Category: Environment

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WEATHER

Excellent. Perhaps not usual July weather, but wet and cool. My water butts are full, I am saved an hour or two of watering and all my new plants seem to be thriving. The forecast is for a bit of heat wave later in the month so I look forward to enjoying the best of the British weather at its best, providing a little of something for everyone.

My tomatoes are nearly ready for ripening (I have picked 3 so far) but my next job is drying herbs and putting in jars, jam making, then sun dried tomatoes.

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FINALLY

At last we have a policy from Labour. And a very sensible one too. “Make, sell and buy more from Britain”. makes total sense. Economically we need to reduce the debt and increasing manufacturing, especially in high tech and environmental areas would also create skilled, well paid jobs. Educationally we need to shift away from University for the sake of it to more engineering and vocational courses. That is without cutting support for the arts and media where we are already world leaders. Like. it or not, and I do not, Brexit is here – so we need to make the best of it. It is creating problems that will need ingenuity to overcome – a favourite quote of mine is from Boserup “necessity is the mother of invention”.

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SHARING

In my road we all have (or had – my rewinding!) 5/6m sq front gardens which are lawns. Yet we all have a lawn mower which we use once a fortnight or longer. And then we have our power drills (used rarely) and so many other appliances like this. I would love to lend out the following pasta maker, yoghurt maker, ravioli maker, pizza stone, jam saucepan (big) and maybe even the food mixer although I do use it regularly, but many do not – and I never used to. I have offered to lend all these things, but no one takes me up? Does this make me a freak for making my own pasta and pizza and yoghurt? But we should share more!

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SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE

Millions of our children attend schools where air pollution is above WHO limits. Most appear to be in urban areas, although not all large – e.g. Ipswich. Several things need to be put in place to solve this.

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ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

In North Somerset now is the time. The sun is shining, the flowers are outing still fresh. So not particularly cheap, but wholesome homemade cordials. I have made more in the past but it is best to keep to the seasons, so the recipe below will last several weeks if in sterilised bottles.

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TREES IN A BUNGALOW!

Some trees do not grow well outside in the UK – and thus I now have 2 lemon trees, a lime tree, and have just bought an olive tree to put in the conservatory. One lemon and the lime being in the porch. The trees are about 1.3m high at the moment!

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LAWNS

Why do you have a lawn? If you can answer positively and say you use it for whatever, that is fine. How many people mow a small lawn using electricity or petrol, for no other purpose than to stop the grass growing? I am not advocating concrete or even plastic grass – but what is the point?

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CROWD FARMING

I have just received my second purchase from Crowd Farming Both times the deliveries have been fast and the quality excellent. Firstly clementines then olive oil. The price is ok – not the cheapest but organic olive oil for £10 ltr is not bad.

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RHS BRIDGEWATER

A new 154 acre garden is opening in Salford. Admission £12.10 or £7.70 if you arrive by bike or on foot. Locals free on Tuesdays and GP’s can prescribe visits instead of anti-depressants. Costing £35 million the site will hopefully generate £13 million for the local economy. The site is a former scrap yard, derelict area. I think this could be replicated in many area. It is sort of a more practical Eden Project?

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