Cold frame

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. Traditionally one gives lace, but we agreed on our own rules for gifts this year, in keeping with our goals of self-sufficient living.

• Maximum spend of £20
• Gifts to be second-hand, recycled, or hand-made
• Gifts to be thoughtful, personal and appropriate

I gave Ed some second-hand books I bought on eBay, by one of his favourite authors. He made me a cold frame out of recycled materials, for the allotment.

I am delighted with it and couldn't wait to find the right spot for it. I'll soon be filling it up with seedlings of winter veg, like winter cabbage. Already the weather is cold enough that little seedlings will benefit from the shelter.

I love my hand-made, recycled, thoughtful cold frame. Much better than any silly old lace knickers.

Steph's gone

As usual, we had a great time whilst my sister, Steph, and her two children were here. We were having so much fun I didn't get around to describing our visits to Alton Towers (probably Britain's biggest theme park in the grounds of a stately home), the Chestnut Centre (a Derbyshire wildlife centre with otters, owls, pine martens, deer and other species), the allotment, or the local outlet that might buy some recycled cushion covers from me which could turn out to be a nice sideline.

She's gone home now, and Ed's holiday is almost over. But tomorrow is a Bank Holiday in the UK so he has one more day off work, and it's also our 13th wedding anniversary. This year we have agreed some rules for anniversary gifts - they have to cost less than £20, and they have to be second-hand, recycled or hand-made. I've got him some Raymond E. Feist books from eBay because he's reading his way through Feist's complete works the moment. I don't know what he's got for me but I've been banned from the garage all day and there have been sounds of sawing, drilling and hammering coming out of there, and when Ed came out for his lunch his hands were covered in what looked like wood preservative. Hmmm.

Cash crop

I sold some of my produce today, for the first time. A little while ago, the farm shop offered to buy any surplus fruit and veg off me, and today I took in three huge yellow marrows and the grocer gave me £2 for them. Now I'm a market gardener, instead of a subsistence farmer!

To celebrate, we all went to the Poynton Show, the largest agricultural show in the North West. We usually go every year and it's always great fun. Last year we missed it because we were at Disneyland Paris, which you'd think trumps the local agricultural show by quite a wide margin, but the kids were upset when they realised they were missing the Poynton Show.

Steph's here

My sister, Steph (who sometimes leaves comments here), came to visit for a few days. It's always fun when she comes, especially when she brings her two children TJ and Rebecca. We usually do something creative together. Today we made a big batch of chutney. Then after dinner we took all the kids to the park at the end of our road to pick blackberries and sloes.

It's 9 o'clock at night now, and the kids are theoretically in bed. They seem to be making quite a lot of noise up there though. We're just ignoring them. The chutney is still simmering, and Steph is strumming her guitar whilst I type this blog entry. There's a glass of red wine waiting for me when I'm done. The good life? I'm living it.

Bakin' a train, high on cocaine

Part of adopting a more self-sufficient lifestyle has involved considering what I am throwing out, and what I am buying in. For example, every now and then I used to buy a pack of sandwich bags for lunchboxes, freezing food, crafts and other uses. At the same time I used to throw out dozens of plastic bags a month - bread bags, the inners from packs of cereal, bags that fruit and veg had come in. When you stop and think about it, it's crazy. So now I have a cupboard stuffed full of assorted plastic bags waiting to be reused.

On the other hand, you can't hoard everything forever or your house would become unliveable-in, so you have to throw some stuff away. Or better still, give it away to someone who wants it. That's why I subscribe to freecycle, a free mailing list that puts people with stuff they don't need in touch with people who want the stuff the other people don't need.

It's one of those wonderful win-win things that give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. On the one hand, someone came and took away my old chest of drawers for nothing, to go and be loved and used by someone else. And on the other hand I have collected some things I needed, like a huge chest freezer, or a vacuum cleaner, from people who didn't want them any more.

In the last few days I picked up a 3-dimensional train-shaped cake tin
and a large array of Grateful Dead cassettes. Now I suppose I need to find some stuff to give away, in order to rebalance the cosmic karma. Or just to stop myself from being crushed by my own clutter.

Kettle campaign

I'm really pleased by how many people have voted in my challenge to only boil as much water as they need in their kettles. I've been trying to do this all this month, and I've noticed as a side benefit that the herbs on my kitchen windowledge are looking healthier. If I accidentally put too much water in, I pour it over the plants.

I've been looking up some facts about the benefits of not filling the kettle each time you boil it. In a speech by the Rt Hon David Miliband MP at the National School of Governance conference, Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London - "Public services and public goods: lessons for reform" - 6 June 2006 he said:

"If everyone boiled only the water they needed to make a cup of tea instead of filling up the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity in a year to run more than three quarters of the street lighting in the country."

And a press release from the Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) said:

"Each time we boil the kettle we use more water than we need, we also waste valuable energy and contribute to climate change. On average, we could all save 90 seconds each time we boil a kettle - by putting in only the amount of water we need. Such a simple action would also cut household electricity bills -
overfilling each time we boil wastes enough energy in a week to light our house for a day or run a TV set for 26 hours."

Hats off

We explored the attractions of Stockport today. You might think that Stockport doesn't offer much in the way of tourist attractions but you'd be surprised. First off we went to the Hat Museum. I must admit that a museum about hats didn't sound awfully promising, but it was really good. As well as the expected glass cases full of hats, information about hat making and hat history there were also lots of hands-on things, such as hats to try on, hats to make, there was a diorama of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland with empty seats to sit in and have your photo taken, and a yurt you could go inside (not sure why there was a yurt in a hat museum, but hey). We were also given a quiz to complete as we went round, and won a little prize at the end for finishing it. The museum was also free, so if you're in the area I do recommend it.

After that we had a look at the Air Raid Shelters. It cost £15 for us all to get and frankly I found less of interest to the family there than at the Hat Works. On the other hand I can see it must have cost a lot to fit them out as much as they have, with benches and bunk beds, toilets, nurses station and all the rest. They're probably half-way there to making it worth the entry fee. But perhaps I'm jaundiced because the kids got bored and started kicking off which isn't really the fault of the museum. It would have been better if they'd had a few more things like the Hat Museum - photo opportunities and things you can actually touch and try out. Sam really wanted to try the toilet for a start!

We never even got round to Staircase House or the art gallery, so we haven't exhausted the cultural attractions of Stockport yet. Which is pretty impressive, when you come to think of it.

Self sufficient - ish

The lovely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in River Cottage Cookbook writes:

"Each household or family unit operates somewhere on a 'food acquisition
continuum' (a phrase I've just invented) from, at one end (the far right if you
like), total dependence on the industrial food retailers to, at the other (far
left) end, total self-sufficiency."

The point of this blog is to describe our journey from somewhere near the far-right of this continuum to somewhere closer to the left. Earlier this year we got an allotment and started producing some of our own fruit and vegetables. Later we got two chickens and now have daily home-produced free-range eggs. More recently we have been picking wild fruit in the hedgerows near our house.

But we're still a long way off being self-sufficient. You could describe us as "self-sufficient-ish", which is also the title of a rather good website.

Created by twin brothers Dave and Andy Hamilton it is a mine of informative and useful articles about how to bring a little self-sufficiency into the most urban life. For example, there's an article on "The Self-Sufficientish Office" and "Tips For Those Living In Rented Accommodation", as well as the more ambitious "No-tech Solar Oven" and the extreme-green "Home-Made Washable Menstrual Pads". There's also a very lively forum. I spend some time there most days, either reading articles or chatting on the forums. It's been in my Links section (in the right-hand sidebar) for ages, but if you haven't checked it out yet why don't you go and have a look?

In the swim

Continuing our "vacation at home" theme today we visited the hotel pool. Except we're not in a hotel so we went to the pool at Stockport instead. It's a good one with an Olympic-sized pool and a nice shallow area with a jaccuzi, waterslides, plenty of fun floats and good changing facilities. I hate going swimming because I am a lousy swimmer and I am scared the kids will drown. The kids love it though and happily head off in all different directions, splashing and screaming and scaring me silly. I want them to be more confident in the water than I am and I really should take lessons to build up my own confidence but I can never find the time.

The pool is part of Stockport's "Grand Central" entertainment area which also has bars, a multiplex cinema and lots of fast food places. It probably has bingo and a bowling alley as well, I've never noticed, but they seem to be part of the package. So we went to McDonald's for lunch and then to the cinema to watch "Cars". It was rubbish but the kids liked it. I'm sure the animation was all very technically stunning, but that's not what I want from a movie. The plot was off-the-shelf, and the setting was designed to evoke nostalgia for a time and place I never knew, so it left me cold. It wasn't as bad as "The Spongebob Squarepants Movie", but it wasn't "Shrek" either.

You can't really take pictures in the swimming pool (without either wrecking your digital camera or getting arrested), or in the cinema, and taking pictures in McDonalds just seems, well, tacky. So todays picture is from our visit to Chester zoo. I've tried to keep the swimming/animated movie theme going, though.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

Ed has a couple of weeks holiday but we decided not to go abroad this year. Instead we're going to explore the local tourist attractions, and save our money. We might put it towards buying some land, if we ever form a coherent plan for doing that, or we might go away at Christmas.

Yesterday we went to Chester Zoo. It's a great zoo. It's huge - over 100 acres. And it has a vast range of animals. It's also really well-planned and laid out. And it's family-friendly; it seems that every time the kids are getting tired you come across a play area, or a grassy lawn, or a picnic area.

The highlight for me was watching a small snake eat a whole (dead) rat by dislocating its own jaws. They only feed about once a week or even less, so we were lucky to get to see that. The orangutans were good, too. I love orangs very much. The low point was Eleanor and Sam becoming hysterical in the bat cave. The bats are kept in a large free-flying cave which visitors walk through whilst bats fly over and around them. It was amazing. You don't get to see them close-up as you would if they were in little tanks, but we had plenty of opportunity to peer at creatures in little tanks and this was a different experience. We persuaded the younger ones to give it a go, and patiently encouraged them. They seemed to enjoy it and I was proud of them for bravely doing something they were initially reluctant about. But at the end there was an airlock-type thing between the cave and the exit proper and a small bat had become trapped. It was panicking, and Ellie and Sam panicked too, screaming the place down so that keepers came running over to find out what the fuss was about. It took a while to calm the kids down but a life-sized model of a rhino that peed impressively (although an addition of some steam would have added to the verisimilitude) once a minute was a sufficient distraction.

The drawback is it costs an arm and a leg to get in. We only went because we'd got a couple of "child goes free with a paying adult" vouchers, and a half price child's ticket, so we got in for £30 instead of the prohibitive £60 it would have cost otherwise. Once inside there were many other attempts to part us from our money, and we made it very clear to the kids that we had brought a packed lunch and plenty of drinks, and would be buying no ice-creams, balloons, hats, car stickers or soft toys. They accepted this pretty well. We did go on the zoo monorail when we found a queue shorter than 45 minutes. I was disappointed though that there was no way to bring home any zoo manure, as you can at some other zoos. I'd have got a kick out of putting elephant dung on the vegetables, and it would have been a better souvenir than any of the other tat on offer.

Damson harvest

Damsons are funny things. Last year our tree gave enough fruit to make two poxy jars of jam. The year before wasn't much better. But this spring we had an inkling things were going to be a bit different when the blossom was stunning. My neighbour noticed the same thing with his damson trees, so I think the late, wet spring must have suited them.

Yesterday I picked over a stone (15lbs or 7kg) of damsons from our one tree and I only got about half the fruit down (the tree's quite tall). And my neighbour promised me all her fruit earlier in the year. So I'm thinking a big bucket of damson wine.

Sam and I went to Congleton farmer's market. We actually made it this time. Shouldn't have bothered - it was a big disappointment. Most of the stalls were bog-standard British manky market variety - cheap bathtowels and mobile phone fascias etc. We did pick up some home-made cakes and some ostrich sausages from the few genuine farm stalls that were there. We also bought some cheese in the covered market from a trader who was very surprised when I asked where the cheese came from, and if I could taste it before buying.

In the news part 2

Just over a month after the last BBC News item about allotments, they're in the news again. This latest item is about the danger to allotments from property developers. It seems prescient in the light of this story about some allotments in London which are due to be bulldozed to make way for the 2012 Olympic Village.

I liked the quote from Claire Willis of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG)

"It's becoming much more of a community activity. I see my neighbouring allotment holder bringing his children, so they can watch how to cultivate vegetables and seeing the distinction between growing food and buying it from a supermarket"

I never realised I was part of a trend.

Who knows where the time goes

Cropredy 2006 was a good 'un. The weather was unusually cold, and we left our tent poles at home which didn't make for a great start to the festival. But the music was great. Steeleye Span with Maddy Prior, Dave Swarbrick and Flook were highlights. The food was also good - Leon's has been the best food on site for many years now, but I also enjoyed Molly Moon's Vegetarian Pies - new this year, hope they'll be back. The beer flowed freely. The shopping, as always was great. I picked up a couple of pairs of hippy baggy pants and some groovy tops, and the kids enjoyed hunting for bargains at the car boot sale.

But of course the bext thing about Cropredy was catching up with old friends. My sisters, Stephanie and Lindsey are pictured. Also there in 2006 were TJ, Andrew, Shona, a trio of Steves, Leila, Thomas, and Cropredy virgins Elaine and Amy. Absent friends this year included Jim and Catrin amongst many others.

It all seemed to be over far too soon but the dampness in my Doc Martens and the lingering smell of patchouli will keep the Cropredy spirit alive for a little while yet.

It all comes round again

We're off to the Cropredy Festival for a few days. It's a big 3-day folk/rock music festival and we've gone every year for the last 15 years. We camp out, meet up with old friends, listen to great music, shop at hippy ethnic stalls and just generally have the best time we have all year.

A neighbour will be chicken-sitting for us. The allotment can manage without any attention for a few days.

We'll be back on Sunday with lots of photos, suntans, lovebeads and muddy shoes. Hope you have a good weekend too.

Bean sprouts

Ever wondered why this blog is called Bean-Sprouts? Well the main reason is that the name wasn't already taken. If you've ever set up a website or blog yourself you'll know that it can be really hard to find a name that's available. I got to the "random strings" stage but pulled back from the brink of starting a blog called www.bncouigiuqga.blogspot.com and went back to typing in meaningful names until I hit on one that noone else had registered.

I tried "bean-sprouts" because for over fifteen years I have sprouted my own beans for salads and stir fries. It's very easy: soak some beans in plenty of cold water overnight, then put them in a sprouter. I use a three-tiered sprouter like this one but you can use a jam jar just as well. Rinse the sprouts once or twice a day and in a few days they will have started to sprout. You can eat them when the sprout is about the same length as the seed. I put them in salads and sandwiches and they taste really fresh and alive, which they are. You can also cook them in soups and stews and stir fries. I always have sprouts on the go.

Sam's marrow

Sam picked his marrow today. All the kids chose a courgette a week or two ago, and scratched their names into them with the point of a knife. We've been watching them grow. Sam's one won. He proudly showed it to everyone on the allotment.

As squash art goes it's not a (pumpkin) patch on the ones here. The link is to The Potimarron Project, a guy who will send free pumpkin seeds to anyone who agrees to give part of the crop to their nearest homeless shelter. I think it's a wonderful idea and I'll be participating next year.

Flea market

We tried to go to Congelton farmer's market today but we got the wrong day and it was a flea market instead. Never mind. We had fun browsing and each of the kids brought home a new toy, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

I was busy in the kitchen all afternoon making 24 cheesey potato scones, 10 portions of chicken soup and a large batch of gooseberry and marrow chutney.

It's encouraging to see a lot of people have voted in the poll on this page challenging you to only boil as much water as you need. The challenge was inspired by Andy Hamilton on Selfsufficientish.com. He emailed the customer service people from Typhoo, Yorkshire Tea, Tetley, PG tips and Twinings to suggest they include advice on their packaging or adverts not to boil too much water, and he asked other people on the Selfsufficientish forums to do the same. I emailed them and got replies from Yorkshire Tea and Tetley. If you're sitting at the computer with a few minutes on your hands (and I'm guessing you do - you're not reading this blog for your work are you?) why not click on one of the links which will take you directly to a "customer comments" page and ask them to advise tea-drinkers to help save the planet. Coffee drinkers beware - we're coming after you next!

Vpud - the verdict

We had a huge vegetarian fry-up for dinner last night:

• Fried duck eggs
• Fried mushrooms
• Fried tomatoes
• Fried bread
• Whole-earth baked beans
• Homemade potato scones
• Realeat Vegebangers
• Realeat Vege Bacon
• Vpud vegetarian black pudding

It was delicious, and the Vpud was the star of the show. It's very similar to normal black pudding in taste and texture, which is important because some vegetarian meat-alike foods have the taste but not the texture. The Realeat Vege Bacon is an example, it tastes like bacon but has a rather nasty paste-like texture. It's great in pasta carbonara but not as good in a BLT. The Vpud however was a very convincing replica of meaty (or should I say bloody) black pudding, I reckon you could slip it into a meaty fry-up and the carnivores would never notice.

Potato Scones

Boil 1lb floury potatoes and mash them. Add a generous knob of butter, plenty of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and enough wholewheat flour to make a dry, rollable dough. Split the dough in half and roll out into two half-inch thick circles. Cut each circle into six wedge-shaped slices with a knife and fry in butter for a few minutes each side.

Vegetarian black pudding - no kidding

The sun came out again today. Hooray! I hoed off all the weeds on the allotment, and the rain has done all the plants a power of good. I sowed some spinach and a few more radishes in some spare ground next to the spuds. Meanwhile the kids had fun squirting each other with the hose. Sam was the only one relatively dry by the end so I guess he was the prime squirter.

On the way home we went to the farm shop nearest us to get some fruit and other supplies. Whilst buying locally made cheese (though not Cheshire cheese, confusingly) I picked up a vegetarian black pudding. We'll have it for tea tonight and I'll report back, but if it's anything like the vegetarian haggis I had once it could be delicious.

Grey day

We're into the third day of grey rainy weather. The chicken coop has turned into a bit of a quagmire, and the weeds are coming up strongly in the allotment. The plants are even stronger though so I don't mind, but I'll have to get over there for some serious weeding soon.

I've been getting on with jobs in the house instead. I made some hot redcurrant and chilli jam using another Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe (from the Children's Cookbook) which is really delicious. I also made gingerbread men with the kids and chicken soup from the carcase of the chicken we had at the weekend. I painted a built-in cupboard Ed made to house the gas meter ages ago, and I reupholstered a dining chair.

What I haven't managed to do is figure out how to upload the photos from my mobile phone into the PC, nor fix my broken digital camera, so I can't show you any of those things. You'll just have to take my word for it. Hey, if I had wanted to lie I would have said I had met Nelson Mandela, run a marathon and played a live gig to hundreds of thousands of people in Hyde Park. But I didn't. Think about that.

Delightful peas

There are a few new feaures on the site. In the sidebar on the right is a poll. This month I'm challenging people to stop boiling a kettleful of water when they only need a cupfull. It's a really easy way to boost your green quotient, it doesn't cost anything (in fact it saves money), and it doesn't take any time (instead it saves time). Vote in the poll and tell me if you're up to the challenge.

You'll have to scroll right to the bottom to see the other changes. First of all is the Rustle The Leaf comic strip which I believe will be updated once a week. Click on the link if you want to view the older strips. Whilst you're at it, you could also click on the One Million Europeans Against Nuclear Power banner and sign the petition. I know it's a contentious issue and some people think nuclear is the best non-polluting alternative to fossil fuels. If that's how you feel, don't sign it, I won't mind!

Down on the allotment I picked a couple of peas. The peas were tiny, too small to pick really but I couldn't resist. I even tempted Tom to try one and he said they were "delightful". I agree - they're astonishingly sweet, downright sugary. It's funny, they're much sweeter than the blackcurrants we picked a little while ago, and far sweeter than the morello cherries.

One of the childhood memories that kept coming back to me when we got this allotment was of a visit to some friends of my parents. They had a pea patch in the garden, and my sisters and I absolutely ravaged it, stripping it of peas and eating them on the spot. I don't remember getting in trouble for it, but I don't remember ever being invited back either. I won't mind if Tom and the other children eat all the peas straight off the plants. It'll just be nice to see them getting vegetables in them.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

We've been weeks without any rain. I've been going to the allotment every other day at least to water all the plants. In the last couple of days we've had the odd sprinkle for literally a few seconds, then nothing comes of it. Every night I've gone to bed expecting thunderstorms and cloudbursts in the night, but in the morning the ground is still dry and cracked.

But today we've had consistent drizzle. No thunder, no cloudbursts, no drama, but steady drizzle for at least a couple of hours now. That's the very best thing I could have hoped for. Beating heavy rain could flatten my established plants and wash away my seedlings, doing more harm than good. But this is perfect. Gentle steady rain. Fantastic.

Hire Car

We've got a hire car. The mechanic didn't get back to us on Friday with his final verdict, so I'll have to ring him on Monday and ask if the car is repairable or not. The tax runs out tomorrow so I'd really like to know!

I walked to the allotment on Friday to water anything, and pick a few courgettes before they turned into marrows. It's two miles away, but fortunately there's an off-license on the way back so I picked up a couple of bottles of Black Sheep Ale. Very nice.

Everything seems to be breaking down at the minute. The car seems to be dead. The washing machine needed repairing, but it does that once in a while. Even my digital camera has died, so I'll be posting older photos for while until I can figure out how to get pictures off my mobile phone onto the computer.

Tesco Boycott

It's been almost 4 weeks now since I've stopped shopping at Tesco and I have to say I've actually enjoyed the experience. Not only is my conscience easier knowing I'm not supporting their ethically bankrupt business, but I have really enjoyed exploring other places to shop, such as my local shops and The Unicorn. The organic box scheme is a delight, I even got a free bottle of organic wine when I signed up for a weekly box. I've been exploring farmer's markets, and stopping at every farm shop I pass and generally having a whale of a time.

Some of my readers have told me that they're trying to shop locally more and rely on the big 4 supermarkets less. That's great. Other people have asked me what's so bad about Tesco anyway? I found a great website which explains everything. Here's a quote from their homepage:

"Tesco now controls 30% of the grocery market in the UK. In 2006, the supermarket chain announced over £2.2 billion in profits. Growing evidence indicates that Tesco's success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers and workers worldwide, local shops and the environment."

If you're interested I suggest you check out the link. There's an Asdawatch website as well. Remember it's not just Tesco, but big supermarkets in general, especially on out-of-town sites, that are irrevocably destroying our local shops and therefore our choice. On the other hand, Co-op are Britain's most ethical retailer, the first to remove all GM ingredients from their own-brand foods, and with an impressive range of fair-trade products.

Broke down

My car broke down yesterday. It's the automatic gearbox, which is never cheap. It's going to be off the road for at least a week, I'm told. Ed says we can hire a car for a week, which would be very good. Where we live there is no way to walk anywhere, certainly not with kids in tow.

We live on the outskirts of the village, on a small crescent surrounded by a large dairy farm. The crescent opens on to a country lane with no footpath. The village centre is 2 miles away.

Today I am just sitting at home waiting for the garage to call. Well, I'm not just sitting, there's laundry to do, cleaning, keeping the kids occupied, not to mention the large pile of essays to be marked.

Compost heaps

The kids helped me make two compost bins out of the pallets we picked up yesterday. I've already cut down a bunch of comfrey to put in the first one, and trained the boys to pee on the heap. Eleanor will have to pee in the toilet shed, but perhaps I can give her a bucket and she can carry it back to our plot and pour it on the heap. I've also emphasised to the boys the "pee only" rule. No other toilet products are allowed on the heap. Not human products anyway. The chicken manure will certainly go on the heap.

We made a small bonfire out of the scraps of leftover wood, which kept the kids fascinated for a couple of hours. Next time I'll bring some spuds or sweetcorn or marshmallows. The kids ended up roaming around the plot looking for stuff to burn, and I had to chase around after them asking people "Did you give that to them or have they just pinched it?".

Peas and beans are starting to grow - too small to pick just yet, but it's a matter of days.

Runner beans, Unicorns and pallets

Ellie's runner beans are the tallest things on the plot - even taller than Ellie.

We went to The Unicorn yesterday and stocked up on dried peas and beans, wholewheat pasta and organic baked beans and other yummy things. Whilst I was there I noticed some broken pallets in the delivery bay so I asked what they did with them. Now I have a stack of about 6 or 7 complete (slightly broken) pallets and a bunch of bits sitting on the allotment waiting to be turned into a compost heap.

Looking for a sign

I liked the allotment sign so much I made another one for the back gate at home. When I started it the chickens were roaming free in the garden (and elsewhere!) so I hoped the sign would stop people leaving the gate open and letting the chickens out, hence the chicken motif on the sign. Now, of course, the hens are safely cooped up so the sign is unnecessary, but it's still cute so I fixed it up.

I wonder what other signs I can make?

Spuds, square eggs and blackcurrant ice-cream

Put some spuds in at the allotment. I thought it was too late for spuds but the nice couple who gave them to us said they'd be fine. We had a bare bit anyway where I'd planted some broccoli and cabbages that never came up, so now we have a row of spuds.

I can hear the red chicken from where I'm sat at the computer and she sounds like she's laying a square egg.

I made Sid's blackcurrants (see http://tinyurl.com/jcs8z) into blackcurrant double ripple ice cream. The recipe is from the book The River Cottage Year so I won't reprint it here. But it's on the River Cottage Website at http://tinyurl.com/zv8ry so if you want to make it you can look it up yourself. If you can get hold of blackcurrants I recommend you try it, it's absolutely delicious and also one of those recipes that look like you spent ages faffing on with difficult techniques, but actually it's really easy. I whipped up the first batch whilst I was also cooking dinner, as an afterthought, that's how easy it is. Of course, Sid's delicious allotment blackcurrants make all the difference, and I had enough for two batches so I've plenty of it. I think I'll save some from Sam until one of my sisters visits, because I'll bet they'd like it.

Minor annoyances

It's been a day of minor annoyances.

I noticed the chicken's drinker was empty. It takes a gallon and cleverly lets out a little at a time into a drinking bowl so they have a constant supply of fresh water. When I refilled it though it didn't let out a little at a time, it all poured out straight away. There's a large crack in the top that lets in air and stops the mechanism from working. Looks like something heavy has jumped on it. Hmmm - I wonder what that could have been?

Gaffer tape has fixed it for now, but how long it holds up remains to be seen.

Then I went to the allotment to water everything. It has been bone dry and very hot for a long while so I've been watering every day. It takes quite a while to do everything, as well. Just as I finished, it started to rain.

Sprout sleuth

Something has been nibbling my sprouts. I mean, seriously munching them. At first I thought of caterpillars so I had a good look and couldn't see any. But when I turned the leaves over lots of tiny white flies flew around. Surely those titchy flies couldn't have eaten great holes in my leaves. It was a puzzle.

The children came to the allotment with me but they left me alone because Sid (who is 90 years old) had given them each a plastic punnet and told them to pick all the blackcurrants they wanted, then ended up having to supervise them because they were doing it all wrong - picking green ones, squashing half of them, standing on other nearby crops and so on. Kept them out of my hair anyway.

When Sid had had enough of them he brought them back over to me, all purple and sticky and squabbling over who had picked most. So I asked him for his opinion of my sprouts. He's a little deaf. Actually he's almost stone deaf (which explains why he can tolerate the kids for so long) so at first the only advice I could elicit was "They need watering" (I knew that). But I kept at it because he has one of the most impressive plots with super fruits and veg. Then he started going on about clubroot, which was still no help, but when managed to draw his attention to the holes in the leaves he said "Oh, looks like pigeons have been at them" .

Ah, Pippa the scarecrow. You are sorely missed.

Yield, varlet!

I thought I didn't really mind about Pippa the scarecrow http://bean-sprouts.blogspot.com/2006/06/meet-pippa.html being destroyed, but today as I was weeding the allotment several mums pushed pushchairs along the path and each time the little children said "Where's the scarecrow? Where has it gone?" I didn't realise how much joy she gave to other people as well as myself, and it's such a shame that some yobs came and wrecked her.

One of the nice things about the allotment is coming home with armfuls of produce. Today for example I brought back loads of fresh onions, some green courgettes, and a punnet of redcurrants. The funny thing is I don't even grow any of those things, but people who have a glut give them to me (sometimes quite forcibly!) when they see me about. The allotment is producing things, mostly radishes and salad and gorgeous yellow courgettes. It won't be long until the runner beans start producing beans either, they have loads of red flowers on them.

In fact I think we'll probably have a glut of runner beans and I'll have to force them on other people. I read somewhere that 3 runner bean plants is enough for a family, but we've got dozens. It's one of the hardest things to find advice about - how much to plant. I've got one butternut squash plant. Will I get just one squash and think "That was silly, I should have planted more", or will I get loads of squash and think "Phew, good job I didn't plant 4 of them!"
I've looked in books, on the internet and on the back of seed packets but only rarely do you get any information about yields or recomended numbers to plant. Maybe I should do research for a few years and write a book about it.

Baking Day

Good, eh, and I'm not done yet. There are still more cooked cherries in the pan which will make a few more batches of cherry choc chunk ice cream as soon as I buy more cream.

And there's good news from the chickens. They hadn't been laying well over the weekend, producing one or no eggs a day. I was waiting for them to get back to normal, and today they produced three egss. Someone is overachieving, but I can't tell who since they both produce identical eggs.

Cherry Jam

Add 6 1/2 lbs pitted home-grown morello cherries to the juice of 3 organic lemons and simmer until the cherries are soft. Add 3 1/2 lbs Whitworth's Jam Sugar and boil until it reaches 106C, or until a small amount poured onto a saucer which has been in the freezer wrinkles when pushed with your finger. Pour into clean sterile jam jars and seal. Wipe and label jars and allow to cool.

Cherry Pie

Add 1lb pitted home-grown morello cherries to the juice of an organic lemon and simmer until the cherries are soft. Add fair trade granulated sugar to taste (probably at least 8oz). Then stir 2 teaspoons arrowroot to 1 tablespoon water and stir until dissolved. pour the arrowroot mixture into the cherries and stir for 30 seconds until thick. Pour the cherry pie filling into a prepared pastry case (I'm not putting pastry instructions here. If you don't already have a favourite sweet short pastry recipe, Google for one), and choose one of the following options:

1. Open cherry tart - that's it. Bake your open tart.
2. Lattice cherry tart - cut strips of leftover pastry and lay them on the tart in a lattice pattern. Brush with beaten egg and bake for about 20 minutes or until golden.
3. Cherry pie - roll out a pie top and place on the pie, crimping the edges with a fork. Cut a hole or two in the top to let steam out during baking. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar and bake for about 20 minutes or until golden.

Sign of the Times

I made this sign for the allotment. Steph suggested I put the address of the blog on it, and at first I thought that would just be geeky and sad. But then someone left a message on our allotment asking for my email address (they also left some seeds - allotment people are the best!) which made me think it wouldn't be a bad idea after all. I'm also tickled by the juxtaposition of old and new.

I picked a stone of cherries (14lbs or 6.5kg) off the tree in the front garden today, so this evening Ed and I will be de-stoning them and turning them into jam, pies, and ice-cream. I just looked up the price of cherries in Tesco and that's £44 worth of cherries. And by the time they're jam, pies etc. they'll be worth even more. I feel pretty good about that.

For you, Tommy, ze war is over

Spent the day putting the final touches to the chicken run. I reckon it's now totally chicken-proof, cat-proof fox-proof (although I'm aware those are famous last words).

My favourite thing about it is that it didn't cost a penny. We built it entirely out of materials we already had, and hadn't even paid for in the first place. For example, the chicken-flap has a hinge made out of the woven nylon handle of an Ikea carrier bag, cunningly removed in such a way that the bag is still useable.

Went round to the neighbour who helped us round them up twice. I reassured them that the chickens were now securely contained, and gave them four eggs as a thankyou.

So hopefully that's the end of the chicken dramas. They're still free-range, just not quite as free-range as they had been, but that was altogether too free-range for my liking.

This means war

The bloody chickens escaped again yesterday. We all came home from the library to find 3 neighbours rounding them up from various gardens in the street. We can't figure out where they're getting out. Everything from ground level up to 3 feet is surrounded with chicken wire, and I've never seen either of them fly unless they're being chased.

Ed has a theory that cats are getting in and spooking them, causing them to fly over the fence. We don't want to clip their wings because then they wouldn't be able to get away from the cats, so the only solution is to keep the cats away from the chickens. That means building a pen.

So today we've been making a cat-proof chicken run using the timber we saved when we took out a stud wall in the kitchen, and the chicken wire that we found in the garage when we moved here. I always like making something for nothing. Especially when the resource we are penning in is only providing 50pence worth of eggs per day, I don't want to spend £200 on timber to protect it.

The chickens haven't laid today. Maybe it's all the people in the garden all day long hammering and sawing which has upset them. Or maybe it's because they know their days of complete freedom are numbered.

Oh, and Pippa (the scarecrow http://bean-sprouts.blogspot.com/2006/06/meet-pippa.html) is dead. She was there last night at about half past eight but this morning she was thoroughly dismembered and most of her is missing. So near to the fence I suppose she was always going to be a vandal magnet, so I don't think we'll replace her. Rest In Pieces, Pippa. You may rise again on the smallholding, but you never stood a chance on the allotment.

The great escape

More chicken dramas last night, the damned things escaped right out of the house and over the road. Half the kids in the street and some of the adults got involved in rounding them back up again. Ed arrived home the precise second I was closing the gate having finally got them both back. Typical.

I read somewhere that 90% of the business of smallholding is purely about livestock penning. That could be right.

Anyway we've nailed more chicken wire around the place we think they may have got out. The place is starting to look like Colditz.

Good fences make . . .

The hens trashed Ed's flowerbeds, digging up expensive plants and laying waste to everything. He was Not Pleased At All. So today I put up fencing to keep them off the beds.

The fences are only very low and I'm not sure if they're up to the job. The chickens could jump over them if they had a short run up, they wouldn't even need to fly. But I didn't want to go straight to def con 3 and erect six-foot high chain link with floodlights and lookout towers, if a nine-inch high decorative plastic edging would do the job just as well.

So far it seems to be working. They're pretty stupid beasts and when they hit an obstacle they just change direction and go somewhere else. They don't seem to spend hours figuring out how to penetrate our defences the way, say, a dog would. The cost of the fencing sets back the date when the chickens start paying for themselves, or to look at it another way we learned a priceless lesson about the importance of fencing in livestock.

Home cooking

My first ever entirely home-produced meal. Chive omelette, steamed baby courgettes, three leaf salad with radishes, and peppermint tea. Every ingredient grown by us. I didn't even add salt and pepper, and I have to say I didn't need to either. It was delicious. Why don't you come over for lunch sometime?

Chickens and cherries

I couldn't resist this. A quilt with chickens and cherries. Says it all, really. From www.americanjane.com

Swanky henhouse

Tell me what you think, honestly. Is it OTT for a henhouse to have leaded windows and checky red curtains?

The black hen got the idea shortly after the red one yesterday so we got 2 eggs within an hour of acquiring the chickens. Sam took the second one to school hard-boiled in his lunch box. Show-and-tell and lunch, all rolled into one.

They laid 2 more eggs today, in the nestbox in the henhouse rather than randomly amongst the bedding plants like yesterday. I say "nest box" - it makes it sound as fancy as the henhouse but in fact it's an old washing-up bowl with straw in it. I put 3 hard-boiled shop-bought eggs in it to give the girls a clue what they're meant to do there, and it seems to have worked a charm. I didn't fancy rummaging about in the borders every day playing "hunt the egg".

We have chickens

Today I collected 2 chickens from a Cheshire poultry breeder www.goodlifepoultry.co.uk and they settled in very quickly in their new home, a converted wendy house. The red one is my favourite so far - I'd only let her out for five minutes when she found and devoured a slug. Way to go, red!

I read up about chickens and decided they would be no more trouble than, for example, a rabbit, but with the added bonus of eggs. But I wasn't sure Ed would be keen on the idea. So I called him over to show him something on the computer and brought up the Eglu website www.omlet.co.uk. They have funky urban henhouses for the iPod generation. They look like someone has disembowelled an iMac and attached a run on the front. Ed agreed they looked great, and the website answered all his concerns about smell, noise, care and so on. When he agreed in principle I clicked "add to shopping basket" and showed him that they cost £400. Whilst he made choking noises I took him to Ebay and showed him some wooden henhouses for sale there, much more reasonable, only £200 http://tinyurl.com/ox25q. He was still an odd purple colour, so I suggested if he was going to be a tightwad we could convert the kids' wendy house into a henhouse for no cost at all, and buy a couple of hens from Goodlife Poultry for £10 each. He took this option with palpable relief. It's just as well it was the option I preferred from the outset.


UPDATE - We have eggs!

I came back from a guitar lesson and panicked when I could only see one chicken in the garden.
I thought the red one had legged it over the fence until I found her lurking in the shrubs. And this is what she had been doing. I fried it and shared it with Sam for lunch, and it was delicious. Good old red, definitely the favourite chicken.

Life is a . . .

We have a cherry tree in the front garden, but normally the birds eat the lot as soon as they start to show any colour at all. But for some reason this year they have left them completely alone, and today Sam and I went out and picked a large bowlful, leaving plenty of unripe cherries on the tree for later.

They're the sour type so you can't eat them raw but they're delicious cooked with plenty of sugar. Sam helped me make some of them into cherry choc chip ice cream, and I froze the rest to make pie or jam later.

Cherry Choc Chunk Ice Cream

De-stone and chop 1 cup of ripe home-grown cherries. Put half of them in a pan with 1 tablespoon of fair trade caster sugar and warm gently until the cherries are soft, then whizz in a blender until liquid. Add 350ml organic cream, 3 organic free range egg yolks and 100g fair trade caster sugar and whizz until well blended. The stir in the rest of the cherries by hand, along with 1/2 cup of fair trade dark choc chunks. I put all this in an ice cream machine, or you could put it in a tupperware container in the freezer and whisk it vigorously every hour until it is too solid to whisk.

In the news

Interesting story about allotments on the BBC news24 website. Apparently the occupation of allotments in Birmingham is soaring thanks to women with young families.

I liked this quote:

Ken Vaughan, who has gardened at the allotments for 13 years, said: "They've put a hell of a lot of work in and it has surprised me.
"Somebody said the other day, 'it's nice to see these women instead of the grumpy old men there used to be'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4965644.stm

Recycling

Ed came to the allotment today for the first time in weeks. He was gratifyingly impressed by the changes that have occurred since he saw it last, and did a little hoeing. He kept asking "What's that?" and "What's this?" and "What are those?" which was quite unnecessary because everything is labelled very clearly.

I've been making plant labels out of old milk bottles. They're a sturdy whitish plastic, and you can write on them with a permanent marker to make nice labels. I like them for three reasons. First, they're free. Second, they're recycled. And third, they help me remember what I've planted and where I've planted it.

All Things Organic

As part of my Tesco withdrawal I signed up for an organic box scheme from www.all-things-organic.co.uk and today our first box arrived. Sam and I were very excited as we rummaged through our goodies. So far I'm impressed - there was a good balance between lots of variety and a decent amount of each product. The veg is even washed and picture-perfect, which makes me a bit suspicious about what happens to the differently-attractive produce. Part of the charm of organic food is washing the mud off yourself, and showing everyone the potatoes that look like Dennis Healy or whatever.

We're awash with carrots and tomatoes since I already had some in the fridge, but the delivery guy said we can request "no more tomatoes" in the next box, which will come in handy when the allotment starts producing. In the middle of a glut of runner beans the last thing you'd want would be a delivery of beans you have to pay for. They can even include organic dry goods (such as pasta and tea bags) or organic wine.

All Things Organic is specific to this area - apparently all veg comes "from Cheshire & Lancashire farms", but they are part of Organics 4U www.organics-4u.co.uk which deliver anywhere in the UK (in case any of my faithful readers think they might try it themselves).

Pamper day

Sam's preschool have an imaginative approach to fundraising. No race nights or cheese and wine evenings for them, instead they have just put on a Pamper Evening. For £5 per 20minute treatment you could sign up for as many treatments as you wanted. I had the full monty and just spent a gloriously relaxing hour-and-a-half having an Indian head massage, Thai foot massage, reflexology and hand massage, with wine and nibbles thrown in.

Then when I got home the babysitter had not only given the kids their tea and put them to bed, she had also cleaned the living room and kitchen, and then thanked me for letting her watch my lovely children.

I must be dreaming.

If you're thinking that today's post has nothing to do with self-sufficiency, you're dead right. But it has quite a lot to do with the good life.

Harvest time

Today Sam and I pulled the first food produced by our allotment - 2 radishes. It was so exciting! They're spicy and crunchy and we grew them ourselves from seeds in the earth we dug. What a thrill.

Cold turkey

To my shame, I usually do most of my shopping at Tesco. I don't need to repeat all the arguments why supermarkets are the spawn of Satan, and we should all really support our local shops and producers. Actually there is a fabulous farm shop near my home which I use quite often. But they don't sell milk, or pasta, or clothes, so normally I just pick up my fruit and veg at the supermarket since I'm there anywhere. It's just so convenient isn't it? I do buy quite a bit of pasta and other things at The Unicorn, a wonderful co-operative grocery in Chorlton http://www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk/. But it's much further away than Tesco and it doesn't sell clothes, newspapers, honey or meat or other non-vegan things. I can actually get just about everything I need at Poynton high street. But you can't push a supermarket trolley up and down the high street so it means carrying heavy bags of shopping backwards and forwards to the car park, and not all the shops accept debit cards so I need to take some cash with me, and . . .

OK, I admit it, I shop at Tesco because I'm lazy. That's the real reason.

But I've decided to go cold turkey. No more Tesco for me. I'll get my fruit and veg from the farm shop a mile away (until the allotment starts producing stuff other than rhubarb). I'll get health-foody things like bran flakes and herb tea as well as environmentally friendly cleaning products and toiletries from the health food shop in the village. Most general grocery things can come from the Co-op http://www.co-op.co.uk/ which have a great range of fairtrade and organic products, as well as being an ethically-run company. And I'll do a run to The Unicorn once a month or so to stock up on the things only they provide. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Oh, I'll still fill up the car at Tesco. As far as I know all the petrol producers are as bad as each other, but the supermarkets are far cheaper. In fact, I believe they loss-lead on fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss-leader, so buying their petrol at a discount (whilst not buying any products which would make them a profit) will actually cost them money. At least that's how I'm justifying it to myself until I get around to doing some research about ethical petrol stations.