Turtles-Paradise

Strawberries at wimbledon, and minty pea-soup to sip in the garden. June passes us by, and July gets ready to burst onto the scene – in, I hope, a gloriously sunny month that let’s me take long rambly walks through fields of wild-flowers.

July is all about barbecues, picnics, salads and refreshing glasses of ice-cold lemonade. Family gatherings, water-balloon fights, and siestas in the sun. Bliss!

Eating what’s in season has a number of benefits. It’s cheaper, it’s healthier, and it keeps us in touch with the cycles of nature. When we can buy strawberries in December, or pumpkins in April, the food loses a touch of what makes it special. Anticipation, after all, is half the fun of anything.

The Best Food of July

Cherries – ripe, luscious little fruits that taste like nothing else. Unfortunately, Britain has lost around 90% of its cherry orchards in the last 50 years, in favour of importing them from overseas. July 17th is Cherry Day, so go pick your own from a local orchard, or buy some from a farmer’s market. Cherries can be used to make fruity buns, sauces for meat, or delectable pie fillings. Or just eat them by the handful. Om nom.

Peaches – peaches are another refreshing fruit. Somehow, the idea of eating a peach with juices running down my chin while sitting under a cloudless blue sky is my idea of heaven. If you like peaches, you’ll be pleased to know that peach trees can be grown in containers. Just make sure they get lots of sunshine. And make sure you get lots of sunshine as well – we all thrive and grow during the sunnier months.

Cucumber – cumbers are cool. They’re famous for it, in fact. And, when you get a bit hot and bothered, or maybe don’t like the sun quite as much as the peach tree – a cumber is the perfect antidote. A cumber salad makes for a good lunch, or as a trusty side for a bbq. If you feel a bit worn out, you can lie down with a couple of cumber slices on your eyes. Or, you can drink it.

Fennel – It’s not all fruit and salads. You might still want your sunday roast, or fancy something a bit more filling. Enter fennel, a vegetable I was first exposed to as part of my veg box delivery (for those of you unable to get to a market, one of these can really help you support a local farmer – I really miss it), and which I instantly fell in love with. It looks a bit like it came from outer-space, and it tastes like aniseed. Aniseed is one of those flavours you either love or hate, so if you didn’t like the sweets you won’t like this. It goes well in a risotto, and makes a perfect match with fish.

Spinach – spinach is in season through most of the year, which suits me just fine. As a leafy green, spinach is one of those nutritional powerhouses that – whilst not turning us into Popeye – has a truly insane amount of vitamin K and A. Plus a bunch of other things, all of which are good for you. Add it to a salad, steam it as a side, or dump it into a fruit smoothie and turn that smoothie a beautiful shade of green.

Peas and Beans – Peas, green beans and broad beans are all being picked and podded right about now. Add them to that risotto, or enjoy them with fish and chips. Vegetarians can enjoy this tasty walnut and green bean dish – well, and so can the rest of us. Don’t you just love summer?

This is a mere sampling of what’s on offer right now, but it makes a good start. Remember to buy local – if you shop in a supermarket, look for the British sticker. Alternatively, visit a farmers market, or get a veg box delivered. Fresh, in-season produce – it simply cannot be beaten.

I love this sky-planter idea. It’s space saving, self-watering, and ideal for those in small living spaces. However, it does come with quite a steep price-tag… so here’s how to make one yourself.

How to make an upside-down tomato planter
How to make an Upside-Down Planter
Go Green: Upside Down Planters (re-uses plastic bottles)
Upside Down Gardening

There are several ‘zones’ outlined in permaculture, which go from the house right out to the wilderness. The purpose of each zone is different, and our level of impact on it is also different. I want to talk a bit about each zone and how we can simplify the way we work and live within it, and discuss simple ways of bringing each zone in alignment with permaculture principles.

Zone 2

Zone 2 is generally considered the garden. It’s an area that we still go to on a regular basis, and that requires our attention in order to thrive. It doesn’t need to be the patch of land to the back of your property – it could be an allotment, or a roof garden. Generally speaking, it’s going to be where the bulk of your food is grown – fruit trees, vegetable plots, chicken huts, and medicinal plants will all be put here. If you don’t have a garden, it might be the deeper pots on your balcony, the window-allotment, or similar. Zones don’t have to be a particular size or shape, and it’s important we don’t prevent ourselves from growing due to a preconceived idea of what a ‘vegetable patch’ looks like.

We can simplify this zone in the following ways:

• Pay attention to the shape of the space, the levels of light, the average temperatures and amount of rainfall, and the type of soil – before you start growing. Grow the types of foods that have always been grown in your area, and don’t try and plant your favourite exotic fruit tree that is going to take lots of time and water to look after.
• Garden to your own level of experience. Start small. There is nothing worse than spending a lot of money on seeds, plants, trellises, pots and special soil and then watching everything die. A tomato plant and some herbs is a garden, and you can make food from it.
• Develop your knowledge of companion plants. Get the plants to do the hard-work for you!
• Share the hard-work with others – start a community allotment, or get the kids involved in the back-garden.
• Perform maintenance work ‘little and often’.

Think about Wildlife

Humans share this planet with a massively diverse range if other life-forms. Due to our overwhelming dominance and cultivation of land, we have driven a lot of these life-forms to the margins, shrinking their numbers daily. Some we outright kill, through serious pesticides that poison far more than just insects. For others, we simply alter their habitat until they starve to death.

Your garden can and should provide a place where wild-animals, insects and birds can live. Encourage the diversity of life, by planting things designed to attract and nourish bees, butterflies, birds, hedgehogs, bats and so on.

Attracting the right sorts of bugs can help keep other bugs in check. For example, ants keep termites away. Ladybugs eat aphids. Birds and hedgehogs eat slugs. Let a natural ecosystem exist, and you won’t have to worry about pesticides and fumigation.

Saving your crops

Of course, if you attract lots of insects and birds, there’s a chance they might devour your hard-won fruit and herbs. Having had last years cabbage plants eaten in their entirety by a hungry pheasant, I know how quickly things can get decimated.

The quickest and easiest way to stop them is to do the following:

• Put netting over young fruit trees and bushes.
• Use physical barriers like raised beds to get them away from birds like ducks and pheasants.
• Grow lots of honeysuckle, and put out bird feeders. Give the birds other things to eat, and they’ll not bother with the fruit.

If anybody else has suggestions, please let me know! Managing pests and predators is one of the biggest challenges in outdoor gardening.

This weekend is the spring bank holiday weekend – a three day weekend (at least for those who don’t work in retail, call-centres, waste collection services, pubs, restaurants, and whatever other businesses have had to shift to a 24/7 working culture) that I take as an inspiration to celebrate the beauty of late spring.

Over the last week I have added six tomato plants to my garden, courtesy of a work friend who grew too many. I have also lost my two out of three of my thyme plants that had just progressed outside and then got battered by a surprise rainstorm.

On bin collection day I had no landfill rubbish to put – a testament to the compost bins more than anything.

The Great Decluttering Project goes slowly but steadily onwards. I have almost finished all my CD’s – a long task as some were full of old backed-up work and art that had to be transferred onto my hard-drive. I have discovered a company that you can ship old CD’s and DVD’s to and who will recycle them for you. SImply send the CD’s, by themselves, to

Polymer Recycling Ltd
Peninsula Business Park
Reeds Lane
Moreton
Wirral
CH46 1DW

Now, however, I am off to Wales. One of my favourite places to go, a quiet little town near Cardiff. I am going to spend time with a good friend, and just relax for a couple of days and enjoy being alive.

There are several ‘zones’ outlined in permaculture, which go from the house right out to the wilderness. The purpose of each zone is different, and our level of impact on it is also different. I want to talk a bit about each zone and how we can simplify the way we work and live within it, and discuss simple ways of bringing each zone in alignment with permaculture principles.

Zone 1

Zone 1 are the outside areas that we spend most of our time in. It is not, necessarily, the areas closest to our house. This zone contains our most frequently visited plants, that usually include herbs for cooking and any kind of instant cut-and-eat type leafy vegetable. It will also contain seedlings and plants that need a lot of attention in the form of watering etc.

You want these plants close to where they will be used. Herbs should be on the kitchen windows, or just outside the kitchen door. Seedlings should be on a path travelled every day – maybe the front walkway to your car when you go to work, or maybe the path to the chicken hutch for when you go to feed them. The idea is to minimise the effort needed to utilise them. You aren’t going to walk to your allotment three blocks down to snip a few sprigs of rosemary!

We can simplify this zone in the following ways:

• Grow a limited number of herbs and seedlings. Grow only the herbs that you actually use for your cooking – Ferm has written a great guide on ‘Herbs to Grow for Ethnic Cuisines‘ As always, don’t just grab the cheapest mixed herbs container from your supermarket – instead, really think about what you need and use.
• Use labels for plants so you remember what they are! I also like to write down some very basic info about the plant, e.g. ‘water often, full sun’ or something similar.
• Pick plants that are hardy and flourish with the minimum of attention. This will vary depending on where you live, but plants like basil, thyme, coriander, and rosemary are good choices.

Everyone can grow plants in Zone 1.

There are many people who don’t have gardens, or balconies, or patios. You might not have space for a full-blown vegetable garden, but most people can find the room for a window box with cut-n-grow again salad leaves, or a few pots of herbs.

Growing your own herbs and salad leaves can:

• Lessen our dependence on big-chain supermarkets that import food from countries thousands of miles away.
• Decrease the number of ‘food miles’ we contribute to, and accordingly lessen our contribution to pollution and the draining of our oil reserves.
• Increase the amount of nutrients we get from our food by giving us extremely fresh produce.
• Give you control over the growing conditions of your food; lessens your exposure to chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and other nasties.
• Connects you with your food, and with nature.
• Provides a feeling of independence and self-sufficiency

Even just one pot of parsley makes a difference.