Twisting Vines

Bean wigwam

Juliet Kemp — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:36:01 +0000

Lousy weather notwithstanding, I am soldiering onwards with planting in the back garden. (And, indeed, some things are even growing.) This week, it was time to establish the new bean wigwam.

First job was to prise up some more paving slabs, as this is an area I haven’t used before. Next, to shove a few bamboo canes firmly into the ground and tie them together. Here it is, modelled by my glamorous and somewhat grubby assistants Leon and Sidney:

Paving slabs up, sticks in, lots of sand (underneath which is London clay).

The other beds are all standard raised beds (made from pallets), but this time I haven’t had a chance to build a proper bed. So for now I’m just piling compost around the poles and planting into that. Leon helped me to trowel compost out of the bag and spread it in a circle.

Finally, after Leon was in bed (so I wouldn’t have to hoick him out of the compost heap), I dug a few spadefuls of not-yet-composted material out of the compost heap, and piled that in the middle of the wigwam. (Ideally I’d have done this before setting up the poles, but baby and dog assistance precluded.) The idea is that the beans will surround this pile as it composts down, creating new soil in the middle of the bed. Once the beans are done for the year I can also chop those off at the base, leaving their roots in place to help improve the ground, and pile the rest of the dead bean plants in over the compost to rot down further over the winter. This bed only gets sun during the summer so won’t be in use in winter anyway.

French bean seeds planted around the poles, and I was all done.

Sleeper trains with a co-sleeping baby

Juliet Kemp — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:14:06 +0000

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m expert at sleeper train travel with a 1 year old, but in the past 6 months we’ve taken 3 sleeper train journeys and 1 overnight ferry, so here’s the quick run-down on experiences so far.

Aberdeen-London, Scotrail single berth compartment: narrow berth, not really enough room for adult + baby (Leon was 9 months at the time). But the bottom bunk is flat and has no gap down the back, so I wasn’t worried about safety. The two-berth compartments are the same style.

London-Venice, Thello, six-berth compartment: this was not the intended mode of transport, but the carriage containing our intended two-berth compartment was broken. (Even more broken, we assume, than the replacement, which is impressive.) The six-berth style compartment we actually travelled in (thankfully not sharing with anyone else, for which I was especially grateful when Leon started to throw up at 3am) had very narrow berths, and the bottom berth was heavily sloped towards the wall, with a small gap between the bottom of the seat back and the bed. I was concerned that it wouldn’t be very safe to sleep with Leon between me and the wall, and it certainly wouldn’t be comfy, so wound up sleeping head-to-tail (until 3am, anyway, when the sleeping stopped). With a younger baby I think I’d have just sat up for the night. I would not recommend this with a baby not old enough to sleep on their own. The four-berth is also this style.

Venice-London, Thello, two-berth compartment. This was much nicer. Bottom bunk was flat, very wide (for a sleeper train; I think 2’6), and had no gap at the back. Lots of room for me and Leon both to lie down comfortably. Would happily do this again, other than the bit where it took him an hour to settle. The three-berth compartments are the same style.

Liverpool-Belfast, overnight ferry, two-bed cabin. Very comfy. Standard size single beds with a rail at the edge (though I still kept Leon on the wall side) and no gap by the wall. Would very happily travel like this again (and indeed I imagine we will, this summer).

If you’re not comfortable with co-sleeping, I think you might be able to fit a small travel cot on the floor in all of the above, but you might want to check with the train company. There is in my experience always room to put a regular sized wheelie suitcase flat on the floor and a couple of inches more than that, so if your travel cot fits that space you should be OK. (I know very little of travel cots so cannot speak further to this.)

I think that, other than the ferry, our sleeper train days may be over now until Leon is big enough to sleep in a bunk on his own, and to see the whole thing as an exciting adventure rather than getting too wound up to sleep…

The Waste Land For Babies!

Juliet Kemp — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:24:07 +0000

I am in VENICE, which is ace. (Although I cannot recommend a night on a sleeper train with a vomiting baby. Having said that, I cannot think of any *better* way of travelling with a vomiting baby, so my preference for trains remains undiminished.) (Leon thankfully recovered within hours, in plenty of time to be cooed over by Italian grannies.)

Anyway, this post is not to talk about lovely Venice, but to say, if you didn’t already know, that Marna’s fabulous Kickstarter, The Waste Land For Babies (picture book edition), ends tomorrow, so pledge your pennies now! Leon got the laminated original version for his Christmas so I am confident in declaring its awesomeness. Click! Love! Back! And, in due course, read and adore.

Another guest post

Juliet Kemp — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:58:12 +0000

This one over at Becoming Crunchy, for her Mama Cloth week, on Keepers, Mooncups, and AngelPadz. Reusables yay.

Wrapping babies

Juliet Kemp — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:32:19 +0000

Thirteen months in, we’re still managing Leon-wrangling without a pushchair, which definitely makes public transport more straightforward. This week I wrote about getting started with woven wraps for A Little Bit of All Of It‘s babywearing series.

Psytrance festival babywearing!

Give It Away

Juliet Kemp — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:00:55 +0000

The single thing that best joins together my attempts at simple living and my environmental beliefs is Freecycle and its friends: the charity shop, the sale/free-for-postage board on my favourite forum, even Ebay (though more on that in a moment).

I hate wasting things; and I hate the idea that I am contributing yet more to landfill. But I also hate unnecessary clutter. So I declutter merrily, piling up the things that no longer serve me (don’t fit me physically, don’t fit me mentally, don’t fit my life now even if they did in the past)… and then I get stuck.I reach for the black bin bag, then I stop and think, well, but they’re not broken, they could still be useful. Maybe I should just hang onto them for now, just in case. It would be wasteful to throw them out, right?

If instead I can take them to the charity shop, or list them on Freecycle, or sell them off on Ebay, suddenly I feel better about the whole thing. I’m not wasting them, or losing them; I’m letting them go, to find better lives, to make someone else happy, elsewhere. (This also helps reassure my sentimental side, which hates to let go of old friends like my college-room kettle, even if it has lived in a cupboard for 5 years.)

It works best if I can just give things away. Ebay means a little bit of cash, sure; but it also means a certain amount of effort, photographing and listing and packaging up and posting. For most things the returns barely cover the time expended. More importantly, things to be listed on Ebay pile up in corners of my room, lurking at me.

Freecycle, on the other hand — no photos, just a quick 2-sentence listing, and the minor hassle of arranging a collection time (easier these days now someone is at home with Leon the majority of the time). The charity shop means a trike ride, but the charity box lives in the garage (out of sight, out of mind) so that’s better too. And giving things away also helps me get past the temptation to save them “just in case”. I see Freecycle like a giant karmic lending library. I put my stuff out there; and if I need it (or, more likely, something different) later, there’s a decent chance that someone else will have things to spare.

Of course, the next stage is to focus a little harder on not bringing these things in the house in the first place. My consumption levels aren’t huge, but they’re higher than I’d like. And, I fear, more so when I’m tired or stressed out, a state of affairs that can is a little more frequent than I’d like right now. So my next step in both simple and green living? Learning to think for a few moments more before I hit that ‘buy’ button.

Meanwhile: I think I feel another burst of decluttering coming on…

***

Thank you for visiting the Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. Read about how others are incorporating eco-friendly living solutions into their everyday lives. We hope you will join us next month, as the Simply Living Blog Carnival focuses on Daily Lives!

Green Renovating: A Lot, A Little, Not So Much - Laura at Authentic Parenting ponders about the many things that have an impact on eco-friendly renovating
Growing Native in My Flower Beds - Destany at They Are All of Me takes the guilt out of her flower habit by switching from high maintenance flowers to native plants which not only lessens her gardening load, but also benefits the local wild life.
Baby Steps – Kellie at Our Mindful Life shares how her family became more sustainable, one step at a time.
A Greener Holiday – Sara from Family Organic discusses the overwhelming amount of “stuff” that comes with every holiday and talks about how to simplify instead.
Forcibly Green–Obligatory Organic – Survivor at Surviving Mexico talks about her family’s evolution from passive to active green and sustainable living.
Giving It Away – Juliet Kemp of Twisting Vines writes about the role of Freecycle, the giant karmic lending library, in her simple and green living.
Simply Sustainable - Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children discusses her family’s attempts to live in harmony with the earth by living simply and more sustainably.
How Does Your Yarden Grow – Alisha at Cinnamon&Sassafras writes about an ongoing permaculture project, converting her grass lawn into a mower-free paradise.
Green? - Is it about ticking the boxes? sustainablemum shares her thoughts on what being green means in her life.
Using Cloth Products To Reduce Household Waste - Angela from Earth Mama’s World shares how her family replaced many disposable household products with cloth to reduce their household waste.
Going Green in Baby Steps – Joella of Fine and Fair shares some small, easy steps to gradually reduce your environmental impact.
Are You Ready To Play Outside?! – Alex from AN Portraits writes about gardening, and playing in the dirt, and how it’s O.K. to get dirty, play in the dirt, play with worms, for both adults and kids.
Lavender and Tea Tree Oil Laundry Booster – At Natural Parents Network, Megan from The Boho Mama shares an all-natural way to freshen laundry.

Gardening with a baby — NPN post

Juliet Kemp — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:40:15 +0000

My garden thriving last summer.

During the last stages of my pregnancy last year, the business of working
out how to manage my vegetable garden alongside a brand-new baby was high
on my to-do list. 2012 wasn’t my most productive season ever, but I did
manage to get a reasonable harvest despite a bare minimum of available
gardening time. I shared some tips from my experience yesterday in Gardening with a Baby in Tow at Natural
Parents Network.

Pop-up raised beds

Juliet Kemp — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:10:10 +0000

The manufacturer of these instant raised beds emailed me a while back. I haven’t tried them out myself so don’t know how sturdy they are, but they look like an interesting solution if you want raised beds in a hurry, or for an organisation like a school or community centre who might prefer a commercial type of raised bed.

The circular structure means that if you push them together you’ll lose a very little bit of space compared to a similar square bed, but there’s not much in it, and they’re clearly less hassle than the DIY pallet construction option. For ease of working the size does look good. I’d be interested to hear how they work in practice if anyone has encountered them?

(Oh, in fact I’ve just seen that you can score the sides so you could make them hexagonal and avoid any space loss at all. Neat!)

The owner of the site also sent me an idea involving DIY floor tiles and copper wire raised bed construction, pointing out that the copper would repel slugs. This was his quickly-knocked-up version:

Tile panels mostly wired together

Lined (with a plant liner of some sort) and full of compost and plants

(both images c. David Roberts)

He also mentioned the possibility of tidying it up a bit or making curved sides with a tile cutter. You would need to be a lot better than I am with a tile cutter to manage that! I am however now slightly annoyed that our left-over kitchen tiles are a) Marmoleum not slate, and b) too small to do that with anyway. Bah.

For avoidance of doubt: I have not been offered any recompense for making this post; I just think they’re an interesting idea.

Balcony planning

Juliet Kemp — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:36:11 +0000

For some reason I found it really hard to get to grips with a plan for the balcony. Perhaps because it’s a space that at the moment we really don’t use (since it overlooks the road, although it also overlooks the river, and which I’m aware has no nearby water source.*

I’ve already done a survey, a sector/zone analysis, and some research on north-facing plants** but I’m still not feeling hugely inspired. However… planting season is coming up, and I’d like to put something out there.

As a result, I’ve constructed an interim plan, with nothing permanent and no huge time, money, or effort investment at this point. It’s a fairly small space, long and narrow. The plan looks like this:

A couple of pots (at least 9″ deep) of peas at each end, against the fence dividing our balcony from next door on each side. I’m not sure how well these will do, as it may be a bit too shady, but I have loads of pea seeds so may as well give it a go.
A collection of pots/troughs/containers along the railing, with a mix of salad greens (rocket and lettuce), nasturtiums, marigolds, alpine strawberries, violets, plumbago, and pansies (the pansies are already there). Perhaps also some poppies as I have some seeds from last year.
A big pot of mint (transplants from the back garden).
Chuck in a few seed bombs — I have some from EAT 2011 and some from a Christmas present exchange.

I’m considering mini kiwis for next year, but I’ll see how this year goes first. I don’t want anything too tall or too vigorous to grow along the railing as it would get in the way of the view of the river from the sofa.

This is my task list, then:

~~Move all the big pots up to the balcony.~~
Fill all the containers with compost.
Throw in my existing seeds (rocket, lettuce, nasturtiums, marigolds, poppies, seed bombs).
Order some violets (plants here; apparently it’s the wrong time of year for seeds), plumbago (blue or white), and alpine strawberries (plants or seeds).
Transplant some mint into a big pot, possibly amidst some of the seed mix.

I’ll update once everything’s planted…

* There’s a drainpipe at one side, which I could put a diverter into for a small water-butt, but I think I’d need to talk to the neighbours on that side about it, and we never really see them.
** It turns out that I already wrote a version of this up last summer, which goes to show what’s happened to my memory of late.

Taking action on International Women’s Day

Juliet Kemp — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 10:10:31 +0000

Yesterday I took myself off to meet up with Reclaim It! for a mystery direct action on International Women’s Day. It’s a while since I’ve written legal numbers on my arm and I was a little nervous given that I didn’t have Leon with me… but my excessive caution proved unnecessary. We arrived at the Women’s Library to find a few women already peacefully in occupation, the staff seemingly unfazed, and members of the public still visiting the fabulous Long March to Equalityexhibition on its last day.

The Women’s Library is about to be moved out of its purpose-built home to the LSE Reading Rooms, something supporters see as more of an abduction than a rescue. The current building is amazing and easily accessible to the public (it’s not clear what will happen to public access when it moves to LSE, but the library certainly won’t exist in its independent form any more) and it’s shocking that it’s just going to be moved out of there.

The occupation was protesting both the library’s closure, and opposing the cuts, which have a disproportionate effect on women. It was a great atmosphere — cakes and a samba band! — and although I had to head home yesterday afternoon, they’re still there now and you can go down to join them at 25 Old Castle St, London E1 7NT — various workshops and events, and a kids space, are running today. It’s also a fabulous final opportunity to see the exhibition (which I thoroughly enjoyed) the day after it was due to be shut down.