Bean Sprouts

Save the Tree House

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:20:00 +0000

I saw this on Allotment Lady's blog. Someone who lives in her village built this tree house out of recycled materials, on his parents land and far away from any other houses. It's not a residence, it's just a project for some students who wanted to "opt out of the drink and drugs culture" and do something worthwhile instead. But now he and his friends are fighting to prevent it being pulled down under planning laws.

Visit the Treehouse website for more information about the project and more videos. If you want to support their fight, please sign the petition.

Celery

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

I've never grown celery before, but apparently this is how you do it. It needs support, so you sow it in three-feet-square blocks with a cane at each corner. You wind string around in this pattern. Then you can plant nine celery plants and they will all get support from the string. You can add more string higher up as it grows.

I've searched the internet, and I can't find anywhere else it recommends doing this. But this is the method told to me by my allotment gardening guru, so I'm going to stick with it and see how it turns out.

Rhubarb Flower

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Did you know that rhubarb has flowers? I didn't. It makes sense - most plants have flowers of some kind. Generally, gardeners like flowers on plants where you eat the fruit or the seeds. But they don't like them on plants where you eat the leaves, stem or root. Once a plant has made flowers and set seeds, it stops putting energy into the other parts of the plant. Last year some of my onions did it, and when I cut up the onion bulbs they were all hollow in the middle. So gardeners are alert to plants "bolting" (it means making flowers, often on the end of a tall stalk), and the chop the flowerheads off when they see them.

I've never seen rhubarb flowers before, but this year rhubarb is bolting all over the allotments. It could be that the weather conditions are right for flowering rhubarb. But I've long had a sneaking suspicion that bolting plants send some sort of chemical signal to their fellows. When you let one go, they all start. Of course, that would also happen if they were all responding to the same weather conditions. What do you think? Is my "chemical signal" theory just rubbish, or is there something to it?

Anyway, the wonderfully phallic rhubarb flowers had to get the chop. I winced when I did it, but they had to go, or they would have sapped the plant and I wouldn't get any lovely pink rhubarb to eat and make chutney out of.

Butterflies

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:44:00 +0000

Butterflies
By Patricia Grace

The Grandmother plaited her granddaughter's hair and then she said, "Get your lunch. Put it in your bag. Get your apple. You come straight back after school, straight home here. Listen to the teacher," she said. "Do what she say."

Her grandfather was out on the step. He walked down the path with her and out onto the footpath. He said to a neighbor, "Our granddaughter goes to school. She lives with us now."
"She's fine," the neighbor said. "She's terrific with her two plaits in her hair."
"And clever," the grandfather said. "Writes every day in her book."
"She's fine," the neighbor said.

The grandfather waited with his granddaughter by the crossing and then he said, "Go to school. Listen to the teacher. Do what she say."

When the granddaughter came home from school her grandfather was hoeing around the cabbages. Her grandmother was picking beans. They stopped their work.
"You bring your book home?" the grandmother asked.
"Yes."
"You write your story?"
"Yes."
"What's your story?"
"About the butterflies."
"Get your book then. Read your story."
The granddaughter took her book from her schoolbag and opened it.
"I killed all the butterflies," she read. "This is me and this is all the butterflies."
"And your teacher like your story, did she?"
"I don't know."
"What your teacher say?"
"She said butterflies are beautiful creatures. They hatch out and fly in the sun. The butterflies visit all the pretty flowers, she said. They lay their eggs and then they die. You don't kill butterflies, that's what she said."
The grandmother and the grandfather were quiet for a long time, and their granddaughter, holding the book, stood quite still in the warm garden.

"Because you see," the grandfather said, "your teacher, she buy all her cabbages from the supermarket and that's why."

Patricia Grace is a Maori writer of novels, short stories and children's books.

The image is from Repeating Patterns of Mimicry. Meyer A, PLoS Biology, Vol. 4/10/2006, e341 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040341 and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. In short: you are free to distribute and modify the file as long as you attribute its author(s) or licensor(s).

Waitrose 1 - Poynton 0

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:56:00 +0000

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

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

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

Recycled Plant Markers

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

There's lots of ways to make recycled plant markers. I'm always baffled why you can buy them in the shops. Who would pay money for rectangular bits of plastic?

I've used yogurt pots, plastic milk containers, ice cream tubs, but this time I used an old margarine tub. You'll also need some scissors and a marker pen.

Cut down the sides of the margarine tub to get lots of short plant labels suitable for plant pots. If you want longer labels suitable for the garden or allotment, you could cut down one corner of the tub, then cut horizontally. Or you could use a bigger container to start with.

When you have made lots of vertical cuts, snip all your rectangles off along the bottom.

You can use the bottom of the tub, too. Just cut it into strips.

Trim one end of your label into a point to make it easier to push it into the earth.

Make sure you write with a permanent marker. It's really annoying if the plant names when you water them.

Daily Service

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:19:00 +0000

My choir, St George's Singers, are singing the Daily Service live on Radio 4 this morning. If you tune in to Radio 4 (198 LW) at 9:45 am you'll hear me (and a few dozen other people) singing two hymns and a Vaughan Williams piece. Don't worry if you miss it because you can listen again on the Radio 4 website afterwards. I'll post the link once it's up.

Update: To listen again, go to the Daily Service webpage. Find Listen again to the Daily Service and look for Wednesday 7 May, Crowned with honour and glory, Tony Rogers. Click on the Listen button. You'll need to have RealPlayer installed.

Start Composting Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:00:00 +0000

As it's Compost Awareness Week, May's challenge is to start composting. I'll be blogging about composting all through May, so look out for posts about different composting systems, benefits of composting, compost troubleshooting and anything else that occurs to me.

Please vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar if you're ready to take the challenge.

Hug Your Allotment Chairperson

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

On our allotments, right next to the entrance, is a huge heap of manure. Someone laid a few paving stones to make it easier to get round this bog of eternal stench. The other day I was chatting to one of the plot-holders who was grousing about the paving stones.

"They should have made the stones more level. And they should put more down," she complained.
"Who is they?" I asked, "There is no they. There's only you, and me, and all the other plot holders here. One of us put the stones there. If you think there should be more, you do it."

I probably didn't make a friend that day.

But it makes me mad. Who is this invisible army of young, well-paid labourers who she thinks does all the work around the allotments? I'll tell you who. It's our allotment chairperson, and a couple of others on the committee. But they're not paid at all, in fact they have to pay rent on their plots the same as anyone else. Their average age is about 102 (warning - statistics in this blog post are made up). They have no budget, but when they see someone throwing out a few paving stones, or some old carpet, or some hawthorn hedge trimmings, they pick them up and bring them to the allotments to make good use of them. I've had a think about some other things I know they do, and I've made a list:

They mend the fences when hooligans break them
They repair the lawnmowers and keep them filled with petrol
They arrange the delivery of big piles of manure
They lay stepping stones to help people get past the manure
They put up with people whinging about the above two points
They liaise with the council, who own the allotments
They arrange delivery of compost, fertiliser, seed potatoes, onion sets and all the other things in the shed
They make sure they are on site to take delivery of these things.
They used to empty the toilet bucket, and now we have a chemical toilet they empty that (for that alone they deserve a medal)
They collect the rents and pay them to the council
They maintain the waiting list and the allocation of vacant plots
They keep their own plots in spic-and-span order
They dispense free advice to newbies

There's probably millions of other things I don't even know about. Even if you have complaints about your allotment association committee (and allotment-holders always seem to blame their committee for something-or-other), they deserve your gratitude and your respect.

So hug your allotment chairperson the next time you see him or her. Or at least shake his hand and say a heartfelt "Thank you". I'm sure a bottle of malt whisky wouldn't go amiss, if you feel so moved. They really do a heck of a lot of work for no reward at all, in fact they usually catch a lot of flack instead.

Carnival of the Green # 126

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Bean Sprouts is proud to host the 126th Carnival of the Green. Thanks to the previous host, The Conservation Report, who hosted on April 28th.

All photographs come from the blogs featured. Click the photo to go to the blog.

Marguerite Manteau-Rao of La Marguerite offers When Blogging is not Enough, a heartfelt reflection on the limitations of green blogging, followed by a lively discussion from readers on its merits, and why blogging is a valuable tool in the climate fight.

Joel from Life Goggles offers a video review of a Fairtrade Soccer Ball, and finds out it takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex.

Earth Day Preachin' Misses the (M)Ark - Grist tries to faith-i-fy their Earth Day blogging with this sermon on Noah and the Ark by Ken Ward of the Unitarian-Universalist First Church in Jamaica Plain, Mass. Don Bosch at The Evangelical Ecologist says his reasoning for taking care of God's critters doesn't stand up to scrutiny

Chad of Digiblog offers Fore: Golf and the Environment, a discussion of the positive and negative contributions of golf to the environment.

Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish offers Earth Day 2008: Pieces of a World that I Love, a moving photo essay remembering that our earth is more than some elusive green wilderness. It's everything around us every day.

Luann Rudolph of Take Back The Filter writes Take Back the Filter Catches Clorox’s Attention. Clorox responds to our effort but needs much more encouragement from consumers to develop a recycling program for BRITA cartridges in North America.

Lynn from OrganicMania also has issues with Clorox in Still No In-Store Refill Containers for Clorox Green Works. Companies "going green" need to explore all aspects of a product's environmental impact - including packaging.

Argh! No! I didn't want to read this! Sally Kneidel of Veggie Revolution offers Housecats Kill Hundreds of Millions of Birds Annually. She says:

Housecats kill hundreds of millions of American birds and small mammals every year, and it isn't "natural" predation. Read Veggie Revolution this week and find links to the American Bird Conservancy's Cats Indoors! program, and the Humane Society's data showing that indoor cats are both healthier and much longer-lived.

I'm getting a kitten in a few weeks' time and once he's neutered he won't be an indoor cat. This is one of those issues that rouses strong feelings on both sides, as demonstrated by the comments on Sally's post.

Lill Hawkins of LILL’s LIST offers It’s Spring! Time to Think About A Greener Winter. After a long, cold, Maine winter, all we want to do is revel in the warmer days and spring pursuits, like gardening and getting outside. Unfortunately, that's exactly what we shouldn't be doing. It's even more important to think about winter in the spring than it is in the winter.

Another video entry from Joe of Green Thinking for the Average Joe in Hypercars - Crazy Efficient Cars Presented by Amory Lovins. A short summary of how much more efficient cars could be, and a great 10-minute video about hypercars.

Neil guest posts at Allie's Answers as part of his Cambodia Challenge to tell us about a yoga mat that's ecofriendly and effective.

L. Jordan Contreras of Guffly offers What the Filter, which describes the benefits of using reusable filtered water bottles.

That's it from this Carnival. The 127th Carnival of the Green will be published on May 12th at The Evangelical Ecologist.

Vegetarian Challenge Results

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:44:00 +0000

April's challenge was to eat a vegetarian meal a week. 176 people voted in the poll and the results were as follows:

I'll have a vegetarian meal each week! 13% (23 votes)
I already eat vegetarian at least once a week! 65% (115 votes)
Life without bacon is not worth living! 9% (16 votes)
I'm 100% vegan! 12% (22 votes)

Thanks to everyone who voted. I hope those of you who took up the challenge enjoyed your vegetarian meals, and keep up the habit of having a meat-free dinner once in a while.

A new challenge for May will be posted soon.

Compost Awareness Week

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:23:00 +0000

May 4th - 10th is Compost Awareness Week. You can download Enjoy "a newsletter full of hints and tips to keep you composting". You can buy composting accessories. And I love this - you can search for Composting Events in your area.

But the best thing, I think, is the fun Flash game about composting.

Have fun!

Carpooling Video

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Sun, 04 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Funny YouTube video about carpooling.
"Carpooling - it's a great way to help the environment. And besides, it's way better than disco or mullets"

Cartoon thanks to Marc Roberts at Throbgoblins. Click on the panel to read the whole strip.

Starting to Look Like a Proper Allotment

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:13:00 +0000

Well so much for the weather forecast. I went down to the allotment before 8am in case it rained later, but it stayed dry all day. At 10am I came back and picked up the rest of the family and we all stayed on the plot until 5pm. We weeded the garlic. It's looking good - I'm really keen for the harvest. I helped Eleanor plant her part of the allotment with sweet peas, pansies, violas and other multicoloured flowers. She didn't want anything edible in her part of the plot, just flowers.

We weeded, dug and manured a scary weedy area full of ground elder and dock. We sowed peas, planted cabbages, celery, and Jerusalem artichokes, and created an area for Tom. He wants to grow carrots, strawberries, blackberries and bananas. I asked him if he wanted any flowers, but he doesn't.

It doesn't sound much when I write it down, but we must have put in 15 back-breaking man-hours. I've caught the sun on my arms and the back of my neck. Ed says it's starting to look like a proper allotment.

Tomorrow if the weather stays good we'll weed the soft fruit and tackle another scary weedy area. I've still got some red cabbages and some onions (red and white) to plant, and I want to sow my runner beans. That will be the whole of the "old" part of the allotment, leaving only the new area to do. If some of the bits we've got now are scary weedy areas, that part is a terrifying jungle, but I'm determined to tame it this bank holiday weekend.

Gardening Leave

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:09:00 +0000

"Gardening leave" is usually a euphemism for someone being suspended from their job. But Ed actually took a day of his precious holiday time to work on the allotment.

We dropped the kids at school at 9am, and then spent all day at the plot. At 3pm I collected the kids from school whilst Ed remained on the allotment for another hour. Then we swapped shifts and I stayed on digging for another couple of hours. All told I think we did about 12 man-hours today.

We weeded about half the area we had last year (we have a new bit - a scary jungle to be tackled later). We dug and manured the bare areas and planted leeks, carrots, curled borecole, calabrese, purple sprouting broccoli, cauliflowers, and French marigolds. Yes I know it's supposed to be tagetes for companion planting, but I couldn't find any. And the main reason I wanted them is that I resolved to have more flowers on the plot, just for pleasure, so French marigolds are as good as anything.

We weeded amongst the overwintered shallots and broad beans, so now we can see how well they're coming along. We weeded and tidied the herb bed and planted some bronze fennel and rosemary for height at the back.

We strimmed the green manure I planted in late autumn and Ed dug it it. Ed says he does not like green manure, simply because he does not like the "digging it in" part. If anyone wants to tell us that part is not necessary, we'd be pleased to hear from you. In any case, there is an enormous pile of the brown sort of manure and we made good use of it, so the green type seems unnecessary.

Fortunately the weather remained glorious all day. The forecast says heavy rain over the weekend, although Monday (a bank holiday here in the UK, and the reason for Ed's non-euphemistic gardening leave) is forecast to be fine. We'll see. When it's fair, we'll garden, and when it's pouring, we'll do something else. When you put it like that, the forecast is neither here nor there.

A Spring Clean for the May Queen

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:01:00 +0000

It's May 1st - May Day, Beltane, Walpurgis Night, whatever turns you on. Like a clock that chimes the hours to remind us of the turning day, these festivals remind us of the turning year. In the case of May Day, spring is passing into summer and the festivals at this time of year emphasise flowers, dancing and fertility in its earthiest sense. The Maypole, the May queen, 'Obby 'Oss, the Furry Dance and the other components of May Day celebrations all tend to be about fertility.

It's hardly surprising. Everywhere I look I can see animals trying to attract mates. The blue tit who is working his little rocks off furnishing the bird box in my back yard is doing that because he hopes to attract a mate. Dad reports the swallows are flying acrobatically in a very different way than when they are hoovering up as many insects as possible - they are showing off their flying prowess in fierce competition for mates. And in the field behind my house, the cows have been joined by the bull. Poor bull spends most of his year all by himself, but this is the season when he gets to hang with the ladies and do what bulls like to do. The sap is rising and all creatures are trying to make babies, so they can feed the babies whilst food is plentiful through the summer, so that by the winter time the young ones are strong enough to survive the cold hungry time until next spring, when it all starts all over again.

Some people think that there's too much sex on TV, movies, magazines and so on nowadays. I disagree. I think the problem is that the media show a weird, distorted view of sex - it's all about impossibly perfect photoshopped young women's bodies being ogled by men. There is no recognition at all in the media of sex for old people, sex for fat people, sex for just ordinary normal people. You don't see women enjoying sex, you don't see sex in the context of a relationship (it's well known that married people don't have sex), and nothing about fertility or making babies. In fact we all seem to become terribly prudish whenever anyone refers to sex in those contexts. I'd like to see a return of a natural, lusty, earthy approach to sex, with an absence of embarrassment and hang-ups. Maybe I should erect an enormous Maypole in the middle of Poynton park. Would you join me?

Make A Little Birdhouse In Your Soul

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:28:00 +0000

I've been watching a bluetit carrying nesting materials to the birdhouse in our back garden. Hopefully he'll attract a mate and raise a clutch of chicks like last year. Here are some images I found when searching for "recycled bird house". Each image is a link to the page it comes from. Some of them have instructions how to make the item, some are ready-made items for sale, and some are out-of-date and no longer for sale, but I thought they could be inspiration for your own recycled bird house projects.

If you make a recycled bird house, please email me a photo, and say whether you're happy for your image to be used on the blog.

School Banner

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:44:00 +0000

Here is the banner Steph helped me sew together for the kids' school. Eleanor is making her first holy communion this month, and each member of her class painted a sacrament-related design onto a 1' square of fabric. The teacher asked me to assemble all 30 squares into a banner.

Eleanor's square is the second from the right on the top row. It's a funky-looking yellow bird representing the Holy Spirit, with multicoloured embellishments and glitter. Here it is enlarged. Eleanor always uses colour lavishly in her paintings. Years ago all her class coloured in angels at Christmas time. Most of the children used tasteful combinations of white, silver and gold to colour their angels. Eleanor coloured hers with stripes using every pen in the set; hers was a groovy rainbow hippy angel.

At the end of the school year, the banner will be cut up and each child will take their artwork home. I wonder if I'll be asked to hem all 30 squares? Probably.

Zen and the Art of Mowing the Lawn

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:56:00 +0000

When I got the lawnmower out for the first time this year I had to spend half an hour cleaning the grass that was firmly glued to every surface. Last year was a horrible washout and we eventually had to mow the lawn when it was wet, because it never dried out at all and it would have been knee-high if we hadn't mowed it sometime. The wheels of the mower ground up the spongy, waterlogged soil, damaging the lawn. The wet grass didn't cut very well, especially the tough stalks which had developed in the long period between mowing. The soggy grass cuttings stuck to all parts of the lawnmower and were difficult to clean off; eventually we gave up trying. Mowing the lawn in 2007 was a miserable experience.

But last Saturday, ah, that's a different story. I had forgotten the simple pleasure of cutting the lawn with a properly functioning mower on a warm dry day. The hum of the mower, the delicious sharp smell of the cut grass, the birdsong in the distance, the heat of the sun on my back. I felt as though I could have mowed forever. Then sitting down with a cold glass of beer afterwards and surveying a job well done. Heaven must be just like this.

It was during this "surveying" period that I noticed various nasty holes and patches in the lawn. Sam helped me fork out the weeds and moss, prepare the soil surface, and sow some new grass seed to fill the gaps. On Monday he brought home a small scarecrow he had made at school. There was really only one place to put it. Sam's scarecrow stands in the middle of the front lawn, deterring any birds who might want to eat our grass seed before it grows.

Slow Cooker v Pressure Cooker - Similarities

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:32:00 +0000

I recently wrote a comparison of the an article comparing the nutrient content of food cooked in a pressure cooker and a slow cooker, prompted by Clare of Veg Box Recipes blog who was confused because:

Both claim that their method preserves the highest number of nutrients and gives maximum flavour.

Can they both be right?

I found that unfortunately there isn't really any hard data about the nutrients. But what about taste?

I find them to be quite similar in this respect. They're both good for casseroles and soups. Everything you put in the pot ends up tasting the same. Flavours merge; for example, if you put a quartered chicken, a few vegetables, and some stock, red wine and herbs in the pot, the chicken will end up tasting of vegetables, the vegetables will end up tasting of chicken, and everything will be infused with the flavour of red wine and herbs. This is true of both pressure cooking and slow cooking.

Another thing they both have in common is that (depending on the timing) everything becomes very tender. Even cheap, tough cuts of meat become drop-off-the-bone tender, and even woody vegetables like parsnips become about-to-collapse soft.

Finally, they are both cheaper than conventional cooking methods. The slow cooker is cheaper because it draws very little electricity, and even though it is left on for several hours it is comparable to leaving a conventional lightbulb on for several hours, a very different proposition from running an electric oven for several hours. The pressure cooker is cheaper because it only runs for a few minutes, or a few tens of minutes at most, and it runs on the hob. Again this is obviously a lot cheaper than cooking a casserole in your oven for a few hours.

There will be two more articles in this series comparing pressure cookers and slow cookers. The next article will look at differences between the two methods, and the final article will include some of my favourite recipes for them. If you would like to share your favourite recipes, please email them to me. I'd particularly like to hear vegetarian recipes, and recipes that aren't for soups or casseroles.

Eco-Friendly Web Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:02:00 +0000

My sister, Stephanie, found a chart of UK seasonal food, showing what food is in season each month. I like it because it not only lists fruit and vegetables but also meat and fish. Steph has printed it out and stuck it up in her kitchen, I think that's a great idea.

I also found a website with PDFs of lots of different kinds of free printable paper, such as graph paper (in about a bazillion different grid sizes), dotted paper, lined paper, handwriting paper, musical manuscript paper, all available for A4, letter size and legal size. It's got to be frugal and more environmentally-friendly to print out just a few pages of Graph Paper with ten lines per inch and heavy index lines on letter-sized paper rather than to buy a whole pad of the stuff. And I use recycled printer paper (and often use both sides) - where are you going to find Dot Paper with four dots per inch on A4-sized paper on recycled paper? (Via rec.crafts.textiles.quilting)

Finally, there's a new blog about growing fruit in pots. I like it because it helps bring a little bit of self-sufficiency to people who don't have a five-acre smallholding. It's quite young, but there is already some super photography there, and good information about pest-control and recycling. I'll be keeping my eye on it.

I'll Be Just Fine, Says Planet

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Funny story from the satirical website The Daily Mash.

The Earth spoke out after a series of books, television programmes and environmental campaigns urged people to do everything in their power to 'Save the Planet'.

Earth, 4,000,000,000, said last night: "I'll be absolutely fine, seriously. I might get a bit warmer and a bit wetter, but to be honest, that actually sounds quite nice."

The planet said environmental campaigners should change their slogan from 'Save the Planet' to something more relevant such as 'Save Your Sorry Arse'.

As you may have spotted, the article contains some swearing. That said, if you want to read the whole story it's here: I'LL BE JUST FINE, SAYS PLANET

Cartoon from Throbgoblins. Click the panel to read the whole strip.

10 Reasons to Cook with Quorn

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:42:00 +0000

There are only four days left to participate in our Try A Vegetarian Meal Challenge. If you are running out of inspiration, here are ten good reasons to try a Quorn dish:

1. You can get Quorn chunks (which are rather like chunks of chicken), Quorn mince (which is like beef mince) and Quorn beef-style strips (which are self-explanatory).

2. Point 1. means that you can easily make many of your favourite meat-based recipes vegetarian. We like Quorn chili, Quorn lasagna, Quorn fajitas and Quorn Thai green curry, for example.

3. You can offer a vegetarian and non-veggie choice without all the trouble of making two totally separate meals, for example by making rice, Thai green curry sauce with vegetables, then pouring half the sauce over some heated Quorn chunks and the other half over cooked chicken pieces.

4. Quorn sausages make nice sausage casseroles, as well as bangers and mash, toad-in-the-hole, and Ed's favourite - sausage sandwiches.

5. Quorn is much lower in fat than the meat it imitates, so it can be a healthier option, especially as, just like meat, it contains high-quality protein.

6. Unlike meat, Quorn contains fibre which also makes it a good addition to a healthy diet.

7. Because it is similar in taste and texture (not identical, but similar) to meat, it can help die-hard carnivores cut some of the meat out of their diets. You know, the sort of people who would sooner starve than knowingly eat a lentil.

8. Because you use it in the same sorts of recipes as meat, you don't have to learn a whole lot of new cooking skills (such as how to cook lentils).

9. Quorn is lower in calories than meat and contains no cholesterol. So if you're watching your weight or your cholesterol levels you can still enjoy some of your favourite meals just by switching to Quorn.

10. Boil some water and cook some spaghetti. Fry an onion, add a tin of tomatoes, a pack of Quorn mince, and some Italian mixed herbs. By the time the spaghetti is cooked, the sauce will be cooked, too (Quorn is already cooked, it just needs heating through). If you've got some Parmesan cheese, put that on top. If not, just forget it. Quorn spaghetti bolognese is just as quick as heating up a ready meal - much quicker than phoning for pizza delivery - and it's tastier and healthier than either.

What is Quorn anyway? It's made from a fungus that occurs naturally in soil. Sometimes it's described as "mushroom-based" - that's stretching it a bit. The fungus it's made from is a microscopic mould, not a mushroom like the ones you put in your omelette. On the other hand I've heard detractors describe it as genetically modified - that's not "stretching it a bit", it's just hooey. The FAQ page of the Quorn website states clearly:

Q: Do Quorn products contain genetically modified ingredients?

A: The main component of all Quorn products is mycoprotein, which is not soya-based, but is a member of the mushroom family. This is grown and harvested under strict quality controls and we can therefore reassure you that it is not a product of genetic manipulation.

Quorn is approved by the Vegetarian Society who do not allow any GM ingredients in approved foods, so that's that. Anyway, they grow this stuff in huge vats, dry it out, then process it, adding egg white (as a binder) and flavours to make it resemble chicken, mince, sliced ham, or whatever. It's a processed food, but then again so is cheese.

It occurs to me that this article reads like an advert, so I'll just be clear. I have no affiliation to Quorn. They haven't paid me or asked me to write this or anything fishy like that. I'm just a satisfied customer. We probably eat Quorn about once a week in our house. The main reason is that it bridges the gap between the carnivores and the vegetarians in our family. If it was just up to me, I'd probably never eat it - when I felt like chicken fajitas I'd eat chicken, and when I felt like a vegetarian meal I'd make dishes based on beans, lentils, quinoa and all the other vegetarian protein sources I enjoy. I resisted using Quorn for a long time because it felt like cheating. It's not "natural", it's a factory-made processed food. But so is cheese, so is tofu, so is bread unless you make it at home. When I gave in I found that a lot of new dinner possibilities opened up to me. Instead of reading a recipe and thinking "That sounds really nice, but it contains meat. I'll have to wait till Steph visits and make it for the two of us", now I often read a recipe and think "That sounds really nice. I'll switch the chicken for Quorn and make it for me and Ed next week".

So it's your last chance to join in the Try A Vegetarian Meal Challenge. Why not try converting your favourite chicken or mince-based dish to Quorn? Don't forget to vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar when you've done it.

Little Black Flies on Houseplants

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:22:00 +0000

Do you ever get those nasty little black flies on your houseplants? Clouds of the buggers fly up whenever you disturb the plant. They're really gross.

They're called sciarid flies, fungus gnats or mushroom flies. And you've only yourself to blame; they eat rotting vegetable matter, such as the rotting roots of your chronically over-watered houseplants. The flies don't do any damage to your plant. If an infected plant dies it's usually from the over-watering that attracted the gnats in the first place. The flies are the symptom, not the cause.

Fortunately, the treatment is simple and completely organic. First of all let the poor old plant dry out. It won't harm the plant to do this, in fact it will probably do it a power of good. But mainly you're trying to disrupt the gnats' life cycle. The eggs take about a week to hatch, so if you can keep the soil dry for a couple of weeks you should be able to kill the already-hatched larvae by desiccating them, any larvae that hatch from the eggs after a week will also desiccate, and the adults will have no rotting roots to feed on so they should die too. So you can see that two weeks of dryness should sort the problem out.

If you feel you need an extra line of attack you could get some sticky yellow traps from your garden centre. I don't think they have a proprietary name, just ask for "sticky yellow fly traps for houseplants". These attract the flies - apparently it's the yellow colour that attracts them, not any chemical or scent or anything. And the stickiness is just glue that sticks the flies down and traps them - there's no pesticide in the traps. So this is an organic approach that should help get rid of the nasty little blighters.

Once you've eliminated the flies you might want to put a physical barrier on top of the soil to deter them coming back. An inch-thick layer of sand or fine gravel will prevent females from laying their eggs in the soil.

Finally - STOP OVER-WATERING YOUR POOR PLANTS! Always feel the soil before you water them and if the soil is moist then don't add any more water. Don't let the plant sit in a saucer full of water all day, or worse still for days and days. If there is water in the saucer half an hour after watering, pour it away. Different plants need different watering regimes, so don't water all your plants at the same time. If your moisture-loving Boston fern is looking crinkly round the edges then give it a drink, but you shouldn't water your drought-tolerant Easter cactus at the same time every time. Plants in great big pots need less frequent watering than plants in little pots, although obviously they need more water each time.

Good luck with the sciarid flies, if you have them. And if you don't, give yourself a pat on the back for not over-watering your plants.

Slow Cooker v Pressure Cooker - Nutrients

noreply@blogger.com (Melanie Rimmer) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:34:00 +0000

Clare of Veg Box Recipes blog is confused about the advantages of slow cookers compared to pressure cookers. Specifically she is confused because:

... the proponents of both pressure cookers and slow cookers claim their method is the best way of cooking food. Both claim that their method preserves the highest number of nutrients and gives maximum flavour.

Can they both be right?

I dunno, Clare. I see the source of your confusion - one cooks really fast, the other cooks really slow. They seem like opposites, so how can they both be the best?

Some nutrients are destroyed by heat, which suggests that slow cookers (which cook at below boiling point) might preserve more nutrients than pressure cookers (which cook at much higher than boiling point, made possible because of the increased pressure). On the other hand, the slow cool cooking process in a slow cooker can lead to loss of nutrients through enzyme action. These enzymes would normally be denatured by cooking, but because it takes longer for a slow cooker to reach the temperature at which that happens, the enzymes have longer to destroy the nutrients.

So where does that leave us? Nowhere, to be honest. I can't find any data comparing the nutrient content of slow cooked v pressure cooked food. If you know of any reliable data I'd love to hear about it. Otherwise all I can offer is an item of faith - a home-cooked meal from fresh ingredients is likely to contain more nutrients than any ready-meal or fast-food meal, regardless of the cooking method.

I have more to say about slow cookers and pressure cookers, so look out for other articles to come. I'd also love to hear (and maybe try) your favourite pressure and slow cooker recipes. Please email me with recipes or hard facts about nutrients.