsons. Doh!

But it was good news. At least it ought to be easy to fix. I added 20lbs of sugar. As you can imagine, this displaced quite a large volume of the wine, which I scooped off with a sterilised jug and tipped into the hedgerow wine in the adjacent bucket. I gave the now-sweetened damson wine a damn good stir. Then I waited.

There was a chance that the yeast had all starved to death, and I would need to add more yeast to get it going again. If that had happened, I planned to tip a cupful of the vigorously fermenting hedgerow wine back into the damson wine. But fortunately by the next morning the damson wine was bubbling merrily away.

So I'm working on a treatment for a new hit TV drama series, combining the growing public interest in sustainable living with the tried-and-tested appeal of CSI or Cracker. It's about an ex-forensic scientist who has downshifted to living on a smallholding. She brings her training in differential diagnosis and the Socratic method to bear on the problems presented by stuck batches of wine, chickens who mysteriously stop laying, and jam that refuses to set. What do you think?

Everything I Know About Environmentalism, I Learned From Star Wars

1. It's all about balance. Anakin was prophesied to be the "one who would bring balance to the force", but the Jedi didn't realise he would do this by weakening the light side and strengthening the dark side. In the environment balance is also desirable, and problems occur when humanity disrupts the natural equilibrium.
2. Man-made objects aren't inherently good or bad, it depends on what they're used for. General Grievous and his droid army were bad news, but R2D2 and C3PO are goodies. Similarly cars, air conditioners and airplanes aren't the enemy, as long as we can use them wisely.
3. C3P0 said "It's against my programming to impersonate a deity." If only humans were so wise!
4. The ewoks with their neat tree-houses (I really wanted to live in one of those!) and slingshots managed to overcome the Federation stormtroopers. Likewise, I believe that a well-coordinated bunch of treehuggers can achieve their aims despite opposition from governments and corporations.
5. Everything is connected. The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. Well, in the Star Wars universe it does, anyway. In our universe all life is connected too. The Victorian ideas of a hierarchy in nature - top predators, food chain, the ascent of man - they're not true. Tigers aren't the top of the food chain because fleas drink their blood. Does that makes fleas a top predator? In fact everything depends on everything else, so we need to save the plankton just as much as we need to save the whales, and we need to save the fleas as much as the tigers. Or to put it another way, there's always a bigger fish.
6. Shmi Skywalker (Ani's mum) said "You can't stop the change any more than you can stop the suns from setting." Another word for environmentalism is conservation. But we shouldn't aim to preserve everything exactly the same as it is today. That would be unnatural.
7. Size doesn't matter. Yoda was small but he kicked butt. Never think you're too small to make a difference.
8. Don't underestimate the power of the dark side. Big corporations are stealing green clothing. Petrol companies are changing their logos to green leaves and flowers, chemical companies are planting trees and supermarkets are putting solar panels on their roofs. But are they really changing their ways, or are they just adopting highly-visible tokens of eco-friendliness. Are they still raping the planet behind the scenes? Find the facts. Don't be fooled by the marketing.
9. It's never too late to change your ways, and sometimes your children will show you the way. Darth Vader became Anakin again because of Luke's courage. And even hopeless petrol-heads can see the light.
10. The rebels can defeat the Federation. A small band of committed people can bring about change for the better. All it takes is dedication, organisation, loyalty, faith, courage, and a heap of junk that can make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.

Ruby Chard

It was a very poor year on the allotment this year. I planted some things in April and May when the weather was warm and dry, but throughout June and July it rained almost without stop. There's not much you can do on an allotment when it's bucketing with rain. When it was merely drizzling we didn't go because we couldn't make the kids sit in the rain whilst we worked. And on the precious few occasions when it brightened, we took the opportunity to take the kids to the beach or the park. So the weeds grew unhindered and the slugs and snails feasted on the few crops we did plant.

But we had a few successes - spuds and onions did well this year, and we somehow avoided the blight which struck many other allotmenteers. The mystery summer squash is tasty and productive, even if I don't know what the heck it is. Various types of beans did OK, but not peas.

Ruby chard was a great success. I've never grown it before, but somebody gave me a bunch last year and it was delicious so we decided to give it a go. It was easy to grow, and is very tasty and incredibly nutritious. It's taste is somewhere between cabbage and spinach, although actually it's more closely related to beets. That makes it a useful green leafy vegetable for people whose land is hopelessly infected with clubroot, so they can't grow any brassicas at all.

Chard doesn't store very well, so you just cut what you need as you need it. You can eat the stems, but they are tougher than the leaves, so I tend to strip them out and fry them in a little butter, then recombine them with the steamed leaves at the end of cooking. I'm sure you could make it the star of a meal, in the same way that spinach can - chard and potato curry would be good I'm sure, or cannelloni stuffed with chard and ricotta cheese, or a chard and parma ham pizza. But I mostly use it as a delicious side vegetable, steamed and served with a knob of butter and lots of black pepper.

Three-Day Virtual Quilt Show - Prizegiving

To round up the Bean Sprouts Three-Day Virtual Quilt Show, we are holding a prizegiving ceremony. All winners will be entitled to display this prestigious ribbon on their websites.

First up, the winner for Best Use of Novelty Fabric is Birdie, with this lovely lap-size orange peel quilt. Birdie is obviously an experienced quiltmaker as this kind of curved piecing is very tricky. But the zig zag stitch visible in the detail photo with the snowman makes me wonder whether she used machine applique to "cheat". If so, she gets a big thumbs up from me - I made a "cheating" Dresden plate quilt a while ago and I'm never going back to curved piecing again.

Kethry wins the prize for Best One-Patch Quilt with another lap-size quilt made from what look like recycled or scrap fabrics. Kethry said:

i made these entirely with the sewing machine, and it was difficult enough that i swore at the time: NEVER again!

I believe this is the second quilt she ever made. She also submitted a photo of her first quilt which was basically very similar. I selected the better of the two for a prize, but both quilts were very impressive for a beginner. By the way, Kethry, I can show you a much quicker way to make a quilt like this which turns it into a weekend project. You need a rotary cutter and mat. Mail me if you're interested.

Gabrielle easily won the prize for Slowest Quilter with this lovely red and white quilt. I can't clearly see the design in this photo but it appears to be random with some large squares, some rectangles, and some pieced blocks including nine patches and foundation paper pieced blocks perhaps. It looks very cosy, and the design and colour scheme have stood up remarkably well for a quilt that took so long to make. Too often a design that you loved in the 1980s turns out 20 years on to be a grey-and-red angular monster that brings painful flashbacks of Miami Vice and Duran Duran, or a puffy pastel confection that reminds you of your Wham! and Haircut 100 period. Don't throw such quilts in the bin. In another 100 years they will be charmingly quaint valuable antiques. If I still had all the old things my grandparents threw out because they were old fashioned and dated I could make a killing on eBay.

Congratulations to all the winners. I hope other Bean Sprouts readers feel inspired to have a go at patchwork or quilting, especially those who said they have UFOs (UnFinished Objects) which need to be completed. I think we'll run some more competitions like this in the future.

Win Cider Making Books

As it happens, I had just bought a copy of "Real Cidermaking on a Small Scale" for myself when another arrived with my new crusher and press. What is more, both new bits of equipment came with a booklet entitled "Basic Cider & Juice Making" by Alex Hill. If you'd like to win the book and the booklet, email me your answer to the following riddle:

How can you cut an apple pie into eight pieces with three straight cuts?

UK residents only please (think of the carbon released in airmail!). Don't forget to send your name and postal address along with your answer.

Three-Day Virtual Quilt Show - Day 3

This isn't technically a quilt, because it isn't made of three layers (top, batting and backing) held together with stitches. It's a patchwork duvet cover. But since the crafts of patchwork and quilting are closely related to each other, I'm including it in the three-day virtual quilt show.

This is the oldest piece in the show, made by my mum sometime in the 1970s. It's a proper thrift quilt, made from leftover dress making and furnishing fabrics. The technique is known as English paper piecing. Lots of hexagons are cut from paper or card, then the fabric scraps are tacked to the papers. The fabric hexagons are then slipstitched together and the papers can be removed and reused. When the hexagons are arranged into flowers like this the design is known as Grandmother's Flower Garden, although more usually the design would have the flowers separated by "paths".

Mum was a self-taught needlewoman (my late granny could barely sew a button on) and the fact that her creations don't neatly fit into the usual categories reflects that. This jaunty recycled duvet cover has kept three generations warm so far, and is still in daily use. I had to pull it off Tom's bed to take this photo.

There's still time to submit your own quilts and patchwork items to the virtual quilt show. Mail me a photo and a little bit of information. Come back this evening for the prizegiving.

Three-Day Virtual Quilt Show - Day 2

I made this quilt for Sam a year or two ago, when he was crazy about trains. That obsession seems to have dwindled now but I still think it's a great quilt.

I found the patterns for the engines and cars on the Chiloquilters' web site. The mountains, trees and houses I made up myself. The border is of half log cabin blocks in the same Thimbleberries-type colours as the quilt. The free motion machine quilting doesn't show up very well, but the background is mostly stippled except the sky behind the mountains which has puffy white unquilted clouds surrounded by stippling. The trains and log cabins are stitched in the ditch but otherwise unquilted, and the houses, trees and mountains have detailed quilted into them, such as curtains in the windows and bark on the trees.

Even though Sam is growing up (he's almost 6) and has left trains behind, he still gladly snuggles under this quilt every night. And just last night he asked for a Thomas the Tank Engine book as his bedtime story. It almost brought tears to my eyes.

I'm still accepting submissions for the quilt show. Email me your photos of any quilted or patchwork items, along with a little bit of information about who made it, when and why.

Review: Real Cidermaking on a Small Scale

Michael Pooley and John Lomax's Real Cider Making on a Small Scale came with my apple crusher and cider press. I have read the book, but have not yet tried the all techniques described. I have followed the directions for extracting apple juice, but I'm still collecting enough to make a batch of cider. Perhaps in the future I will write another review "Real Cider Making - One Year On" and will be able to tell you whether it really does do exactly what it says on the tin.

At a glance I can see that it's my kind of book. It's not one of your coffee-table books with glossy full-page photos and barely any text. It's black and white only, with hand-drawn diagrams showing you what to do, and grainy photos of people with beards and hand-knitted jumpers making cider out-of-doors. The text is detailed, with practical instructions of what to do and explanations of why. The science is also explained, from choosing the right mixture of apples to the biochemical process of what yeasts are and what they do, and what other bugs can do if they get into your brew, and so on.

The book includes a plan for building your own cider press. Alternatively you can buy one, for example from Vigo, or if you join your local homebrewing association you may be able to borrow one, or perhaps join in a communal cider-making day. There are also details on making and storing apple juice, making cider vinegar, and making perry (which is the same as cider but made with pears instead of apples).

It's a good book, and as soon as I had finished it I felt eager to start gathering apples and making cider myself. If you want to follow my experiments, watch this space.

Three-Day Virtual Quilt Show - Day 1

It's been over a year since Bean Sprouts last held a quilt show, so I think we're overdue for another. Mail me a photo if you'd like to submit your quilt or any patchwork or quilted items to the quilt show. I may award ribbons to the winners.

This is a quilt I made for Eleanor a couple of years ago. The design is based on a vintage quilt Eleanor had chosen from the book American Quilt Classics. The butterflies are cut from 1930's reproduction fabrics. I love the cheerful colours and designs of 1930's fabrics, and collect reproductions of them.

I machine appliqued the butterflies onto white squares set on point, and made a border of squares and half-square triangles with more of the same 1930's fabrics. There's a solid navy blue binding which doesn't show up very well in the photo. Neither does the free-motion machine quilting. Each butterfly is quilted with a different design, and the background is quilted with a daisy motif.

The quilt lives on Eleanor's bed, although I frequently find it elsewhere in the house where she has dragged it because she was cold, or sorry for herself, or wanted to make a tent.

Picking Apples

After asking around I found two neighbours with apple trees who didn't want their apples. So at about half past nine I walked up the street with a ladder in one hand and a plastic trug in the other. It was a glorious autumn morning, bright and clear. I thought it was quite warm, but someone nearby was obviously feeling the cold and had lit a coal fire, so the smell of smoke pervaded the crescent.

I picked about 120lbs of apples from this one tree. There are more apples but I thought I had enough work to do processing this lot, so I'll come back for more later.

I took them home in a borrowed wheelbarrow and washed them. Then, just as yesterday, I set up in the garden to quarter, crush and press the apples. What none of the books tell you about cider making is that you'll soon be surrounded by more wasps that you have ever seen in your life. So I beat a hasty retreat to the house, and will have to retrieve my apples and equipment later, when it gets cold and the wasps go away.

Plan for tomorrow - cider making, indoors.

Wake Up Gordon

Did you know it's Organic Fortnight until September 16th? The Soil Association are celebrating by running a Wake Up Gordon campaign. There's a funny flash game where you can feed Gordon Brown a healthy organic breakfast. The tally of how many people play the game will be presented to Gordon Brown as a petition in favour of supporting organic farming in Britain.


You can find out what other Organic Fortnight events are taking place near you on the Soil Association's What's On page.


Thanks to The Allotment Junkies

Apple Time

"Who wants to help pick some apples and make them into apple juice?"

Eleanor, Sam and I headed next door with my longest ladder, a broom and a large bucket to collect apples. We were soon joined by some of the local urchins who were keen to catch the apples I was knocking down, and offer some tips of their own.

"Yes, chucking your tennis racquet into the tree is an effective way of bringing down the apples. I remember from when I was ten. But it runs the risk of damaging the tree, and then the people who live here won't let us pick their apples any more."

I had some strange conversations with my helpers.

"Why are you collecting all these apples? You can't eat them."
"Yes you can eat them. Who says you can't?"
"They're not the same as real apples from the shops."
"They're exactly the same as that"
"But they're not from the shops"
"Where do you think the apples in the shops come from?"
"They come from the shops"
"Yeah, but where do the shops get them from?"
Silence
"I dunno"

Once we'd cleared that up we weighed the apples with an antique brass spring balance Steph gave me (thanks Steph - it beats standing on the bathroom scale whilst carrying the apples, then subtracting your own weight from the results) and found we'd collected 19lbs (about 8.5kg) of apples.

The urchins joined in with cutting the apples into quarters and tossed them into the crusher. More odd conversation occured at this stage.

"Why do they have sweetcorn in them?"
"Let me have a look - oh, you mean the pips"

Then we had a go at running the crusher, after I had given them a graphic description of what would happen to any body parts that entered the hopper.

The crushed apples then went into the press, and again we took turns at operating the press whilst we all watched the brown cloudy juice run into a bowl.

The labourers were rewarded with a drink of apple juice. Just a small one though as the bulk of the juice went straight in the freezer. They all declared it delicious. With any luck I can scrounge up more apples in the coming weeks until I have enough for a batch of cider. You never know, my own army of scrumpers, armed with tennis racquets, might bring me some.

Cider Press

Christmas came early to Bean-Sprouts this morning, with the delivery of an apple crusher and 9-litre cider press. I must have been an awfully good girl this year. Thanks Santa.

I Want To Ride My Bicycle

So what happened to the plans for cycling to school?

Ed and I spent many hours this summer running up and down the crescent pushing the kids on their bikes. Sam, the youngest, cracked it first, and now he jumps on his bike as soon as he gets home and tears up and down the street.

The eldest, Tom, took a bit longer, but in the end he managed to ride up and down the street unaided. At that point he declared "I know how to ride a bike", and refused to practice any more.

Eleanor, the middle child and the only girl, has taken the longest and is still very unsteady. She can't get herself started and can only stop by falling off.

So obviously we're not yet ready to cycle 2 miles to school. But I am determined to do it (and Ed is keen to have access to the family car occasionally), so I'm sure we'll get there in the end.

Ed's Shelf

Ed made a shelf above the kitchen window, to store preserves and bottles of sloe gin etc. He did a great job, as always, and the end result is practical and really attractive. Every time I look at it I admire his handiwork, and mine, and get that wonderful smug feeling that comes from having lots of home-made preserves.

From left to right - blackberry vodka, lemon gin, 4 jars of chutney, 2 jars of cherry jam, 1 jar of mincemeat, 2 bottles of damson gin, 1 bottle of lime rum, 7 jars of damson jam and a really dreadful teapot in the shape of a bride and groom, which was a wedding present from an uncle with a mischievous sense of humour.

Smells Like A Brewery In Here...

Steph's here (I know she was just here a fortnight ago but she liked it so much she came back), so we've been busy as usual. Steph instructed Ed to make a shelf to store preserves and things, which he did (I'll show you pictures another time). We made five gallons of tea wine, five gallons of beer (from a kit, I don't know how to make beer from scratch yet but I'd love to learn). We sorted all the stored potatoes out and removed those which had become rotten. Let me tell you, rotten potatoes smell really foul. And we picked about ten pounds of mixed hedgerow fruit - damsons, elderberries, blackberries, sloes, haws and apples - to make 5 gallons of hedgerow wine.

We met our new neighbours, who told us to help ourselves to all the apples, pears, damsons and greengages we want from their garden. Another neighbour provided some empty beer and wine bottles from her recycling bin (we had to do some fancy footwork to explain why we were eyeing up her bin - she initially thought we were accusing her of crimes against recycling, or perhaps of having a drink problem). And we had a gorgeous lamb casserole with our own pink fir apple potatoes and roasted mystery summer squash, and drank lots of beer - well we'll need the bottles to bottle our own beer when it's ready!


Cartoon from climatecartoons.org. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Black Forest Gateau

Black Forest Gateau

Separate 6 eggs. Beat the yolks until they thicken and become pale, then add 5oz sugar and continue beating until they thicken even more (but stop short of turning them into stiff glue). Now beat in 2oz cocoa powder until well mixed. Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. (If you only have one egg beater, you must wash the beater scrupulously in hot soapy water and dry well after beating the yolks. If your beater has the least bit of grease on it, the whites will never peak). Gently fold the chocolate mixture into the egg whites. This is the skillful bit, because they need to be well mixed but you don't want to knock all the air out of the beaten whites. Spread the mixture into two 9" loose bottomed cake tins, greased and floured, then bake at 180C/Gas 4 until the cakes are risen and springy, about 15 minutes.

Let the cakes cool, then place one on a serving plate and spread a small jar of home-made cherry jam all over it. Smother the other cake with whipped cream and carefully sandwich on top of the first cake. Cover the lot with more whipped cream, and sprinkle some grated dark chocolate on top for decoration.

If you "don't like black forest gateau", try this anyway. It's not like the Tesco version, I promise.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Plastic Bags

1. Around 17 billion plastic bags are given away every year in the UK

2. Most of these are only used once and then thrown away

3. If everyone in Britain used reusable bags, the plastic bags we'd save would tie around the world 103 times (except they wouldn't because we wouldn't have made them because instead we'd - oh, never mind

4. Around a million seabirds and a hundred thousand mammals are strangled by plastic litter every year, worldwide

5. A leatherback turtle (an endangered species) was found dead in 1998 with 57kg of plastic bags inside it

6. A minke whale washed up in Normandy in 2002 had 800kg of plastic bags in its stomach

7. Only half a percent of plastic bags are recycled

8. About 100,000 tonnes of plastic bags are thrown away in Britain annually. That's the same weight as 70,000 cars

9. Plastic bags are not free. The shops pass on the cost to you by adding a few pence to the cost of goods. A typical UK household spends about £470 per year on packaging

10. Plastic bags are cr*p. The handles snap, they dig into your hands, they rip if you put anything a bit pointy in them, you can't carry them on a bike, they fall over when you set them on the floor.

Ditch the duff carriers and switch to a snazzy reusable bag. Save the whales. Save the planet. Save the palms of your hands. And don't forget to vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar.

Facts from Litegreen and The Ecologist Online

Practical Jokes for Hens

This is the haul of eggs for the last couple of days. Ha ha. Very funny.

Alun's Tea Wine

I have to give credit for this recipe for a university friend of ours called Alun. It's quick, easy and cheap, even to make big 5-gallon batches. If you let it ferment out and bottle it properly it's very nice, but when we were students we just used to dip a jug into the bucket and filter it through a coffee filter as and when we needed it.


Alun's Tea Wine


For each 5 gallons -make 40 cups of strong tea, 12.5 lbs of sugar, 2.5lbs of raisins chopped, 2 lemons sliced. Make up to 5 gallons with boiled water. When cool, add wine yeast, following instructions on the packet.

On our recipe it says "ready in 4 weeks", but I think that's only for students. My dad used to say "Not a drop is sold 'til it's 7 days old". Nowadays I'd ferment it out, rack it twice and bottle it properly. But if you want to do it the "gut rot" way, be my guest.

ZapRoot

I was just bemoaning the fact that environmental groups tend to turn people off with boring, patronising or bossy approaches, and then along comes ZapRoot.

ZapRoot is a quick weekly zap of usable news that goes straight to the root of some of the most intriguing environmental issues of the day—like what to do with those old plastic dildos you’ve accumulated over the years. ZapRoot has an answer complete with illustrations.

If the first edition is anything to go by, it's not really going in-depth with the important issues, but rather focusing on the "and finally..." items such as recycled sex toys. Recycled sex toys? Okaaaaaay. On the other hand if that's what it takes to bring green issues to the iPod generation, it's OK by me.

Climate Cartoons Launch

Last night I went to the launch of Climate Cartoons website in Manchester. Marc Roberts and Marc Hudson draw edgy cartoon strips about environmental issues: sort of Viz meets Friends of the Earth. The cartoons are made freely available for other people to use as long as the creators are properly attributed. So any other green bloggers out there, or anyone who produces a newsletter or anything like that, should have a look.

The green movement is often poor at communicating our message without sounding hectoring or panic-mongering or just plain boring. So I really like Hudson and Roberts' light-hearted and light-handed approach. Having met them, I can also say they're really nice people (though unnaturally tall).

Mystery Vegetable

Does anyone know what this is? I grew it on the allotment from a packet of seeds someone gave me. The packet had a picture on the front and the times for sowing etc, but the top was ripped off so I didn't have the name.

The plant was large and sprawling rather like a butternut squash or pumpkin. The "fruit" is about 9" in diameter. I don't even know if it's ripe or if it would get bigger if I left it on the plant. I cut two of them today, and there are several more still on the plant.

The flesh has a pleasant mild taste, somewhat like a marrow but sweeter.

Guesses on the back of a postcard.

Chutney

If I've persuaded you to try your hand at chutney, you'll need a recipe. So here's one (sort of):

Basic Chutney Method

Wash every empty jam jar you own (and go through to cupboard looking for jars that are almost empty and deciding you never liked that sort of jam anyway so you can "claim" the jar) really well, then place them upside down on a baking sheet and put in a low oven to dry out and sterilise.

Finely chop about 5lbs of vegetables (such as tomatoes, courgettes, runner beans, carrots - whatever you've got a lot of) 2 or 3 lbs of apples and one pound of onions. Put these in the largest pan you have with a pound of dried fruit of some sort (raisins, sultanas, chopped prunes, it's up to you), a pound of sugar and 1 1/2 pints of vinegar (don't use malt vinegar if you can help it or your chutney will taste of malt vinegar and not much else). Mix well and bring to a simmer.

Whilst you're going that, place a bunch of whole spices (such as a few whole cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, mace, fresh ginger, whatever you like) in a muslin cloth and tie up well, then dunk it in the chutney and let the flavours seep out.

Feeling nervous? Don't be. Chutney can't really go wrong unless you burn it. It's not like jam or a souffle - it can't fail. I promise. All you're doing is slowly cooking the ingredients down to a thick gloopy mush. You can taste it as you go along, and if you think it needs a chili kick, add some chili. If you think it's too vinegary, add a bit more sugar. Too sweet? Add more vinegar and salt.

It needs to simmer on a low heat for at least an hour or two. You don't need to stir constantly, thank God, but you can't totally desert it or it will burn. It's ready when it's thick and looks like chutney. I told you it was easy.

Now get it into the jars and screw the lids on. It needs to mature for at least a month or two. Before that it will still taste rather vinegary but after maturation it will be smooth and all the flavours will mingle together. Think of an appealing name for your chutney, and be creative - gooseberry and ginger sounds nice, but runner bean and swede isn't so alluring. So if your main ingredients are prosaic you'll have to call it something like "Taste of Autumn Relish", or "Poynton Farmhouse Chutney", or "Mel's Spicy Preserve".

It keeps forever in an unopened jar. Once you've opened it - honestly I've no idea. I've never seen a jar of homemade chutney go off, but I've never seen a jar of homemade chutney last more than a couple of weeks, so the point is moot.

Bean Sprouts Featured In Delicious Magazine

The October edition of Delicious magazine which went on sale today features a two-thirds-page interview with Bean Sprouts on page 20. It's also got some wicked looking seasonal desserts and a recipe book to gets kids cooking.

Carry A Bag

Inspired by the Morsbags movement, September's challenge is to take a reusable bag with you every time you shop, instead of using the disposable plastic bags give out by stores.

According to the Morsbags website, over 1 million plastic bags are consumed per minute, worldwide. They've only been around for about 30 years, but they may take closer to 500 years to degrade (no-one really knows - plastic wasn't invented 500 years ago). So every single plastic bag that has ever been made still exists somewhere, whether it's buried in a landfill, or fluttering gaily from a tree (where I believe they are termed "witches' knickers"), or filling up the stomach of a minke whale.

You cannot throw them away. There is no "away". But if you buy or make a sturdy reusable bag and remember to take it with you when you go shopping, you can avoid perhaps 150-200 plastic bags. That's approximately how many we each use per year.

Take the challenge. Carry a bag. And don't forget to vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar.

90th Festival of Frugality

Maybe I boobooed when I agreed to host two blog carnivals on two consecutive days. Apologies to Bean Sprouts regulars who feel all carnival-ed out, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. Bean Sprouts is proud (if a little chagrined) to present the 90th Festival of Frugality.

Organisation

If I was more organised, I would have spotted this carnival clash much sooner, so the following submissions seemed very apt:

Lynnae at BeingFrugal.Net presents One Must be Organized to be Frugal saying "This article discusses how being unorganized can impact your ability to be frugal. It also lists several resources to help someone who wants to get organized." I agree with that - it's much easier to waste money when you're disorganised and one of the best aids to frugality is a big wall calendar kept scrupulously up-to-date.

Stephanie considers how a bit of organisation and forethought can help you make the best frugal decisions in Is It Worth My Time? posted at Stop the Ride!.

Millionaire Mommy Next Door made me laugh, and feel a bit better about my failure of organisation with Help Me David Wann Kenobi; You’re My Only Hope! posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door.

She needs to read Shannon Christman's article 10 Ways to Thrive in Clutter posted at Saving Advice Blog. "You don’t have to be neat to be organized. If you are an incurable clutterbug, test out some of these ten ways to thrive among clutter before you spend any more time or money trying to declutter your life."

After my wall planner, my top organisational tool is my kitchen timer, so I really new what mom & dad were talking about in Shower Timers to Speed up Showering posted at raising4boys.com.

Leorita Seneres-Velasquez presents How NOT to overspend posted at Money Matters and most of her tips seem to come down to "be more organised"

Transport

plonkee presents car sharing clubs posted at plonkee money.

And if you really need to have your own car, Tushar can tell you how to Save Money on Auto Insurance posted at Everything Finance.

Food

GP presents Going Kosher... Naturally posted at Fish Creek House - INNside Innkeeping, saying " Going kosher naturally - and baking from scratch.. .delicious and ultimately frugal"

If you don't want to cook from scratch, FIRE Finance has some Tips To Save On Dining or Eating Out! posted at FIRE Finance.

jeanjeanie presents The Food Problem - Link Roundup posted at Growing Up .... saying "We've been going way over on our food and grocery budget. This is a round up of coupon links, advice and strategies I'm employing to try to reduce spending in this area"

Sounds like she could use some of the tips paidtwice suggests in Ebaying for Coupons posted at I've Paid For This Twice Already....

DeputyHeadmistress discusses creative ways with leftovers in What 's In My hand Fridge posted at The Common Room.

Melissa presents You Better Shop Around: Getting The Best Deals On Groceries posted at A Penny Closer.

But beware - Wenchypoo points out the hazards of stocking up on "cheap" food to save the budget in How’s Your Health Been Lately? posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

And if you're buying a new fridge to put your food in, KRG presents Recycle Your Old Refrigerator To Save More Money posted at FILAM Personal Finance.

Communication

Ms. M&P presents Finding the Best, Cheapest Cell Phone Plan posted at My Money and Politics.

Housing

FMF presents Great, Cheap Way to Learn Building Skills - Volunteer to Build a Habitat for Humanity House posted at Free Money Finance saying " A cheap way to learn building skills and help people at the same time!"

Super Saver considers the pros and cons of Renting versus Owning posted at My Wealth Builder.

Nina presents the case for smaller homes in McMansions and the Carbon Tax posted at Queercents.

Want to brighten up your home with cut flowers? Then be sure to read Frugal Duchess's article Feed Flowers Sprite & Other Frugal Tips for Cut Flowers posted at The Frugal Duchess. "Let them drink Sprite. Believe it or not, Sprite, a citrus-flavored soft drink, is good for cut flowers. The sugar supplies nutrition and carbonated water serves as an anti-bacterial agent. The drink's citric acid provides a low PH environment"

Entertainment

Kyle James presents 10 Frugal Summer Fun Ideas posted at Rather-Be-Shopping.com Blog saying "Have fun with the family without it being a strain on your wallet."

And there are more good ideas on this topic at Save Money on Movies, Music, Television, and Books posted at Lazy Man.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 17 Cheap Ways To Keep Cool And Survive A Heat Wave posted at The Digerati Life.

Shadox presents Money and Such: Free Fun for Little Ones posted at Money and Such saying "Rather than spending $20 or $30 on software for your pre-schoolers, here are some free websites that do the job just as well, if not better."

Work and College

Super Saver presents Renting versus Owning posted at My Wealth Builder.

Dianne M. Buxton presents Work From Home Shopping posted at manifestingsuccess.

Ted Reimers has some ideas about Where to Buy and Sell Textbooks posted at College News.

story also has ideas about buying books in Cheap used books (and what to do with the books I have) posted at My money and my life.

Finance

Ashley asks Why Don't People Want Free Money? posted at College of Cash.

Steve Faber asks - What Does That Warranty Really Cover Anyway? posted at Debt Free.

teaspoon presents Solving Our Savings and Budget Issues - The No-Budget Budget Way posted at www.TeaspoonFinance.com - Financial wisdom, one teaspoon at a time... saying "Proposing a way of looking at handling your savings and budgeting called the no-budget budget."

WorksForUs presents What Works For Us: Easy Ways To Reduce Budget posted at What Works For Us.

Grace presents Ebay for the Cheap & Nervous posted at GRACEful Retirement.

Nenad Ristic presents food for thought in Attribution Theory posted at Money Conciousness.

Clothing

Juggling Frogs presents Frankendress: How to make play dresses from recycled t-shirts using only one seam posted at Juggling Frogs.

Simplify

There are lots of reasons for choosing frugality, one of my reasons is expressed very well by David B. Bohl in Voluntary Simplicity - The Path to Happiness? : Slow Down Fast Today! posted at Slow Down Fast Today!.

Top Ten Reasons to Make Chutney

1. They taste great with cold meats, in cheese sandwiches, or with a pork pie

2. It's really easy. Honest. I know some people are preserve-phobic but there's no need to be

3. Home-made chutney makes a great Christmas present, thank-you gift, welcome-new-neighbour gift, I'm-sorry-my-bees-attacked-you-and-stung-your-dog peace offering etc.

4. Your friends and neighbours are avoiding you in case you give them any more runner beans or courgettes, but you need to use up the surplus veg somehow

5. Not everything is cheaper to make than to buy, but chutney is (especially if you're using up home-grown gluts or hedgerow forage)

6. You cannot buy anything in the shops that's nearly as good as home-made chutney

7. Have you read the ingredients label on shop-bought chutney?

8. You can get creative in so many ways - different herbs and spices in the recipe, fancy labels, little fabric hats and ribbons. It's great fun

9. They always go really well at Christmas fairs, summer fetes and other fund raising events

10. There's nothing like the feeling that a well-stocked store cupboard gives you, especially when the contents are home-made

carnival of natural family living - September 3, 2007

Bean Sprouts is proud to present the September 3, 2007 edition of carnival of natural family living. This new carnival has taken off like a rocket and I am amazed and delighted by the number of submissions.

Summer

Many of the submissions had a summer theme to them, including Frugal Panda's Frugal Summers: 101 Ways to Entertain Yourself and Your Family posted at Frugal Panda and on a related note GP presents Fun Family Vacations - No Kidding posted at Fish Creek House - INNside Innkeeping, saying, "Great ways to have fun family vacations - no kidding!"

shrijnana sering presents Playtime posted at Conscious Mom.

Leticia Velasquez presents Don't let your children become addicted to excitement posted at cause of our joy.

Babies

Babies were also a poplar topic. Tracy presents Embrace green motherhood: breastfeed posted at EcoStreet, saying, "Although by the time this carnival goes out it will be past the Breastfeeding Week, the environmental advantages of breastfeeding are still worth a mention, I believe."

And Julie Heath - More4kids Inc. presents Getting Breastfeeding Off to a Good Start posted at Baby Development and Breastfeeding Resources.

Kevin Heath presents How You Can Save Money By Making Your Own Baby Wipes posted at Baby Development and Breastfeeding Resources.

And my favourite article this week: Anmol Mehta presents How to Make a Baby the Right Way- With Illustrations! posted at Mastery of Meditation, Enlightenment & Kundalini Yoga, saying, "Our adventures in how we made our little ones."

Relationships

Warren Wong presents How To Keep A Healthy Relationship posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Are you and your partner fighting all the time? Here's how to resolve your conflicts and go back to happier times."

Charles H. Green presents The Dark Side of Trust? Not! posted at Trust Matters, saying, "Harvard claims the key to trust is micromanagement; but the reality is, micromanaging trust will hurt your relationships with everyone in your life, including your loved ones."

Health and Beauty

Clara Myers presents Broken Capillaries and Varicose Veins posted at Face Natural.

Carrie Lauth presents Cheap Beauty Green Beauty posted at Natural Moms Talk Radio.

Stephanie presents Reusable Feminine Products posted at Stop the Ride!. I use these and can promise you they're just as effective as the disposable variety but soooo much better for the environment (and cheaper in the long term).

Dr Martin W. Russell presents Routinely Sleeping Well posted at Dr Martin W. Russell.

Food

Food was also a popular subject with contributors:

Elena presents When to Buy Organic Food posted at busybeemama.com.

Stephanie presents Canning Tomato Soup posted at Stop the Ride!.

A different Stephanie presents The Great Egg Hunt posted at Adventures in the 100 Acre Wood.

Kevin Bedell presents A simple step you can take: Eat more locally grown food posted at 21st Century Citizen.

GreenCougar presents Sensible, Natural Replacements for Soft Drinks and Ice Cream posted at GreenCougar, saying, "Short article on sensible replacements for soft drinks and ice cream in your life."

Cleaning and Household

Mommy Babble presents Washing With Baking Soda, part 2 posted at Mommy Babble.

Theo presents Safe Alternatives to Using Insecticides At Home (Can?t Hide from Insecticide) posted at Organic Test Kitchen .com, saying, "The hazards and folly of using chemical insecticides in the home."

Food for Thought

Quite literally "food for thought", Alvaro Fernandez presents Brain Fitness Program 2.0, MindFit, and much more on Brain Training posted at Brain Fitness Blog.

marguerite manteau-rao offers two thought-provoking articles. Why? posted at La Marguerite, saying, "Why is it so hard to become 100 percent pure green? I can think of many reasons . . ." and Garbage Society posted at La Marguerite, saying, "The way things were, before the advent of plastic bags and all"

Tiffany Washko is also in philosophical mood as she presents My Thoughts on Green Consumerism posted at Natural Family Living Blog.

Paul Heingarten presents School Band is a valuable experience posted at Music and Band, saying, "Music is a great element to introduce into a child's upbringing. The benefits of playing music and joining a band program are many."

Jamie Carr presents Take a Media Fast posted at Peace Inside.

The Career Counselor presents It?s Not Easy Being Green? posted at ask the CareerCounselor.

21st Century Citizen presents New Study: 87% of Americans “seriously concerned about the environment” posted at 21st Century Citizen. That's good to hear. I just hope they take action on their concerns.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of natural family living using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:
carnival of natural family living, blog carnival.

First Morsbag

I should have been sewing nametapes onto the kids schoolclothes but I've been bitten by the Morsbags bug, and I made my first Morsbag instead out of some snazzy purple fabric. The photo doesn't do it justice.

It's not quite finished as I haven't got any Morsbags labels to sew onto it yet, but I'll do that as soon as they arrive. The instructions on the website are very clear and easy to follow, and the process is quick and easy. I especially liked the way it said "fold a narrow hem, fold a deeper hem" rather than insisting you measure and mark exactly 7/16" or anything like that.

I'll make some more later. But I'll sew the nametapes in the kids' clothes first.

Lights Out Challenge Results

42 people voted in August's lights out challenge. The results were as follows:

• I've gone green! I pledge to switch off the lights! 11 votes
• I was already green! I always switch off the lights! 28 votes
• I don't want to! I'm afraid of the dark! 1 vote
• I'm greener than thou! I go to bed at sunset and rise at dawn! 2 votes

I've been trying really hard this moth to switch off lights myself and to train the kids to do the same. I'm not sure I'm having much success getting the kids to remember spontaneously, but now when I say "Go to your room and save the planet!" they go and switch off the lights and any other gadgets.

A new challenge for September will be coming soon. This week's cartoon is from Throbgoblins.