Twisting Vines

Blog moved

2011-10-07T17:38:00.001+01:00

This blog has now moved to julietkemp.com -- all further updates will be over there.

One change at a time: easy shower greywater reuse

2011-10-04T12:43:00.000+01:00

After a very full-on fortnight learning about permaculture and activism at the Earth Activist Training 2011 course in August, I came away all fired up to make some changes at home. I would absolutely love to set up some kind of greywater reuse system, but given the 40 sq m of garden available in my central London terrace, it would be both a big practical challenge and a pretty poor use of our limited outside space.

However! There is a very straightforward way to reuse some of your greywater, which requires only a bucket. Put the bucket in the shower, where it can catch some of the water you use while you're showering. The next time you need to flush the loo, grab the bucket and pour it down there instead of hitting the flush. There you go: a bucket of water saved per day, with next to no effort.

I started doing this a couple of weeks ago, and can definitely recommend it: both easy to implement and personally satisfying (if you're the sort of person who gets satisfaction from saving water). Sure, it's not a huge amount; but it's more than nothing. Not only that, but I've found myself more aware of the water I'm using whilst showering (and have taken, for example, to turning the pressure down a bit), which is a neat secondary advantage.

Watch this space for more on my permaculture adventures; specifically the plans for the brand-new garden, and my solution to maintaining the allotment next year on what will be a very small amount of available time.

Foxcubs!

2011-05-31T11:45:00.001+01:00

My parents currently have six fox-cubs (and a somewhat harrassed-looking mother fox) playing in their garden every evening. Even the presence of a visiting Sidney-dog the other weekend apparently hasn't put them off (maybe they realise just how soft she is). It's not that surprising, really – though I can't find a figure on their website, the London Wildlife Trust are quoted elsewhere (2006) as estimating the London fox population at 10,000, or about 16 per square mile. They've adapted well to urban life, although their average lifespan is still only a couple of years (around 60% of the fox population dies each year).

Mum and Dad have been able to watch these six cubs growing up, starting from when they were little grey cubs wobbling around the place, as in these photos (some are stills from video so a little blurry):

When I went down to see them, they were playful 6-week olds, charging round the garden, jumping on each other, and pouncing on bits of grass:

Foxes usually bring up their litters as a pair, so I'm not sure why there's been no sign of the dog fox (unless he's just spent more time out on the hunt – six cubs is a lot to provide for!). The vixen is definitely present and correct, keeping watch and hauling the cubs around when necessary:

not to mention feeding the lot of them:

Now, apparently, they're bigger, adolescent foxes who have started to take life seriously and are playing fewer fox-cub games.

Adolescent foxes start exploring beyond the close vicinity of the den around this time of year, so Mum & Dad may see less of theirs soon. But that's also why there seem to be a lot more foxes around in early summer, as adolescent foxes are more likely to show up in places where older foxes are too wary to go. (Apparently teenager-hood is a cross-species experience.) The family group will gradually spread out over a wider area during the summer, but the cubs will broadly speaking stay with their siblings and parents until autumn, when they move off in search of their own territory. A fair few of them, sadly, won't make it through to next spring to have their own litter -- autumn is when the road death-toll is highest.

There's intermittently some concern (albeit from a minority) about urban fox populations. But, as is almost always the case with wild animals, any blame is misplaced. Foxes, like rats – those other urban scavengers par excellence – eat our rubbish. As long as we leave plenty of it lying around, there'll be plenty of them. Anyone concerned about fox numbers should address themselves first to the sheer scale of food waste scattered across urban streets; and perhaps check out these recommendations for deterrents.

Or, like my dad, you can sneak them out a bit of organic chicken, and enjoy the sight of urban wildlife thriving.

All photos courtesy of Graham Kemp.

Keeping track

2011-05-17T21:30:00.001+01:00

This year, for the first time, I actually bothered to harden off my tomatoes before migrating them full-time from the windowsill into their final home on the balcony[0]. In theory, this should mean that they don't get a nasty shock from their first night outside, and therefore that they fruit a little earlier. In practice, the fact that I forgot to take any notes on the timing and performance of last year's tomatoes means that I won't know either way. (I suppose I could have left one or two un-hardened to compare, but I was far too proud of myself for remembering to do it at all this year to risk one of them.)

In a similar manner, I found myself having to water the incredibly dry allotment from the last couple of weeks in April. It seemed ridiculously early to be doing that; but whilst I think I remember similarly hot Aprils and Mays in the last couple of years, I haven't actually got anything written down on how the allotment was doing.

The obvious solution is an allotment/balcony journal. In fact, I have one of these already; I just never remember to write in it. And I have no idea how to fix this problem.

I could just put more effort into telling myself to remember, but the evidence to date is that as a strategy, that's a failure. Apparently, something about the "allotment journal" structure doesn't lend itself to my remembering it. So instead of trying to fix my brain, I want to fix the structure, and create something that does support my remembering.

So far, I have no ideas, other than a vague belief that if it were more fun and less of a chore, it might be more likely to happen. Do any of you have any suggestions as to a method of keeping track that might work better?

[0] 'Hardening off' is when you move your baby plants from inside to outside gradually, leaving them outside for a couple of hours longer each day before you leave them out overnight for the first time.

Hellebore & Rue: now out in paperback!

2011-05-07T12:54:00.000+01:00

This morning I got a parcel in the post: my author copy of the paperback version of Hellebore & Rue, the fabulous queer-women-and-magic anthology in which I have a story. It's been published by Lethe Press, who seem like a pretty cool bunch, and seeing my name on the front cover was of course the Most Exciting Thing Ever.

The paperback is available now from Amazon UK or Amazon US; the ebook is still available direct from Drollerie Press, or for Kindle from Amazon UK or Amazon US.

how late it was, how late

2011-05-03T17:14:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I planted half of this year's potatoes in the allotment. The gardeners amongst you will be aware that this is at least a week late (the traditional time for planting potatoes being Easter); given that in fact I only bought them this week and thus that they've barely been chitted, in practise it's even later than that.

For the rest of the day, I've been pondering, off and on, on lateness. I remember, some time ago, someone (possibly my father) telling me that there are two sorts of people in the world: people who think that five minutes late is late, and people who think that half an hour late is on time. Historically, I was always been one of the former. I once turning up at an airport before check-in had even opened for my flight (this back in the day when 2 hours was considered 'early' for check-in, and one could still take such dangerous items as knitting needles and shoes on a plane). In theory, I still do consider five minutes late to be late; it's just that these days I always am, by that measure, late.

One reason for the shift is that these days I cycle everywhere. When you're on a bike, you acquire a firm belief in your control over your own travel. You don't need to arrange your voyaging around timetables, or allow for delays. You don't need to consider the traffic, because bikes can sail merrily past traffic jams (a deep and lasting joy). The problem is my consistent underestimation of how long it takes me to do get from A to B; and the fact that even traffic jams you sail past have a distinctly slowing effect.

There's the Dog Effect, as well. When we first acquired Sidney, she absolutely had to be taken out into the square to pee before being left alone, and there was a fighting chance that as you opened the front door, she would dive out to cavort around the grass, necessitating a protracted chase scene and subsequent twenty-minutes-plus of lateness. These days she'll inform you in plenty of time if she needs to pee, and only rarely zooms out of the door on her own recognizance; but the Dog Check for edible or otherwise chewable substances left within nose-reach takes non-zero time. Apparently it takes me more than a year to get used to something like this.

Then there's the fact that I've spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of years hanging out with anarchist/activist types, for whom half an hour late is actually fairly early. It's a choice between showing up on time and hanging around on your own for half an hour; or showing up half an hour late and accepting the tacit agreement that That's Just How It Is. I fear the necessary adjustment to this particular cultural expectation has had a knock-on effect on the rest of my life.

I find myself wondering if it's (another?) sign that I'm trying to fit too much in to the available space. That if I had more spaciousness in my life, I would be able to allow more travelling time and thus arrive on time; rather than squeezing just-one-more-thing into the space and then belting up the road at top speed to compensate. But then... there are just so many things to do, and so little time to do them in. Which am I to abandon?

Perhaps I should make a new promise, turn over a new leaf, and reinsert myself into the ranks of the five-minutes-early brigade. Or perhaps I should just learn to cycle faster. Better late than never?

Creativity and coloured pens

2011-04-27T21:55:00.000+01:00

A few weeks back, I encountered Maryann's Society of the Secret Play Date. Instead of sitting down with a list and a laptop and a serious expression, you spend some time just playing with your current project. Or even with something unrelated.

Of course, play can be serious, in the sense of 'important'. But it's also non-serious. It's joyous. It's even indulgent -- settling down on the floor with a five-quid packet of felt tips and a notebook had me feeling more pleasantly self-indulgent than I have in ages. That alone would have been worth the time; but it turned out that spending half an hour with coloured felt-tips, drawing pictures and mind-maps, threw up a huge stack of inspiring ideas for several things that I'm working on right now.

After I put the pens away, I grabbed the laptop and had a look for what science there might be behind felt tips and creativity. One study found that playing before making a collage enhanced creativity in children -- so perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise if it does the same for adults. Another study found that bright colours can support creativity, which may explain why I find doodling in primary colours quite so freeing. Although that study also suggests that complicated visual detail can help, something which is sadly lacking from my doodles. For strongly analytic types, a little doodling may also help balance up the involvement of the left and right sides of the brain in what you're doing — perhaps also helping to get past the inner critic that can sabotage your efforts?

For me, as well as the bright colours and doodling, some of the positive effect is from doing different things in small blocks. Ten minutes of knitting and thinking can be a great precursor to fifteen minutes of writing. The busy part of my brain occupies itself with my hands, while the calmer part works out what I want to say, getting me past straight the Blank Page Problem once I start writing.

It's also another way of trying my offline experiments. If I'm doing the playdate thing, I can be down there on the floor with paper and pens and no. damn. internet. Don't get me wrong; I love the internet. But — as Leonie pointed out just recently — it can also keep you away from your own best work. There's always something else out there to read, and it's always easier, safer, and a quicker dopamine hit, compared with settling down to create something of your own.

What I need? More play dates; more felt-tip pens; more fun.

Permaculture principles: working with what's there

2011-03-12T23:43:00.000Z

I've been thinking recently about the design of a potential new permaculture garden project. It suddenly occurred to me that one of the underlying principles of permaculture, awareness of the limits and resources of your site and what you have to hand, also implies the consideration of your own limits, resources, and reality.

Like many people, I have a tendency to make decisions (in life in general as much as in gardening) based on what I would like to be true about me, or what I believe is true, rather than on reality. I would like to be the sort of person who is very efficient in the mornings; so I make plans that assume that, then get irritated at myself when things don't pan out as I envisaged. I would like to be the sort of person who can tend carefully to brassicas to nurse them through to harvesting, so I put them in, then kick myself when I don't net them in time and they disappear to the voracious appetites of caterpillars.

So in the context of this potential new project, I'm asking myself: what do we actually use in our existing spaces? What would we actually want from this new space (and, indeed, the existing ones)? And why?

For example, currently I have a variety of herbs out on the balcony, which even at this time of year are largely doing pretty well. However, they don't get used for cooking nearly as often as I'd like; instead the dried herbs in the cupboard tend to be used instead. Why is that? I think there are two main reasons:

Convenience. The dried herbs are right there; no need to walk through the house to get them.
Concern for the plant. Mostly it's someone else (the non-gardener in the household) who does the cooking, and he is nervous about accidentally killing the plants.

So, how can I solve these problems in the current space, or in a new space? There's a few possibilities:

I can make sure that the herbs are as close to the kitchen door as possible (convenience).
I can consider whether they'd be better off on a suitable (again, nearby) windowsill rather than outside.
I can grow larger plants, so they're more obviously healthy and can have large quantities taken from them. That would also solving the problem that there's just not enough to cook with regularly.
I can grow more or large plants, dry them myself, and fill up the containers in the kitchen.
I can grow more plants; perhaps some on the windowsill and some larger ones outside.
I can be a bit more discerning, ask which plants we need most, and grow more of those and fewer of the others (to balance out the space taken up by larger plants).

Some of these ideas might work alongside each other; some are alternatives. There might be more possibilities, too. (Ideas welcome!)

In the immediate term, thinking about this has led me to decide that I'm going to upgrade the rosemary, thyme, and oregano to larger containers, and plant lots and lots of basil seedlings to get as big a crop as possible this year. Those are probably the most useful of the herbs, so it's worth focussing on them.

In the longer possible-project term, I'm going to take all of these ideas into account when planning, and see if I can come up with any more clever ideas to make the herbs easier to use.

And in general, I'm going to keep thinking about the gap between belief and reality, and look for ways to bridge that gap and make it easy to do what I want myself to do.

The allotment waking up

2011-02-25T17:33:00.000Z

It's still pretty cold around here – though it reached 14deg on Wednesday – but the signs of spring are already upon us. The crocuses are out in the local park, and the chives on my balcony have started growing again. The annual allotment-holder turn-over has also arrived (February is fees month at my allotment, which is when people who don't want their allotments any more bow out, and the newbies arrive), and I've met several new and enthusiastic allotment-holders.

Our allotment is also showing signs of spring. The broad beans and early peas (planted in November) are clambering upwards, and the onion sets I also planted in November are doing well. I finally dug up the last of last year's parsnips, and got a couple of real whoppers.

The 'winter' tidying-up is also gaining a new urgency. On Sunday I finally got rid of the big pile of bramble cuttings taking up the end of one of the beds. The hope was that it would rot down in place, but it was way too woody. The wood definitely is rotting – it was very easy to break up to put into the council green waste bags[0] – but not fast enough for my purposes.

I've seen it suggested recently that one can use wood cuttings as a swale, to soak up water. You dig a big trench -- several feet deep -- and chuck the wood in, then cover it back up again and plant as normal on top. I decided against doing that on this occasion, as I didn't want to disturb the soil structure that much, but I'll bear it in mind for the future -- it might be an idea to use when digging out the potatoes next season since I'll be disturbing the soil then anyway.

It's also nearly time to start the spring planting; which is always exciting; although would be more so if I didn't have a fair amount of weeding to do first. But mostly I'm just enjoying the signs that spring is on its way.

[0] It will then be taken away and composted in huge industrial-type composters; then in a year or so I can buy it back at £3.50 for 40 litres.

Overdoing it? Burnout, and Offline Sundays

2011-02-18T17:32:00.000Z

Over the last few weeks I've become uncomfortably aware that I might, possibly, be overdoing it a bit. There were subtle signs, such as a deep desire to hide under the duvet every time I even thought about my to-do list; and less subtle ones, like bursting into tears on the phone for no apparent reason.

Then there were the helpful hints from the serendipitous universe. A work training day where I realised that I'm not actually the thriving-on-being-super-busy person I was (or believed I was) when I was 20. A friend sending links about Burned-out Activists and Avoiding Activist Burnout to the mailing list of the awesome A Collective for Better Collectives.

(At this point, I want to say "of course, most of my own stress/borderline burnout isn't actually activism related". Because, in my head, real activists put more time than I do into their activism. And it's true that the two big things on my mind right now aren't activism-related. But recently I counted up the number of broadly 'activist' projects that I'm involved with, and came up with eight. Hm.)

So, I accepted the subtle signs from my own mind and the helpful prodding from the universe, and I considered what I should do about it. Kristenking gives a helpful list of Things to Bear In Mind, several of which I'd already come to of my own accord. Here's my list:

Take a long hard look at my commitments. Drop some of them.
Remind myself that I have some big stuff coming up in the next few weeks (finishing my book, and supporting a friend in giving birth, being the big-ticket items), and look at 1. again.
Go climbing. It's good for the brain.
The internet, whilst shiny in many regards, is not always helpful. Try taking an offline day (prompted in part by this post from Sarah Wilson).

I'm still working on them. I've been climbing a couple of times (it really is good for my brain), and I've bowed out of a couple of things (it probably needs to be more). Last Sunday was my first attempt at an offline day in a year or so, and it was complicated by the fact that I spent the day largely in bed with a cold, snoozing and reading. But it was a book, not the internet. And it felt like a release of some sort. I'll report back in a couple of weeks on how the next few weekends go.

Fiction!

2011-02-17T16:31:00.000Z

On a slight tangent from my normal topics on this blog: I have my first published story out in this anthology, now out in ebook & at 15% off! I've been reading the other stories as well, now that I've got my contributor's copy, and can whole-heartedly recommend the whole book. "Magic that detects crime, magic that heals, magic that destroys: all this and more and in hands of queer women who use their powers to shape their worlds and their destinies."

Snowboarding by train: how does it compare to flying?

2011-02-11T17:26:00.000Z

For the second time in a year, I travelled to France by train last week. This time we didn't stop at Paris, but crossed town to the Gare du Lyon (a pretty well-joined-up journey, requiring only 2 stops on the RER) to go down to Bourg St Maurice for some snowboarding.

On the way back, I found myself wondering how the costs — in carbon, time, and money — stack up in comparison to making the same journey by air. I compared London St Pancras – Bourg St-Maurice by train (the journey we did); London City – Chambery by plane (then bus transfer to Bourg St-Maurice); and London Gatwick – Geneva by plane (then bus again to Bourg St-Maurice). I included the journey from my house at the London end, but excluded the journey from Bourg St-Maurice up the mountain since it's the same with all three routes (the funicular then a shuttle-bus service).

Carbon

Helpfully, Eurostar have conducted some specific research to accurately measure CO2 generated by their trains. The ski train as of 2010 measurements was 9.4kg per passenger single trip (18.8kg return).

London to Chambery or Geneva by air is about 1,000 km (620mi). At 0.2897 kg/mile for a short-haul flight, that's 180kg of carbon per passenger return. The Eurostar research quoted above gives 102.8kg per passenger each way (205.6kg total) for London City-Geneva (the discrepancy is due to the specific load factor which is low for that route, so the per-passenger output is higher). Even using the lower value, rail still has a tenth of the carbon cost of air. (And that doesn't account for the transfer bus carbon, although buses are low-carbon travel.)

The winner: train, at 90% less carbon.

Time

Train: 30min Tube, 45 min check-in, total time London - Bourg St Maurice, 7h15. Total 8h30.

Plane, London City-Chambery: 30 min Tube, 2 hr checkin, 1h35 flight, 1 hr transfer to coach, 2 hrs on coach (estimated from this page which gives 1h45 for a minibus; coaches can be assumed to be a little slower). Total 7hr.

Plane, London Gatwick-Geneva: 20 min Tube, 40 min train, 2 hr checkin, 1h35 flight, 1 hr transfer to coach, 3.5 hrs on coach. Total 9 hrs.

The winner: plane, at 20% quicker (but only if you take the right route).

Money

Our tickets on the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Bourg St Maurice cost £119 each (return); plus £3.80 each in Tube fares. £123 per person, return.

The cheapest airfare I could find to Chambery, the nearest airport, is £60 each way. That's from London City, so same Tube fare; but then you need to take a transfer coach at 70 EUR (£60) return. £183 per person, return.

The next closest airport is Geneva, for which I found a £46 return fare with Easyjet; plus £18 each way baggage fare to take any hold baggage. That's from Gatwick, so £4 Tube fare to London Bridge, then £16 (ish) return to Gatwick. Then there's the transfer at the other end: 126 EUR (£107) return. £191 per person, return.

The winner: the train, at 50% cheaper.

Conclusion

The overall winner: train, cheaper, lower-carbon, and only slightly slower.

The train comes out better not only on environmental impact (by a long way, and unsurprisingly), but also on cost (by a significant margin, and more surprisingly). It even beats the 'super-cheap' flights (actually the most expensive option all-in) in time taken. The plane is slightly quicker for the London City-Chambery route, but 7 hours compared to 8.5 hours isn't that big of a deal; especially when you think about what you're saving in cost and carbon.

Plus there's the fact that it's simply more pleasant to sit in a train and watch the countryside go past than it is to sit in an airplane and look at clouds (pretty though clouds are). The food available is better; the booze is better (French trains do quite well on this front!); there's more space per seat; and you're much freer to move around when you want to. Even without the cost savings!

The details are of course affected by where you're going. Snowboarding holidays mean mountains, which means airports some distance away. The calculation if going to, say, Geneva or Lyon would be different for time and money. (Although not very different for carbon, of course.) Nor does this address the environmental cost of the holiday itself. What's the effect of thousands of skiiers and snowboarders on the mountains they're careering down? But that's a subject for another post.

Carbon & veganism

2011-01-31T16:25:00.000Z

I wrote about veganism as carbon footprint reduction over on Carbonfeet last week.

Vegan chickweed pesto

2010-12-29T19:22:00.003Z

There's not that much growing at this time of year; but you will find fresh chickweed in UK gardens and allotments, even in the middle of the snow. It's usually considered a weed, but in fact it's edible, nutritious, and even quite tasty.

You can eat it raw, but I'm not very enthusiastic about it like that. Alternatively, you can treat it like spinach leaves and wilt it before eating. Or you can make chickweed pesto, which is what I did.

When harvesting chickweed, take only the tops of the plant. The lower leaves are tougher, and also by taking the top, you just encourage it to branch and produce more tops for future harvesting.

Chickweed pesto recipe

A few good handfuls of chickweed tops (I had maybe a couple of packed mugs' worth).
Handful of pine nuts or sunflower seeds.
1–2 cloves raw garlic (if you can leave the pesto overnight to mellow), or 2 tsp minced garlic / garlic paste (if you want to eat it immediately).
Tbsp nutritional yeast (use parmesan for a non-vegan pesto).
Generous pinch of salt.
2-3 tbsp olive oil (add as you need it while blending).

Throw all the ingredients into a blender and keep blending until it looks like pesto. Add the olive oil as needed to help the blender out (you can also add a very little water), and as needed for texture.

It worked well on pasta, but I also enjoyed it on crackers for the next few days as a mid-morning snack. And since chickweed will, apparently, grow on my allotment regardless of what I do, I might as well make the most of it, especially at this time of year.

Cycling in snow & ice

2010-12-07T12:46:00.001Z

In the cloakroom queue after seeing Leftfield last weekend, while London was still covered with snow, another punter spotted my bike pannier.

"You're cycling?" he asked in tones of mingled surprise and enthusiasm. "Wow!"

"I'd far rather that than hanging around for the night bus," I said.

"Nice one!" he said with a grin that indicated he still thought I might be a little deluded; and I went off to start layering up for the ride home.

But really, the weather has to be really pretty dreadful for public transport to be a better bet than cycling. (Even more so when, as on Friday, the public transport option is two night buses and a very chilly 20-minute wait at Elephant & Castle, watching inebriated revellers throw up into the gutter). There are a few precautions that are worth taking first.

Wrap up warm

Perhaps an obvious one, but cold hands don't operate brakes well, so find yourself some long-fingered gloves. Woolly gloves are better than nothing, but the wind tends to blow right through them; really you want gloves that are at least windproof and preferably waterproof as well. If, like me, you have really rubbish circulation, consider glove liners as well.

A Buff is useful as a scarf/hat; alternatively, if you're wearing a regular scarf, make sure the ends are safely tucked into your jacket and can't get caught in any of the moving bits of the bike. If you're suffering from chilly feet as well as chilly fingers, waterproof overshoes are really helpful^*.

Check over your bike

Letting a little bit of air out of the tyres is a good bet if riding on slippery surfaces like snow, slush, or ice, as it increases the amount of contact surface with the road. If you want to take the really hardcore route, you could switch to studded tyres (or do your own DIY version either with screws or with cable ties!). Tyres with tread may be a good idea if you normally ride on skinny smooth tyres.

You should also clean your bike a bit more regularly, as grit and salt splash up onto the frame, and are bad for the metal if left there. Your chain might need a slightly heavier-duty oil than in the summer, and will probably also need oiling more regularly. If you're nearly at the point where you need to replace chain and/or cassette, it's probably worth waiting, if you can, until the spring, as they'll wear much more quickly in this weather.

Make sure that your brakes are working well -- slippery rims will slow your braking down.

Riding in snow

The most important thing to remember is not to make any sudden moves. Stop and turn more slowly and carefully than you normally would, and don't corner too sharply or your back wheel may come out from under you. Brake well in advance, and gently.

Be more aware of hazards like metal access covers, which get very slippery in rain, snow, or ice. Watch out for black ice, and if in doubt, it may be worth getting off and walking for a bit if the surface is particularly treacherous (minor local roads may not have been gritted well or at all). However, if you find yourself already riding over the ice when you notice it, just stay calm, keep pedalling, and don't turn or brake if you can avoid it. (If you have to, brake very gently.)

Stay well out of the gutter, which is where all the snow and slush will have been pushed by the cars. Of course, you should always be riding well out of the gutter to maximise your visibility, but in poor conditions you may want to ride even further out. You'll be more readily seen, and you'll be more likely to be able to stay on the dry part of the road. Where possible, choose where you're riding to stay on the dry patches, but be careful – don't put yourself in danger by riding over on the wrong side of the road unless you're very, very certain that it's safe to do so. If in doubt, get off and walk until it's safe again.

If it's dingy, foggy, or actually snowing, put your lights on to increase your visibility, as well.

In summary: take it carefully, allow more time to get where you're going, wrap up warm; and you'll be sailing merrily past all the bus queues despite the weather.

* This year I've been wearing bike sandals and waterproof socks, instead of switching to my lightweight bike shoes in the autumn. (I confess that a significant driver for this is the fact that the dog chewed both velcro and laces off the bike shoes back in April, and I still haven't sorted that out.) Somewhat to my surprise, it turns out that thick socks + waterproof socks + sandals has kept my feet warmer than my closed-toe shoes ever did. The overshoes are good if it's below zero (when I'd need them anyway). I think this is probably because wearing two pairs of socks in my regular shoes doesn't leave enough room for my toes, reducing circulation and thus making them cold. This doesn't happen in the sandals. Of course one is then wearing sandals with socks, but I am less bothered about that than I am about having cold feet!

Experiments in free(ish) jelly

2010-11-04T16:40:00.001Z

It's been a fantastic year for berries, so I decided the time had come to experiment with rosehip and hawthorn jellies.

Finding a sufficiency of rosehips and haws to cook up was straightforward; half an hour in the local park with a shopping-bag produced enough for a small jar's worth each of rosehip and hawthorn jelly. I took maybe a third, and left the rest for the birds. There's plenty I can't reach, anyway.

My first attempt at rosehip jelly turned out more like a cross between jelly and syrup. Rosehips don't have much pectin, but I didn't have any to hand, so I threw some lemon juice in, and relied on boiling it down to get it to setting-point. This was probably the root of the problem. It was also a little too sweet (at 1 lb sugar to 1 pt juice).

My first attempt at hawthorn jelly turned into hawthorn toffee instead, and had to be boiled back out of the jar. Haws do have plenty of pectin, but more importantly, there was a small quantity to start with (so easier to make mistakes), and I got involved with something else and went slightly too long without checking on it. It was very tasty, though (at 0.75 lb sugar to 1 pt juice).

Last weekend, I had another go at rosehip jelly, but with a double-handful of haws in to provide the pectin. Initial tastings indicate that it's done fairly well, although I thought I might have detected a slight underlying bitterness. I'll see what happens when I finish the test-jellies and open one of the jars.

Basic recipe:
- Pick over the hips or haws. In theory you should pick off all the twig parts, but I only took out the worst of them, on the grounds that it gets sieved anyway.
- Put into a pan, and cover generously with water. Boil for a while, mashing with a potato masher after 10 min or so.
- Strain through a jelly bag (or a muslin cloth) after about 30 min. If you leave the bag to drip, the jelly will be clear, but you'll have less of it. I always squeeze, myself. If you haven't got time to finish the job today, you can put the juice in the fridge overnight at this point.
- Put the juice into a pan with 0.8 lb sugar to 1 pt juice (this is my current ratio; experiment according to the sweetness of your tooth). Rosehips need either added pectin, or pectin-containing sugar.
- Bring to a boil and simmer until it sets. Test for setting by spooning a dab onto a plate and leaving it for a minute. Pull your finger across the dab, and if it wrinkles, it's good to go.
- Put into sterilised jars (sterilise by washing with hot water and putting in a 100deg oven until dry, after which you must REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE HOT), put a jam paper circle over the top, and screw on the lid.
- Label once cool.

(It's only free-ish because the sugar costs money.)

Autumn growth

2010-10-29T14:55:00.000+01:00

Down the allotment this week (at sunset in only a T-shirt -- in October!), I noticed that the raspberries are cropping again. Admittedly they are autumn raspberries, but 'autumn' in raspberry parlance usually means August/September, not October/November. They're not as sweet as the earlier ones, possibly because less sun means less sugar developing, but they're big and juicy and still quite tasty. I reckon I'll get at least another pot-full, and maybe two.I also harvested what I think will be the last couple of smallish courgettes. There are still some more setting on the plant, but it's late enough in the season that the insects aren't really doing the pollination job any more; one of the harvested ones obviously hadn't been pollinated properly. I'll leave the plants for a bit longer, but I think that's it. The end of October is very late to be harvesting courgettes, though!The chard is doing nicely, as are my late planting of broad beans (not a huge crop, but worth the effort of chucking a few seeds in the soil in August, I think). It's also time to cut back the asparagus and shovel a good helping of compost over it; to dig up the last of the potatoes; and to finally tackle the Horseradish Horror (planted several years ago, and never dug up since digging up one of the four took so much effort).

Autumn and winter planting

2010-10-05T16:53:00.000+01:00

The season is definitely turning, and it's time to think about planting on the allotment for autumn and winter.

For me, autumn planting falls into two categories: things which you can plant now to harvest in the spring; and things which you can plant now to harvest over the autumn and winter, possibly with the help of a cold frame or two.

Planting for next spring

In the first category, this year I'm intending to plant broad beans and early peas in November, as usual; onions, after reading something suggesting that you can get an early spring crop with certain varieties planted in October; and purple sprouting broccoli.

I'm intending to plant lots of broad beans this year; previous years have seen only a few, and they don't crop all that heavily. They finish very early, so something else can use the same ground afterwards. I also have a catch crop of broad beans in currently (planted in August) which may yet produce the odd bean if it stays mild and the sun comes out.

Planting for this autumn

In the second category, there's kale, broccoli raab (which will probably do better in a cold frame), mustard greens, and pak choi. All of which I've tried before with varying levels of success.

More experimentally, I'm going to try an October sowing of carrots and turnips, to see how they do. They're unlikely to get very big, but apparently a late sowing of carrots can yield a few small but tasty roots, so we'll see what happens.

Tidying up

And there is, of course, all the usual tidying-up to do: dig up the potatoes and other roots, cut back the asparagus, mulch various things with compost, pick the rhubarb (and make jam!), dig up the horseradish that has now been there for 2 years due to being enormous and very difficult to extract, cut back blackberries and raspberries and dig out any rogue interlopers, prune the blackcurrant bush and perhaps the apple tree... Still busy despite the end of the main growing season!

Very late potato-planting

2010-08-05T16:39:00.000+01:00

Having harvested a handful of new potatoes from the balcony the other week (and then having to deal with the ants' nest thereby uncovered), I then noticed that I still have a couple of seed potatoes left from earlier in the season, which whilst a little wrinkled look basically still sound. Then, I came across a blog post talking about planting potatoes entirely out of season for a Christmas harvest.

This fits nicely with my beliefs about experimental gardening, so I'm off this afternoon to dump the earth back in the potato-box, and see what happens. I will report back.

In other balcony-gardening news: the red arrow-head lettuce appears to be flowering and setting seed (much to my pleasure), as is the dill (which pretty much just bolted the moment it was a real plant). I shall try planting some more of both.

The cherry tomatoes are doing well (2--4 to harvest daily, which isn't bad at this time of year), and are still busily setting more of themselves. I am tempted to try planting seeds from the earliest-growing one (a Peace Vine Cherry), to see if I can get a second batch of plants to provide a late harvest. It might, of course, just be a late harvest of green tomatoes; but this would suit me fine, as I very much like green tomato chutney and I've just eaten the last of last year's.

Planting salad leaves in late summer

2010-07-28T11:53:00.000+01:00

It may already be the end of July, but it's not too late to plant a few salad leaves for this season. Unlike a lot of vegetables, which really do need the whole of the summer to produce a reasonable crop, loose salad leaves are sufficiently fast-cropping to be worth planting in July or even August.

Rocket germinates very fast and is worth planting at nearly any time of year. Throw a few rocket seeds into a pot or into the ground, cover lightly with soil and water in well, and you should start to see seedlings within a week or two. Rocket is actually better started either well after midsummer (so, about now) or well before it (early spring), as around June it will bolt (run to seed) much faster.

Leaf lettuces (lettuces that grow lots of single leaves rather than forming a 'head') are a better bet than headed lettuces for late planting, as you can start picking leaves as soon as there are a handful of true leaves on the plant. Lollo rosso is one popular option; as is royal oakleaf. Real Seeds sell 'Bronze Arrowhead' oakleaf lettuce seeds. I've had great success growing these lettuces at all times of year, and they taste great; however, they do take a while to germinate.

Most lettuces, helpfully, are at least a bit frost-hardy, so you can expect them to keep cropping well into the autumn. You can extend this further by building a cold frame. Last year I had rocket and bronze arrowhead lettuce growing throughout the winter, even when it snowed. The plants outside the cold frame survived, but didn't grow any new leaves until the spring.

Finally, if you have any pea seeds left over, or can get hold of some, they're also worth planting late. Some mange tout may yet produce a proper crop (experiment!), but at the very least, you can harvest and eat the pea tops as salad.

How to deal with ants: pt 2

2010-07-23T14:41:00.001+01:00

I posted before about eco-friendly ways to deal with ants in the garden. Today I dug up the small box of potatoes I was growing (harvest small but hopefully tasty!), to discover an ants' nest, or at least a lot of ant eggs, in the bottom of the box.

This was especially irritating as I'd seen fewer ants around of late, and was hopeful that the cinnamon was doing the trick.

On this occasion, I did decide to try the boiling water, primarily aimed at getting rid of the eggs. As the potatoes were out of the box, it wasn't going to destroy any plants; and despite my reluctance to kill them, I am really not up for hosting an ants' nest on my 5m x 1.5m balcony.

After the boiling water (a kettle-full over the couple of buckets that the compost had been transferred into), I chucked a watering-can full of cold tap water in as well, in the hope of drowning or scaring away any remaining ants. Or at least convincing them to take their nest elsewhere.

Watch this space for results... [sigh] Unfortunately I think it's going to be hard to get rid of them altogether, since I have a lot of plant-pots that I'm loathe to dig out altogether; so there's always somewhere else for them to go.

Tar sands activism today and next month!

2010-07-13T14:23:00.002+01:00

I was up early this morning to walk the dog before heading off to smash the Piggy Pinata (link to photos) outside the International Banking Conference this morning. Video here. We handed out a big stack of Never Mind The Bankers newspapers, and copies of the booklet about RBS' investment in the tar sands, to people going into the conference and to interested passers-by. The conference was looking at 'reforming the banks'. What they mean is "how do we avoid the criticism (environmental and financial) whilst maintaining business as usual". What we want is to stop investment into environmental disasters like the various tar sands projects and Deepwater Horizon -- which are only the most obvious of the problems that fossil fuel investment causes.

Elsewhere, in the British Museum there was another BP sponsorship protest, with non-toxic 'oil' being poured around the Easter Island statue. This is after the Liberate Tate 'oil' spill at Tate Britain outside and inside the Tate Summer Party (celebrating BP's sponsorship). (BBC report here.)

And, of course, Climate Camp 2010 is targetting RBS, the 'oil and gas' bank (currently investing in projects including tar sands) that is 84% owned by the public. Come up to Edinburgh in August to join in with the actions!

For more information, visit the Tar Sands In Focus blog or the No Tar Sands website.

Small luxuries

2010-07-06T14:22:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening, whilst picking raspberries and blackcurrants at the allotment, I was thinking about small luxuries.

One of the things I appreciate most about the summer, these days, is the ability to eat raspberries by the handful. I've always loved raspberries -- we had them in the garden when I was a kid -- and for years I could get only the tiny, expensive, and often tasteless punnets that the supermarkets sell. Now there are twenty canes of them in the allotment (ten summer, ten autumn), and more raspberries than I can eat from June till September. A glorious luxury, with the only outlay (I think we've long since earnt back the £20 spent on the canes four years ago) the time it takes me to pick them, which is a pleasure in itself.

When I was cycle touring, eighteen months ago, my self-indulgence was that after the sun went down, I would light up the stove again to make a mug of tea, then crawl into my sleeping bag and lie there snugly in my tent with tea, a couple of chocolate biscuits, and an episode of Stargate (I have a fondness for dodgy SF TV) on the netbook. I remember thinking at the time that the only thing that could make the experience better would have been the ability to knit at the same time (the tent, sadly, was too small to sit up in, and knitting whilst lying on my stomach gave me cramp in my hands).

Since I've been home, one of my favourite small luxuries is to go to the library, then take my lovely new library books across the Blue to Adam's Café, and read over a plate of chips and beans with a coffee. Costs around £3, feels fabulous.

It makes me immoderately happy, just to appreciating these little things.

Solar ovens

2010-06-22T12:34:00.000+01:00

I made a pizza box solar oven at the weekend. I've been meaning to make a solar oven for a while, but this one struck my fancy because I had everything I needed already (including an old pizza box).

It turned out looking rather like this:

I used an A4 plastic document wallet (cut open and retaped to fit the hole I'd cut) for the film, and some black card (again, cut and retaped) for the bottom.

I tried it out with biscuits yesterday, and unfortunately wasn't all that impressed. I'm not convinced that the box itself seals particularly well (so the hot air is escaping), and even allowing for half an hour to heat up, the biscuits were only halfway cooked an hour or so after I put them out. They did definitely warm up quite a lot; but not to anything like the temperatures suggested in the instructions linked above.

This may be to do with the UK climate, but my south-facing balcony catches the sun pretty well, so I'm loathe to give up entirely. Instead I intend to try this option, as soon as I've collected the necessary kit and have some free time.

Dealing with ants

2010-06-19T11:54:00.000+01:00

We have ants on the balcony. We also have ants on the allotment (farming the aphids, mostly, which is both impressive and really, really annoying, leading as it does to the death of the broad beans). I have, therefore, been seeking ways to get rid of ants.

The executive summary seems to be: you can't; learn to live with them. I have been trying this for some time, but the depredations are getting to be just a bit much. (Especially as they seem to have killed off the worms in the wormery as well.) So I've tried a few things.

I'm not prepared to do boiling water; plus it would take ages to boil enough with the storm kettle on the allotment, and on the balcony, it would kill whatever plant was in the relevant pot as well.

On the allotment, the best solution without a doubt has been ant nematodes. The compost heap was absolutely swarming with the damn things before I applied these, as was the paving by the pear tree; both are now clear. I also tried it on the balcony, but with less conclusive effect; the satsuma tree (which seemed to be the worst affected pot) looks to be mostly clear now, but they've just moved to the potato box.

Flooding out is one option (if they've built their nest in a pot where the plant won't mind that). After emptying most of a watering-can into the potato box, I very soon saw lots of frantic ants carrying away eggs. But where to? I fear I may need to excavate the Area Under The Herb Table. I'll repeat the treatment on the potatoes again shortly (and the potatoes should do well for it, as well).

Another suggestion I've seen a lot is cinnamon. So last night I went out and sprinkled cinnamon in copious quantities all over the balcony. Curiously, I couldn't actually see as many ants anyway as I had before, so maybe the drenching has sent them off to find a nest somewhere that isn't my balcony. I'll report back on the cinnamon in a couple of weeks.

Germination and experimentation

2010-06-15T13:31:00.000+01:00

I've had better success with carrot germination this year than in previous years, on both allotment and balcony. This might be due to very thick sowing; the rate is still poor, but the actual number is higher. Carrot seed doesn't last from year to year, so you may as well sow the lot and thin if necessary, especially given the tendency to poor germination. Turnips and parsnips, on the other hand, have been worse than previously. According to the packet, turnips shouldn't be planted in May (presumably due to pest problems?), but as we're now into June, I planted another couple of rows this weekend, along with some more carrots and beets.

Another interesting suggestion in the book I mentioned in my last post is to reconsider advised planting times. The author mentions sowing French beans as a late summer catch-crop, sowing brassicas in June or July to avoid pest problems, and sowing carrots in June (advice which I've seen before elsewhere). What I've mostly taken from this is to experiment. Once the squash have gone out into the space reserved for them, I'm going to start planting other seeds into any spaces I have left, and see how they do. After all, the worst that happens is nothing, right? I should, though, probably keep slightly better records than I have tended to in the past.

Experiments started so far:

Late May carrots and beets.
Early June turnips, Brussels sprouts, and kale (some under protective hats, some not, mostly because I ran out of protective hats).

Experiments yet to be carried out:

June leeks.
June mange tout. (I have already planted some on the balcony.)

Last year I conducted some accidental experiments with tomatoes, as my tomato seedlings didn't get out into their final pots until July. The result: fewer tomatoes, and most of them still green by October when I finally had to take them in. (I did get some very nice green tomato chutney, though). This year, the first seedlings were planted out in early May, and they're already starting to flower. I've also found in the past through experimentation that tomatoes do much better in pots on my south-facing balcony than on the allotment, so the balcony is crammed with them and I'm looking forward to the first eating.

Experimental gardening does invariably involve a few failures, but at the least you wind up better informed about why the usual rules are what they are; and you may get surprisingly positive results. The usual rules are really just guidelines; it's only practice (and experiment) that gives you information about your space.

we are weeds, vegetation

2010-06-09T17:07:00.000+01:00

Things I do not recommend doing if you are a gardener (or, in fact, even if you're not, although it does get you out of doing any washing up for about two mnths): breaking your thumb. Despite this handicap, I have managed to be moderately productive on both allotment and balcony over the last month. You would think that weeding might be a one-handed activity, but it turns out that I use the other hand for balance more than I would previously have thought. Nevertheless, in the ongoing battle versus the weeds, I'm just about coming out on top. Two weeks off was more than enough to make it hard to catch back up; but when I did get going on the top bed (planted to roots this year), I found that carrot, beets, and one or two parsnips were making their way through the jungle. (What has happened to the rest of the parnsips? Who knows.)

I've also been reading a new book, "Organic Gardening the Natural No-Dig Way", by Charles Dowding, and so far have come up with a couple of useful messages. The first concerns weeds: "a year of weeds is seven years of seeds".

This has implications for green manure – if you don't intend to dig in your manure (see 'no-dig'), it will go to seed, making more trouble for you in the future. Dowding isn't in favour of green manures unless (like mustard) they're killed by frost before seeding.

It also has implications about the amount of work that needs to be done over the winter. This winter I did only very minimal weeding, as the weeds were growing only minimally, but in practice this just meant that I didn't get on top of it before they went to seed in the spring. I'm definitely seeing the results.

I've been reminded during the intensive weeding process of the last couple of weeks of something I read from Bob Flowerdew: that it pays to keep going back to a bed you've weeded thoroughly before it obviously needs weeding again. Keep cutting off the tops of the weeds (if using a hoe) or uprooting them (if weeding by hand) and they'll get weaker, so the job will become progressively easier.

I am constantly debating the issue of whether or not to bother keeping weeds that have gone to seed, and rhizome-type weeds, out of the compost. On the one hand, this is often recommended as otherwise your compost will just grow weeds. On the other hand, I'm never going to get rid of the weeds for ever anyway, and it seems a bit of a waste of compostable material. My current compromise is to leave the rhizome-rooted weeds out on the paths for a week or so to dry up before composting them.

This season I've also been thinking more about hoeing to speed up weeding. Making seed rows a hoe's width apart helps, but the problem I've then encountered is that my rows aren't always straight. With the next lot of planting (which will be the subject of my next post), I intend to actually use pieces of string, as I see the older gardeners on the allotment doing.

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

2010-04-19T19:09:00.000+01:00

It is once again the time of year when the rhubarb crowns go from "tiny new spring-announcing shoots" to "enormous rhubarb-triffids" pretty much overnight. Rhubarb crumble is good, as is rhubarb jam, but I thought I'd try something different this spring, and make rhubarb juice.

I used this recipe (summary: chop stalks into inch-ish chunks, cover with water, add a teaspoon of honey, boil for half an hr, then pour off the juice), and got 700ml of juice from maybe 10 decent-sized stalks. A teaspoon of honey was plenty (I might not bother with any at all another time).

The juice is nice neat; but even better with a little vodka, a couple of icecubes, and a sprig of mint. Very refreshing.

I turned the leftover pulp into rhubarb bread, using this vegan banana bread recipe. I estimated the volume of rhubarb pulp at about 2 bananas' worth or a little more, so halved all the other quantities, and cut out the water as the rhubarb was pretty damp. Cooked for an hour at 180^oC, it came out wonderfully. A bit like rhubarb crumble in cake form.

Next time I might try rhubarb liqueur.

A most relaxing week

2010-04-09T20:03:00.001+01:00

I spent an incredibly relaxing week over Easter at the Ecolodge in Old Leake, Lincs, with my partner doop and Sidney-the-dog.

The Ecolodge belongs to a lovely couple called Geri and Andy, who live in the house next door to it (the houses are sufficiently separate that you don't see them unless you want to). It's entirely offgrid: the electricity comes from a wind turbine and solar panels, there's a compost loo, rain-water is collected for showering (although there is one tap in the kitchen which has mains drinking water), and heating and hot water are handled by a wood-stove in the main room. The stove is obviously usable for cooking as well – we did 90% of our cooking on it, but did use the little two-burner gas ring to boil the kettle.

One of the major attractions for us was the lack of 'proper' electricity. All the plugs in the place are 110V DC, so you need a special sort of plug for them, and you can't just plug in your usual electrical kit. Which means no phones, no laptops, no iPod speakers... Instead, we read, knitted (in my case), did one of the jigsaws we found on the shelves, cooked, and chatted. A couple of times I switched the battery-operated radio onto Radio 3, but mostly I was happy just to listen to the birdsong and the subdued roar and crackle of the stove.

There's a couple of acres of mixed woodland and meadow out the back, which Sidney particularly appreciated as it featured pheasants. If you are a 1-year-old lurcher cross who's never been out of the city before, pheasants are, apparently, about the most fun it is possible to have. Happily she didn't actually catch any, in large part because even the dopiest pheasant would have heard her coming from some distance away as she crashed merrily through the undergrowth. doop and I followed behind more sedately, watching the process of spring springing, with the trees bursting into leaf and the flowers starting to appear.

There are a couple of flattish local walks, or you can go a bit further afield if you're not limited by having to take the dog along. We also spent an afternoon in the Art Stop, a slightly battered caravan equipped with pencils, crayons, paints, paper, and a box of fossils. I had enormous fun playing with colours like a 4-year-old. There's also jigsaws (we completed a 500-piece one over around 6 hours and felt immensely proud), kids' games, and a box of dominos (although neither of us could remember the rules).

Cooking on the wood stove is a slow process. It sometimes felt like our days revolved pleasantly around food (planning it and minding it), but the actual work involved was minimal. Just chuck another log or two on the stove every 45 minutes or thereabouts. We made one stew that was in the oven for over 24 hours (although not actually being cooked overnight), and it was sensational. Veggies were provided by the local organic farm, and there's free-range eggs available locally as well. When we needed anything, doop set off on his bike to the Co-op in the village, 4 km away. Apparently cycling in this part of the world is a little bracing (read: windy).

I came back feeling incredibly relaxed and peaceful, and determined to spend more of my time not plugged into the internet. Indeed, I wrote this on my first no-wireless-at-home day on Wednesday (and have only just got around to posting it). Just switching off from everything was fantastic, and I felt so much better for slowing down. I may not be able to spend all day every day kicking back on the sofa while I'm back in London, but I do want to recreate some of that peace here. I'll update with how it's going after a month.

Spring is sprung

2010-03-20T13:31:00.000Z

And therefore it is time to start on the planting.

In the last couple of weeks on the allotment, I've planted chard, parsnips, peas, carrots, and beetroot. The overwintered peas and beans from the balcony have gone out to join the beans that overwintered in the allotment (the peas appear to have expired somewhere along the way). I'm not sure how well the beans are actually doing, but we'll see. What I am sure of is that I should have planted many more of them to get anything like a crop. Ah well; a thing to remember for next year.

On the balcony, things are also getting moving. I've started my tomato, pepper, and chilli seedlings on the windowsill, and planted some carrots in a pot. The tomatoes appear a little reluctant to germinate; but I have 5 seedlings up and about now. (The chillis are known for taking ages to germinate and need it to be really warm.) Some of the overwintered peas have gone into balcony pots rather than to the allotment, and the cold-frames have been partway taken apart (they will be fully taken apart when there's more storage room).

The sage and mint cuttings I made over the winter have both taken, and the mint is now growing furiously; the thyme (which died back a little over the winter) is reinvigorating itself; and the chives are back up again (always one of my favourite parts of spring).

Very excitingly, I had a look at the worms in the wormery yesterday and they have produced actual compost! They also looked a little sorry for themselves; I have added a little water (the balcony got quite warm in the recent sunshine, and I'll need to bear that in mind over the summer) and some more food, so hopefully they'll perk up.

Contact details

2010-01-01T16:39:00.006Z

Email: juliet.kemp@gmail.com

Phone: +44 (0)7932 696236

Snail-mail address: 36 Marden Square, London, SE16 2HZ, UK.

Repair, reuse...

2009-12-18T18:34:00.000Z

This morning I spent five minutes attacking a frying-pan with a hammer; this afternoon I spent two hours taking a bike wheel apart and putting it back together again. Repair and reuse.

The frying-pan had an increasingly large rise in the middle -- bad enough by now that you were guaranteed a patch of burnt-on stuff where the oil wouldn't sit. Not sure if the hammer solution will actually work, as I didn't get it all that flat, but it was getting to be unusable, so I can't have gone that far wrong. So that was the repair.

The bike wheel is suffering from a broken hub. I did take the hub apart to see if I could fix that, but the cup (definitely) and the bearing races (probably) are dented, so it's a bit past that stage. I did keep the bearings, though, in case they come in handy. What I figured I could do was to reuse the spokes, nipples (the bits that attach the spokes to the rim), and rim. So far, so good: took everything apart successfully, and have got the basic tensioning done. Next job is to true it properly and put the sprocket back on -- probably about another hour's work. And that was the reuse.

There's something very satisfying about fixing a broken thing, or about not wasting reusable parts. I doubt I've saved any money (when I account for my time) with the bike wheel, but the satisfaction is more than worth it even without the environmental advantages. And I trust my wheel-building over a factory wheel every time.

Plus I got to hit something with a hammer, which is always a pleasing experience.

Sustainability and self-judgement

2009-12-16T19:16:00.000Z

The last week & a half, I have spent a certain amount of time over at Trafalgar Square, where a bunch of awesome people have been camping out for the duration of the Copenhagen talks. I've been going to and from, and doing some useful things, but I haven't been camping out, for a couple of reasons*.

What I've noticed is the amount of guilt I have about that decision and the way I want to justify or explain it to other people. I worry that the people camping out there -- many of whom I have a lot of respect for -- will be thinking less of me for that choice. (I should note that no one has in fact indicated, in word or deed, anything of the sort.)

But in truth, it's more about my own attitude. I don't entirely trust my own decision; part of me thinks that if I were really dedicated, or if I were stronger, or if... then I would be down there in my tent.

Which is nonsense. I am, in fact, competent to make decisions about my own abilities and what I can sustainably do. More to the point, it is OK for what I can sustainably do, and what other people can sustainably do, to be different. And just as I wouldn't (and don't) judge other people on what they feel able to do, other people are not in fact going to judge me (and if they did, then that would be a sign that perhaps they're not people I respect after all). In particular, my experience of Climate Camp is that there genuinely is an enormous amount of respect for everyone's individual comfort levels.

This ties in to two things I've been thinking about of late: my tendency to judge myself unduly harshly, and my ongoing concern about the judgements of others (rather than relying on my own beliefs). I think those things are perhaps more closely related than I believe them to be; my fears about the opinions of others reflecting my self-doubt.

I genuinely believe that sustainable communities need to recognise individual abilities and needs. And for that to work, it has to operate both internally and externally; after all, if you can't be fair and kind to yourself, then how can you let other people be fair and kind to you, or believe them when they are?

* Which I'm deliberately not specifying because as per above, I am trying to avoid the need to externally self-justify.

Letting go

2009-12-11T17:37:00.001Z

Earlier this year, I spent five very awesome months living in Sydney, in a small flat with very few belongings. (You buy less when you know that everything you acquire has to either be got rid of or expensively shipped in a few months.) Returning to the UK in July, I was taken aback by how much stuff I have.

The sense of having so many things around me is overpowering, even stifling. I find myself thinking longingly of my nice, empty flat in Sydney. The washing-up has less chance to build up when you only have two plates. It never takes more than ten minutes to tidy everything away. It's easy to choose clothes (though I admit I was kind of bored by my half-a-dozen tops and three skirts by the time I left). There's just more space.

And yet I still find it hard to let things go. To get rid of a bookcase's worth of books took multiple passes. The book I removed from the shelves on the fourth pass was no more nor less valuable to me then than it was on the first pass, but it took me that long to wear down my attachment to the concreteness of it; to allow myself to let go.

This week, I've let go of a stack of Audax brevet cards (to the recycling), a dozen-odd festival programmes (posted to the John Johnson Collection), and some more clothes.

I also went through my craft drawers, and found a stack of "requires mending or altering" projects. One in particular, a top I knitted, made my heart sink. Currently it's a little too wide, the seams are lumpy, it's not the right length; and I can't even begin to work out how I'd alter it so it's enjoyable to wear.

For the last year -- more? -- I've been looking at it, and thinking those same thoughts, and then putting it back in the drawer, to lurk there and generate guilt. Because I knitted it, and so surely it's worth doing something with.

This time, I took a deep breath, asked myself honestly whether I was ever really going to fix it, or if I even really wanted to (do I need another top?), and acknowledged that the answer was no. So I took another deep breath and started to rip it out (I do still like the yarn!).

It feels so freeing. I enjoyed making that top; I learnt some things from doing it; but I don't actually wear it. So I'm letting it go, and the decision leaves me feeling lighter. That's worth remembering.

COP15: more links

2009-12-08T09:27:00.000Z

If you're in London, come down to Trafalgar Square to visit the Climate Camp COP OUT CAMP OUT activists. We'll be there until the end of the COP15 talks! I was down there yesterday and there's tea and biscuits. Extra sleeping bags, food, things to sit on, & so on would be appreciated by the campers. In particular, if anyone has a source of some kind of marquee or market stall that would stand up on its own (can't use pegs on Trafalgar Square...) that would be really, really useful as the kitchen marquee was only hired for the weekend & has gone away now.

COP OUT CAMP OUT protestors blockade the European Climate Exchange yesterday.

Climate Refugee Santas sing climate carols to those catching the last flight to Copenhagen before the talks start. Their photographer was arrested.

Download the Climate Justice Chronicle, being published every other day during the Copenhagen talks.

The article's not in English, but I think the picture says it all. 'Reception centre' for climate activists arrested over the next couple of weeks.

More carbon trading, and dodgy US subpoena

2009-12-03T16:04:00.000Z

The Story of Cap & Trade. A short (just shy of 10 min), well-written and well-produced video explaining clearly why cap & trade isn't a solution to the carbon crisis. From the "Story of Stuff" people.

On a slightly different note, EFF discuss the subpoena issued by the US government to indymedia.us, which included an illegally-broad information-fishing expedition and a bogus gag order. Good work by Indymedia & the EFF in standing up to this.

And finally, another reminder to come along to COP OUT CAMP OUT this weekend, where you will very probably be able to see The Story of Cap & Trade on a bicycle-powered projector.

Land grabs in the developing world

2009-12-01T13:06:00.000Z

An interesting (and infuriating) post on The Angry Black Woman about land grabs. Executive summary: 'investors', initially officials from richer countries apparently concerned about food security, latterly all sorts of other people just interested in the financial value, have been buying up land in the developing world, especially in Africa.

There's lots of useful resources and links from that post, but it doesn't really take a genius to recognise that this is unlikely to end well for the people living in those countries. It's the same as the biofuels issue: the rich buy up the land at the expense of those who live off it.

Even if you think that local people where the land is being bought are actually getting the money (which is, frankly, pretty monumentally unlikely), the economics of the situation (on an assumption of food scarcity, which is after all why the 'investment' is considered valuable) means that it's a bad deal. The money can't make up for the loss of the food -- because the cost of the food is going to be greater than the cost of the land (otherwise no money is made). Not only that, but the food is going to go first to richer countries who can afford to pay more.

Yet another way in which climate change and capitalism are screwing the poor of the world over first. Unfortunately it looks like it's going to be business as usual in Copenhagen; continuing to put financial interests over global wellbeing. If you're in the UK, the Wave march is this Saturday; after that there's the more radically-inclined Climate Camp COP OUT CAMP OUT event. Come along to push the idea that Copenhagen needs to produce radical results.

Corporate Watch on 10:10 as corporate greenwash

2009-11-26T19:07:00.000Z

I've just read this report on 10:10 from Corporate Watch. They take a look at the usefulness of the project, and whether it is/is being used as corporate greenwash.

The big issue that I have with 10:10 is its focus on the individual. The big changes that we need to make aren't at an individual level; they're at a corporate and governmental level, and they're about making significant changes to the way that the world operates. In particular, to the way that capitalism operates*. 10:10 encourages the idea that climate change is an individual responsibility. And, sure, we do all need to change our habits, and that's not a bad thing. But it's not going to be enough; and a campaign like this risks encouraging people to think that they've done their bit now.

The Corporate Watch report points out that corporations are being encouraged to sign up as well (good), but that the level for them is 3%. Looking at the 10:10 website, what they're actually saying is that 10% is the target but 3% is enough (2nd para). Note that this isn't applied to individuals (although it is to organisations). I find this pretty dodgy; not only that, but that page talks first about "urging your staff, suppliers and customers to sign up to cut their own emissions by 10%" and only then about "doing everything you can to reduce your own operational emissions". This is a straightforward and massive cop-out, especially since (as above), it's businesses and corporations that are the ones that really need to make changes. E.On say they've signed up to 10:10, for fuck's sake, and I don't see on that page anything about them changing their processes. Or, I don't know, doing something about their coal-fired power stations.

Encouraging individual reductions is great. Letting companies off the hook before they even start is crap. Letting them sign up when all they're doing is talking to their customers is greenwash. Which is a shame, because 10:10 could be doing something stronger than that. Expecting -- and auditing -- an actual 10% cut in business emissions would be more like a real achievement.

* It's possible that what's needed is changes big enough that it might not really be 'capitalism' any more, but let's leave that aside for now.

Independence days

2009-11-24T11:53:00.001Z

I came across the Independence Days challenge over on Casaubon's Book. I rather like the idea. So, how've I done in the last week?

1. Plant something. Beans and peas on the balcony. The ones I planted earlier in the month have come up now, as well.

2. Harvest something. Chard and volunteer leeks from the allotment; herbs from the balcony; I'll be harvesting some salad leaves from the balcony later today. (I should focus on doing this more often - no point in growing the damn stuff if I don't eat it.)

3. Preserve something. Green tomato chutney! From the green tomatoes on the balcony. Only a single jar this year, but it's tasty stuff.

4. Prep something. Hm. I finished knitting my gloves; that might count. I built a bit more of the cold-frame for the allotment.

5. Cook something. Learnt how to make soda bread! Which is very tasty.

6. Manage your reserves. This I am seriously not good at; although we've been filling up the freezer with food again, which is good.

7. Work on local food systems. Not doing much on this either. Although I'm considering the guerilla gardening situation... But then, I already knew that the whole community issue is the thing I'm worst at.

Better than I'd feared, though.

Time and sustainability

2009-11-19T11:31:00.000Z

I worked out the other day that the various things I'm committed to (paid work, activism, food-growing, writing, other bits & pieces) add up to approximately a 50-hour week (that's excluding the 5 hours I work on Saturdays). Which... is a lot.

Then there's the things that keep showing up in my inbox, or on mailing lists, or in leaflets I see in Non-Commercial House or LARC. So many things that I would love to get involved in, and that would be valuable uses of my time. Except for where I already have no time left.

I know that activism has to be sustainable; that you need to look after yourself and avoid burnout. (It's also my experience that far too often, that's not seen as a priority -- that there can be an attitude whereby it's encouraged to run yourself into the ground for a cause. But that's for another post.) But there is so much that I could be doing, and I don't know how to choose or prioritise it.

The best I can do at the moment is to try to be honest about what I actually get something out of for myself (because you won't work well at something that you're doing reluctantly); and to watch my tendency to overcommit when I'm just trying things out. I keep reminding myself that it's OK to try things out, to work out where I want to spend my energies.

My gut instinct is that what I'm doing at the moment isn't long-term sustainable; so I need to do something about it. But that doesn't help me work out what to drop whilst still feeling satisfied with how I'm spending my time. If anything, it's a constant battle not to take more things on. Tales of other people's experiences of managing this would be gratefully appreciated!

Teas: thyme, dandelion root, and chickweed

2009-11-17T11:06:00.000Z

The other week I harvested some dandelion roots and chickweed, to try out for their medicinal properties. I also tried thyme infusion. Here are the reports.

Thyme infusion

A couple of sprigs of fresh (or dried) thyme in a mug, fill with boiling water, cover, and leave for 5-10 min. Crushing the leaves a little beforehand makes a stronger infusion, I found. It's supposed to be a good decongestant.

It certainly tastes lovely (you can add a little honey, but I didn't bother), and both I (a little sniffly at the time) and my cold-ridden test subject found that it did at least temporarily seem to have a de-gunking effect. Cold-ridden test subject also said it made him feel calmer.

Would voluntarily drink again!

Dandelion root decoction

Since dandelion roots are quite tough, this required a decoction, which means that instead of just infusing in boiling water, one simmers it on the stove for a while -- in this case, I simmered a couple of smallish roots for about 15 min.

I was expecting bitterness, and was all set to add some honey, but in fact I found it quite pleasantly earthy, and not bitter at all. Certainly less bitter than strong black tea.

It's supposed to have general tonic effects, and in particular to be good for the liver and kidneys. I didn't particularly notice a diuretic effect, but I did feel a bit better after drinking it (I had a couple of glasses of wine the night before and was feeling just slightly under the weather). So might make a good hangover cure!

Would drink again but with less enthusiasm than the thyme.

Chickweed infusion

A small handful of dried chickweed; pour boiling water over, cover, and leave for 10-30 min. Supposed to be good for coughs and hoarseness. I didn't really have either symptom, but my throat's been a little scratchy of late.

Unlike the thyme tea, I had to strain this, as the chickweed didn't sink enough for me to drink around it. It doesn't taste of much at all, and it smells of wet greenery. Not unpleasant, but not actively pleasant, either. Maybe a slightly bittersweet aftertaste? (It does that strange thing whereby the thing itself doesn't taste of much but your mouth tastes sweet afterwards.)

I didn't particularly notice a soothing effect, although I did notice a slight degunking effect; but that can just be associated with drinking liquid of any sort. Plus it made my nose tickle.

Would try again if I had a cough or hoarse throat, but wouldn't drink for pleasure.

I've also poured oil over a jar of dried chickweed and put that in the sun for a couple of weeks, to try it as a healing oil for minor skin irritation.

The Carbon Supermarket

2009-11-15T11:41:00.000Z

You can download Kate Evans' latest cartoon, The Carbon Supermarket, from her website. It's a fantastic explanation of why carbon trading just doesn't work.

After seeing this I went looking through her archives, as well. I particularly liked this one about the Diggers, and this one about privacy rights, but they're all worth a read.

Update from my last post: that evening I went out to the AGM of the Friends of Galleywall Nature Reserve, a tiny nature reserve just down the road from me; and wound up volunteering as treasurer and to do a couple of other things to recruit volunteers. So if you're in S London & interested in local wildlife, let me know! There's an open morning coming up on the 12th December, as well.

Community and sustainability

2009-11-10T10:55:00.000Z

I wouldn't entirely describe myself as anti-social; but I'm quite happy spending a fair amount of time on my own, and I can find it quite hard to go out and put myself in new social spaces.

I was interested to read this week two articles about community participation. As Belinda points out, in the long run if you're expecting a major change in our current society, community is a necessity rather than a luxury.

I absolutely agree with this in principle. In practice, I'm finding it harder to engage at that level than I'd like. I'm increasingly aware that part of the problem is that I feel unsupported. The various groups or community events that I aim to attend (e.g. the local nature reserve meeting tonight) are often also potentially interesting to the people I'm closest. But in practice, those people usually lack the time, energy, or social inclination to go along.

Now, that's not anyone's fault, and of course, it doesn't prevent me from going myself. But it does mean that every time I try to expand my social or community circles, I have to take myself away from my existing social links to do it, rather than being able to integrate them. That by itself makes the whole process harder.

It also means I'm always going to these things on my own. Which isn't usually a problem for me; I spent 10 months pottering around the world on my own, meeting people and going to things with no problems. But I didn't expect any social support then, because I had no existing social circle.

The only option (other than to give up!) is to keep looking for new opportunities, keep pushing myself to do this on my own, and to try to find the places where I feel comfortable and can make new friends and acquaintances. I think it's important to do all of that. I could just wish I found it a little easier.

It's the little things

2009-11-05T12:46:00.002Z

Minor changes or things I have done to reduce my environmental footprint recently:

Stopped using rubber gloves to do the washing up. Instead I made up some hand-cream (aqueous cream, a little almond oil, some aloe vera sap, and a few drops of lavender and frankincense essential oils) and put that in an old moisturiser jar by the sink.
Started using handkerchiefs rather than tissues.
Switched to (fair-trade) tealeaves rather than tea-bags. I have a per-cup teaball that makes this easier. Not particularly impressed with the quality of the Co-op's tealeaves, though.
Did not buy a dog-bed when we got Finlay; instead he sleeps on a pile of old blankets (and an old coat and jumper) that were too knackered to be of use for their intended purpose. Actually overnight he sleeps on the landing with no blanket at all; and half the time during the day he eschews both blanket piles in favour of sprawling all over the floor; but hey, that's his decision.
Patched my slightly-split rear bike tyre (from the inside, using a piece of another old tyre) rather than replacing what is otherwise a perfectly decent tyre. (Safety note: it's not a big split, nor is it on the sidewall, so it's not dangerous to ride on; it's just a place where punctures are more likely.)
Darned two holes in one of my nice thick black stockings. (This also affected by the fact that these are no longer available at all, so I need to keep them going for as long as possible!).
Bought a book I wanted (on woodworking by hand, which I want to try out) second-hand instead of new.

Do I think any of these have a major impact on my carbon footprint? No. But I do think that making small daily-life changes is part of making larger changes; that it helps to remind you to think about sustainability. One of the main things I'm working on at the moment is simply not buying things; reducing my footprint by reducing my consumption. (Hence the second-hand book; and on realising that I really do need some specific warm clothing for cycle-instructing purposes over the winter, I went hunting & found the organic fair-trade version of that.) That's a daily decision, but it's not really one you can point at.

Link roundup

2009-11-02T18:36:00.000Z

Various links I've collected over the last couple of weeks:

Geoff Mulgan talking about post-capitalism-crisis society (note that there's an interactive transcript at the side for those, like me, who are allergic to video). He focusses on ideas of social entrepreneurship and investment in social capital.
New Scientist article showing evidence of methane bubbling up in the Arctic Ocean. This may be due to the warming of the West Spitsbergen current (1^o over 30 years), and it could indicate the upcoming release of really large quantities of methane.
The Climate Safety report: a very readable summary of the current situation, which demonstrates another reason why carbon trading won't work, namely, because we need to move RIGHT NOW.
Action points on climate change for the individual (from my friend Elizabeth, an environmental economist).
Finally: the Copenhagen climate summit is coming up in mid-December. The Economist provides a brief round-up of facts and figures. If on the other hand you wish to protest, here's the UK Climate Camp webpage (includes links to transport), or you can check out the website of the international Climate Justice Action group. There will also be a march in London on the 5th Dec 2009.

We are weeds, vegetation...

2009-10-29T10:14:00.000Z

Yesterday I went down the allotment to harvest weeds.*

Specifically, I dug up a bunch of dandelion roots, and gathered a handful of what I suspected was (and now am sure is) chickweed. I've been reading this fantastic herbalism zine, which told me that both of these are medicinally useful.

Dandelion root can be used to stimulate the liver, gallbladder, and kidneys; or just as a general tonic containing lots of minerals (including iron, potassium, and calcium, all particularly useful if you're vegan). To preserve it, dry the roots (wash them and leave them somewhere dark; if you split larger roots down the middle they'll dry faster), and store them in a sealed container in a cool, dark place. To use it, make a decoction by putting 1oz of root and 1pt of water in a pan and simmering until the water has reduced by 50%. Strain and drink.

Chickweed is good as an infusion of dried herb for coughs and hoarseness; and as an infused oil to treat minor skin problems (burns, rashes, itching, dryness). Alternatively you can just eat the leaves as a salad leaf. I tried my sample plants after I'd IDed them, and found it quite tasty. To dry it, it's best to hang it somewhere dark and warm (but spread on a windowsill is fine if that's the easiest option for you). To make an infusion, pour boiling water over the dried herb, cover, and leave for 10-30 min. To make an infused oil, macerate the dried herb in olive oil, place in a warm sunny window for 2 weeks, strain, and bottle in a dark glass bottle. (You can make a stronger oil by adding more herbs and leaving for another fortnight.)

I can't yet report back on how these work (or taste!) as I'm still in the drying stage. I'll update in a couple of weeks.

The best bit about all of this is that these are not plants which I have any trouble at all in growing. Currently the chickweed is popping up all over the squash bed as the squash dies down. I'm incredibly pleased to find out that there's something useful (beyond just chucking it in the compost heap) that I can do with it.

Next task: try to establish whether any of my other weeds are useful. Sadly I'm not sure we have any yarrow.

* I planted some broad beans and early dwarf peas, as well -- we have an Aphid Problem which means that the only chance to get any actual broad beans is to get the plants up and producing in the spring before the aphids have woken up. Which in turn means overwintering them.

What counts as work?

2009-10-27T14:48:00.001Z

At the Anarchist Bookfair at the weekend I picked up a book called Making Stuff and Doing Things. Among the collection of useful bits and pieces was an article by CrimethInc about getting active. Point 2 -- spend less to work less! -- really spoke to me. That's what I'm trying to do at the moment: reduce my costs so I don't have to work full-time and have more time to do the things that I want to do.

This raises questions about what counts as 'work'. I don't get paid for the time I put in at the allotment (which at least in theory frees up cash as I don't have to spend so much on food), and I enjoy it; but it's physically tough (especially today as I spent yet another hour hacking away at the Blackberry Tangle). I've just started a (paid) part-time job teaching cycling; something which I enjoy enough and think is important enough that in the past I've done it for free. I do various volunteer things that don't attract payment but are certainly 'work' in another sense (I do some sysadmin work, which in the past I've been paid for, for free at the moment).

Feeding into this is perhaps the idea that 'women's work' tends to be undervalued. Growing things, making things, handcrafts, helping others, teaching... often, these things are not defined as 'work'. Unless you make money at it, anyway, in which case it may qualify as work. Of course, it's still more likely to be taken seriously if you're male.

I find myself wanting to broaden the idea of 'work', and to blur the boundaries between that and 'play'. The CrimethInc article above is fundamentally saying something a lot like that: take yourself out of the traditional paid-labour market (as far as is possible), and support yourself by doing other sorts of work. Support yourself directly rather than with paid labour. Work out how to make that sustainable. Create an alternative that doesn't fit into that old joke about work being the unpleasant things you're paid to do.

That's my sort of anarchism.

350 reasons why carbon trading won't work

2009-10-22T16:51:00.000+01:00

Rising Tide have just launched a new campaign: 350 reasons why carbon trading won't work. Well worth a read.

The theory behind carbon trading is that it encourages innovation and carbon reduction funded by the market. The argument goes like this. Imagine that you have a carbon limit of 100 units (for the sake of the argument, it doesn't matter what your units are). Company A and Company B both currently emit 110 units. Company A, however, can easily reduce their carbon output; Company B would really struggle a lot to do so. If all you do is charge for carbon output above 100, then A will reduce to 100, and B will reduce to maybe 105 (because they can't reduce any further that quickly): total 205.

Under carbon trading, the argument goes, A will reduce further, because suddenly a reduction below 100 units will be worth something. Because they still have some easy wins, they reduce to 90 units, and sell their extra 10 units of permits to Company B. Company B don't bother reducing at all, because it's cheaper just to buy permits, so they still output 110 units: total 200 units. Hurrah, that is less than 205 units, carbon trading wins!

What strikes me is that carbon trading assumes that the problem with the first scenario (i.e. why it doesn't maximise the reduction) is to do with the lack of a market mechanism. My suggestion would be that it is instead to do with where the limit is set. What happens if we set the limit at 0, and companies have to pay for all carbon output? Company A will (at least) reduce to that 90 that was their easy win. Company B will reduce to the 105 that was all they could manage initially. Total output: 195.

In fact, under carbon trading, Company A may be discouraged from reducing as far as they can -- because if they reduce too far, then their permits will reduce in value (supply/demand)*. Under a more draconian limit system, they have the absolute encouragement to reduce as far as possible.

Of course, this means that the operating costs of all non-carbon-neutral companies will rise, possibly by quite a lot. Which in turn presumably means that the cost of whatever product or service they're providing will rise. From where I'm standing, that's a further positive outcome. Currently, carbon output costs: it just doesn't cost the polluters. It costs everyone (and disproportionately, it costs the poor), just indirectly. Currently, polluting companies are treated as if they have a right to pollute, which is (very) slowly being curtailed. Let's turn it around, and make them actually pay for their polluting activities.

Yes, that will have a knock-on economic effect. Some companies may even go out of business, if it turns out that when customers are asked to pay the true cost of their goods, that those goods aren't worth it. Again: that doesn't sound to me like a bad thing. That implies that currently, the rest of the world is subsidising something which the purchasers themselves don't actually value enough to pay for in full.**

Let's start valuing our environment properly. Carbon trading is just a way of putting that off -- quite probably until it's too late.

* This is basically what has already happened: too many permits were issued at the start of the scheme, so permit costs are through the floor and no one has any encouragement to make any reductions at all. This might have something to do with the fact that the basis on which numbers of permits were issued was calculated from numbers provided by.... the polluting companies themselves. Um.
** OK, maybe some of those goods or services will have a social value such that they shouldn't be let go under. In which case, governments may wish to subsidise them. But again, let's do that openly and explicitly, and without invisibly handing value from the world as a whole over to private shareholders.

Allotment plans for the next few weeks

2009-10-20T10:17:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling a little unfocussed about a lot of things right at the moment. For the food-growing, at least, one solution to this is to make a list of what I need to do before the end of November.

Allotment

Planting:

broad beans, meteor pea, early dwarf pea. Probably one lot of each this week, and another lot in a fortnight.
more kale and mustard greens; the germination rate for the last lot was a little low. In fact I may start these off inside, then move to the balcony, then plant out in the cold frame on the allotment.

Harvesting

more raspberries!
dig up the rest of the damn potatoes.
sweetcorn and squashes.

Tidying up:

finish cutting back the blackberry.
cut back the autumn rasps, once they're actually finished (still going at the moment!).
check for any seed that can be saved.

Infrastructure:

build the cold frame for the mustard greens and kale. I want to at least start this this weekend.
get more planks down for the raised beds.
finish deconstructing the pallets so they're out of the way.
dig over the compost heap, incorporating some of the blackberry cuttings.
amalgamate the extra compost heap (mostly consisting of blackberry cuttings...) into one location.
go out to collect leaves from the park for mulching down (needs to happen soon; easiest way to do this would be to use one of my old compost bags & take it round the park when I go round with the dog!).

Planning:

keep reading the Permaculture Book and actually take some notes.

Balcony

Planting:

? another batch of salad veg? Don't have any more room in the cold frame though!
maybe some meteor peas.

Harvesting:

keep eating the salad leaves.
dig up the potatoes.

Tidying up:

sort out all the old pots and work out where they should go.
work out where to put the salad veg cold frame that isn't "on top of the wormery".
bring the basil inside.
take up the dead peas.

Planning:

the best thing I could do this month, I think, is establish a routine of checking up on the balcony daily.
decide what to do about the wormery - the answer probably is "dig some worms out of the allotment compost heap and relocate them".

Ha, turns out that that's quite a lot of things to be going on with.

Climate Change - take action this weekend!

2009-10-15T12:37:00.000+01:00

At a loose end this weekend? Based in the UK?

Come on down to Nottingham and close down a power station for the weekend! There's something for everyone, whatever your direct action comfort level, from the Footsteps to the Future march to the Bike Bloc Critical Mass and the Take Back The Power bloc's get-to-the-control-room mission.

And to prove that this sort of direct action does work: we've already stopped Kingsnorth, and BAA have shelved plans for the third runway at Heathrow. Come and help make a difference!

Positive goals

2009-10-13T14:22:00.000+01:00

I read Little Light's post on dangerous (hopeful) thinking today, and found it resonating strongly with my own attitudes.

The activism I try to embody is positive: it seeks solutions, a world that we want to see. This is one of the things that I like about Climate Camp: it's not just about protesting and trying to stop bad things, it's about trying to build good things. Providing alternatives; sharing skills and knowledge; building communities. I take part in protest-oriented direct action, but I put more energy into promoting cycling, trying to get better at growing my own food, finding carbon-cheap ways to operate my life (and then promoting those). For me, being the change you want to see in the world is vitally important.

Having said that, the comments at the bottom by shah8 are also important: if we think only of the end and not of the means (or of how the end is operated), then we risk simply ending up with another set of wrongs to replace the ones we have. For me, the way to avoid this is to treat your hopes and aims holistically. It's not OK to achieve one thing by sacrificing something else important.

Of course, the problem then becomes: are all your aims compatible? Can they be treated holistically? If not, do you need to rethink them so that they can? Sometimes it is legitimate to sacrifice one thing for another. I'd love for it to be possible for everyone in the world to have the same range of choice and luxury as those who are well-off in the developed world, without causing poverty and environmental destruction. That's not possible, so instead what I want to move towards is everyone being able to survive with some level of comfort, in a sustainable and non-poverty-generating way. (Which is of course an unpopular concept in the developed world, entailing as it does a lower standard of living for us. Myself included.)

From a sustainability point of view: striving for a positive goal is arguably more personally sustainable in the long term than simply fighting a negative. Sometimes it is necessary to put energy into fighting a negative; but having a positive vision of what you want to see instead, and trying to include at least some positive movement in your negative action (community-building is always a good one), will tend to help you hang on in there for the long haul.

Freecycle, free shops, and letting things go

2009-10-08T11:17:00.000+01:00

There's a couple of obvious advantages to using Freecycle (or Freegle, which is the new UK-based version). Giving a home to things you don't want or need any more, rather than throwing them away. Getting hold of things second-hand -- and free! -- rather than having to buy new and generate more waste. (I got a stairgate from Freecycle recently when we acquired a new dog.)

But I've found that it also helps with the process of deciding whether you really need to keep something at all. I've been trying of late to move away from a policy of "keep it just in case". As a policy, that leads to stacks of belongings festering in corners; reducing the space available for you and for the things that you genuinely do want and use.

Freecycle lets me have the attitude that if I need something at an unspecified later date, I'll be able to get hold of it again at that point. If I send out into the wild the stack of paint trays and rollers that have been in the bottom of a cupboard for 5 years, then should I ever need them again, I'll be able to find another set.

Of course, that particular set of paint trays may never be in circulation again. But the more stuff there is circulating in the free and second-hand un-market, the more likely it is that the stuff you need will be there when you need it.

I've started to see "keeping things just in case" as a form of wastage. It means that a useful thing isn't in use, so when someone else needs it, they have to buy another one. As opposed to using the one sitting unused in my cupboard. In a similar vein, I share a bike trailer and various power tools with other people: they're expensive things that we don't all need at once so why own multiple versions? I can treat Freecycle and free shops as something a bit like a large and less trackable version of a lending library. End result: less stuff in the world and in my house.

Cheese, lentils, and carbon

2009-10-05T15:37:00.000+01:00

I've been vegan for about 8 years now. Primarily this was an animal welfare decision, but as I've become more climate-change conscious, I've also become aware of the fact that vegan foods are lower-carbon than meat or dairy.

More recently, I've been considering the issue of local eating and sustainability. You can't (sadly) easily grow in the UK the pulses I use for most of my protein (lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans, soya beans (tofu)¹). So that's all being shipped in from -- I don't even know where, to be honest. Somewhere Else. On the other hand, I can get 'local' (within 100 miles) cheese or milk down the road at Borough Market. Would that be better in terms of carbon footprint?

Probably not, it turns out. The study described there was conducted in the US, but the figures won't be far off for the UK. Food miles turned out to be only a small part (around 11%, with only 4% being the producer-retailer leg) of the carbon footprint of any given food. Most of it was in the production stage, and both red meat and dairy are high-carbon-producers.

The graph they have at that link is irritatingly uninformative, as it doesn't (seem to) allow for quantities of consumption. (Broadly speaking, what is interesting isn't what percentage of food-related greenhouse gas emissions are related to red meat, but how that compares with the percentage of red meat that is eaten with food. If the Average Diet is 30% red meat and red meat produces 30% of the carbon output, that's probably fine.) However, the fact that a 21-23% shift away from red meat towards chicken and fish would cut as much carbon as buying all-local would indicates that the carbon footprint difference between red meat/dairy, and pulses, is genuinely significant.

I then managed to locate a chart showing the carbon cost of various foods. It doesn't include pulses but they'll be somewhere down there with the carrots: very obvious that the carbon footprint is tiny compared to cheese.

Of course, there's another factor: if you're eating for protein, how much protein do you get for your carbon? Turns out that the protein content of cheese and pulses is close-enough to the same. Around 100g protein per pound of cheese (exact rate depends on what cheese); 115g/lb lentils, 102g/lb (raw) kidney beans; an impressive 166g/lb for (raw) soya beans². So the high carbon cost of cheese isn't compensated for by higher protein content (although it is higher-calorie). Milk is low-carbon; but it's also low-protein (15g/lb or so).

So I don't have a good climate-related excuse to start eating cheese again, which is a shame! The figures might be a bit different if I had my own goat/cow, on otherwise not agriculturally useful land, and was making my own cheese, but unfortunately I don't think I can fit a ruminant of any sort on the balcony.

Here's another couple of links for further reading, if you're interested:

The carbon footprint of cheese (theory only, no numbers). This is less accurate if you're buying organic artisan cheese from a proper dairy, but there's still a lot of CO2-emitting there which doesn't apply to pulses (and it's accepted that it's more efficient to put the pulses straight into the humans rather than detouring them via a cow).
An assessment of the carbon cost of a cheeseburger (headline conclusion: the US cheeseburger consumption is responsible for the same sort of quantity of carbon as is the US SUV habit).

1. If you want to try soya beans in the UK, try Elena -- the yield isn't great though for any pulses of this sort.
2. 1lb of soya beans would make about 2 medium-sized blocks of tofu. Not sure exactly the weight of that, but there's not enough difference to seriously screw up the figures. Soya beans before being made into tofu are not particularly tasty.

Non-disposables

2009-10-02T12:56:00.000+01:00

After realising just how much tissue paper I was going through with my cyclist's sniffle¹, even if it does then go in the compost, I've made the decision to switch to handkerchiefs.

I had one cotton one kicking around in my box-of-fabric-bits, but also ordered a box of 8 organic cotton flannel hankies which arrived yesterday. Conclusion: nice and soft (more so than the old regular cotton one), although if I had a full-on cold I'm not sure if they'd be as soothing as the disposable aloe vera ones. (I can however try applying actual aloe vera in this instance, from the very healthy plant in the living-room.) The advantage of cotton though is that it softens with use and washing.

(I have a discount code for these people now which I'm free to hand on -- let me know if you want to use it.)

Discussion with a friend gave rise to the question "but if you have to boil or boil-wash them is it actually environmentally better?". After due consideration I can't really see the need to boil them: I don't do that with any other piece of clothing that I might get bits of bodily fluids on (& we've just acquired a dog: I'm not about to boil any clothing that gets dog-slobber on it either), and I don't see that hankies would be that much more germ-laden as a rule. As & when I actually get a cold I'll probably rinse & maybe soak in hot water before I chuck them in the wash.

(Amnesty also do fair-trade organic hankies if you want to try those.)

This Times article (scroll down) discusses the environmental benefits of hankies: the average European tissue usage is 13kg per person per year, which is kind of boggling. I'm even more pleased now that I've ditched the disposables.

1. Going fast and/or cold weather makes your eyes water, which makes your nose run. There's a reason why bike gloves all have that little soft absorbent patch on the back of the thumb. In fact my sniffle doesn't seem to be entirely cycling-induced, either; most annoying.

Cold frame from scrap (pt 2)

2009-09-30T16:01:00.002+01:00

Last week I finished my small cold frame for the balcony.

It took very little extra work, in fact: I just had to cut an appropriately-sized chunk off one of the 2m² pieces of polycarbonate I brought home on my bike trailer a fortnight ago:

(Another demonstration of the truth of my long-held belief that you can transport pretty much anything with a bike. Six miles -- albeit quite slow ones -- from Dulwich to Bermondsey and I didn't have to stop and retie it even once. I was very pleased. NB: the polycarb wasn't touching the ground at the end when the trailer (a Carry Freedom Large -- fantastic piece of kit) was properly attached to the bike.)

The jigsaw went through the polycarb with no bother at all, and I taped the edges up with gaffer tape. To get some air into the frame, I'm using part of one of the planks I cut up for the slanted top: the polycarb lid just rests on it at the back. I haven't bothered to make hinges; I'll rethink that if the lid doesn't stay put.

Next plans: slightly bigger cold-frame for the table of herbs outside on the balcony, and much bigger one for the allotment. Currently in the allotment there are three rows of various sorts of greens under mini-cloches (cut the top off a one-litre juice bottle), so the cold frame needs to be built before they outgrow the cloches.

Carbon tracking: travel

2009-09-29T12:14:00.002+01:00

Continuing on my thoughts about my carbon footprint: travel.

A significant chunk of the UK average 5.4 tonnes of carbon is car and plane travel. I don't own a car, and I don't intend to fly again, so that's good for my footprint. Almost all of my practical daily travel is by bike, which has next-to-zero carbon; but I do take trains.

Rather to my horror, CRAG don't include train (or tube) travel in their conversion factors table. Train data is surprisingly hard to find online (or I'm not looking right), but the splendid Seat61 site has a useful page which gives London to Edinburgh (return) as 24kg of CO2 (= 0.024 tonnes). (The Eurostar to Paris is 22kg return.) Resurgence give 0.1kg/mile for train travel. London-Edinburgh is around 700mi return, so that would be 70kg (0.07 tonnes) which... is rather out of whack with the Seat61 value. Hm.

For now, I'm going to work with the Resurgence value, because I'd rather overestimate than underestimate the cost.

So I'm going to start actually tracking my train travel (distances will be based on Google Maps and thus a little approximate). In September:

London to Southampton rtn: 160 mi.
London to Aberdeen rtn: 1060 mi.
Bermondsey to Battersea Park rtn: 8 mi.

Total 1228 mi = 122.8kg (0.123 tonnes).

No tube or bus travel this month.

(In the interests of honesty, I should add that I also spent some time in a car on both of the long trips: in Aberdeen in particular there was a fair amount of mileage, although largely as extra passenger rather than cause-of-journey. However, for now I'm going to ignore social trips in other people's cars, as these were.)

Carbon tracking: goals

2009-09-24T12:52:00.000+01:00

I have been considering the matter of personal carbon footprint: what mine is, and what I should be aiming for. The many and varied online carbon calculators are a useful starting point, but they're really a little vague. I want to make the effort to track and calculate my carbon emissions more accurately.

First question: what should I be aiming for? The Institute for Public Policy Research have been talking about personal carbon trading/rationing, but unfortunately their review is pay-to-read so I don't know if they've talked about specific levels, and if they have, what those levels are. The Carbon Rationing Action Groups network have a bit more information. Their figures give 5.4 tonnes of carbon per person as the UK emissions average, and 0.5 tonnes as a globally sustainable level.

Looking at their footprinting basic info, I'm a bit unclear on whether those figures are purely personal, or whether they include the societal per-capita output. But let's assume that it's the personal, and treat that 0.5 tonnes as what I should be aiming for.

0.5 tonnes is very, very low. I'm very aware that, living the developed-world lifestyle that I do, cutting down that far would be incredibly tough, and I don't expect, being honest, to get anywhere close. However. It is good to quantify, and to have that figure in mind.

Second question: where, approximately, am I at at the moment? The government calculator is again fairly vague, but estimates my current usage* as follows:

1.85 tonnes for heating and lighting.
0.33 tonnes for electrical appliances.
0.3 tonnes for travel (I put in an estimate of 2 x 600mi return trips and 6 x 160 mi return trips by train per year; all other travel by bike).

Total: 2.48 tonnes.

The two major omissions from this are food consumption, and general consumption; and indeed, that site gives the UK national average as 4.46 tonnes, so they're obviously missing that bit out. (I also think the travel is probably an under-estimate on my part.) The heating/lighting may be per-house rather than per-person. It'll do as a rough starting point.

So my aim now is to track things a bit more accurately than those estimates do, and to make reductions. I'll be posting more shortly about the various sections of footprint and my thoughts on accuracy, problems, tracking, and potential cuts. You will note that although on that basis I'm well below the UK average, I'm still way above that sustainable 0.5 tonne level.

In the "change is possible" spirit of this blog: it's important to remember that the difficulty of cutting down to 0.5 tonnes doesn't mean that it is in any way pointless to make reductions. However, it's also important to bear in mind that personal reductions are only part of this: we need to be looking at and campaigning for societal and structural change as well.

* I didn't put in figures for my actual activities over the last year, because I am already fully aware that travelling as much as I have done this year, even low-carbon travelling, is outrageously carbon-costly. I'm interested in an estimate for what I'm consuming whilst back in the UK, so that I can move on from here.

Greenery for the winter: cold frame from scrap (pt1)

2009-09-18T12:32:00.001+01:00

In my ongoing quest to reduce food miles by growing more greenery I have spent an hour or so building a small cold frame for the balcony. It's not quite finished yet (I have a huge piece of clear polycarbonate that I need to saw into pieces so I can use part of it for the cold frame top), but the frame itself now exists.

The best bit is that it's made from 100% reclaimed bits. The base is a wine box that I got from my parents (sadly by the time it reached me it was empty of wine).

The part of the top that gives it a slope (so it'll catch the sun better) is made from planks reclaimed from a pallet. The pallet was part of a very small pile of wood left after Climate Camp, part of which I took home*. I saved the nails as I took them out when dismantling the pallet, and enough of them were straightish that I could use them for this project. The measuring, sawing to size (including sawing the diagonals), and nailing together took under an hour: much quicker than I'd expected.

I was going to use a couple of pieces of dowel to hold the two sections together, but it seems pretty stable without. An old compost bag is providing a lining.

The picture shows it on the balcony in its temporary "on top of the wormery" location. (I need to rearrange the balcony space a bit.) The pots have rocket and bronze arrowhead lettuce seeds in: the hope is that the cold frame will keep the plants going over the winter & I'll be able to keep having salads. We shall see!

Part 2: cutting the top and finishing the cold frame.

* Technically doop took them home, as he was the one towing the bike trailer all the way down Blackheath Hill with 30kg or so of wood on it.

Staying associated: Kenya, climate change, and action

2009-09-14T19:23:00.000+01:00

Last week I read this Guardian article on the effects of climate change in Kenya. It's upsetting, and angering, and it left me with a feeling of empty helplessness. As I read the final paragraphs, I felt my ability to engage with the issues sliding away, beaten down by a layer of "well, shit, this is just too bad, too awful, for me to do anything".

"Best not to think about it," my self-protection told me.

I'm sure this wasn't the aim of the writer. But it is often the risk with this sort of disaster story. Faced with however-many hundred words of bleak doom, the easiest reaction is dissociation. Thinking about it is too miserable; there's nothing in it to indicate that there's anything that you as an individual can do; so the self-protective response is disengagement.

Which isn't helpful: to those affected by climate change, to us (so far only minimally affected if at all), to anyone. To counter that, here's some things that you can do about this, and about other climate change disaster stories.

Change your own consumption habits. There may be a limit to the impact that you all by yourself can have, but it's not just about you all by yourself. It's about many people - everyone - changing their habits, and that is one of the things that must happen for us to have any hope of minimising the changes in the climate. Check out 10:10 as a possible starting point.
Campaign for other, bigger changes: Climate Camp (the Great Climate Swoop is upcoming in October!), Climate Rush, Plane Stupid... Direct action really can make a difference, and the more people are involved, the greater the likelihood that we'll have an impact.
To help people in Kenya (and other affected areas) more directly: Farm Africa are working in Kenya, promoting projects that empower local communities to manage their own resources and increase their own resistance to water (and other) problems.
The charity Concern are also working in this area.

It's important not just to throw money at the problem (however good the charity in question is) and forget about it: that's another form of disengagement. To halt climate change (and thus to make real long-term changes for those worst hit by it), we all need to act. You yourself can make a difference. We can react to distressing news like this, not with helpless dissociation, but with action. That's the only way we can make the future better.

Bikes and public transport

2009-09-07T11:28:00.000+01:00

And the first proper post is a very practical one. I spend a lot of time cycling, and when I go longer distances by train, I like to take my bike with me. This can on occasion be a screaming nuisance. Broadly speaking, local trains don't require booking (and will usually have some variety of bike-space, of greater or less usability), but long-distance/Intercity trains do require booking. Booking these days is free, but most of the online ticket sites don't have a bike-booking option, which means either booking in person, booking by phone, or phoning up after you've bought the actual tickets (which can be... complicated, depending on who you speak to).

But! There is good news amidst the confusion. National Express East Coast have an online ticket-booking service which does allow you to book your bike on when you book your ticket. They sell tickets for all trains, not just the ones they run, and the system, whilst Javascripty, is actually very usable.* Highly recommended when you and your bike want to get somewhere.

Whilst on the subject of bikes and public transport, two questions:
1. Is there a good reason why the old-fashioned guard's van (with lots of room for bikes and other bulky objects) can't be brought back on modern trains?
2. Whilst in San Francisco a few months ago, I noticed that MUNI buses have bike-racks on the front (explanatory video also available). This is a genuinely awesome thing. I find myself wondering: are these things fittable post-hoc? Could London's buses (and other UK buses) be fitted with them?

* I can't comment on disability-usability issues - would be interested to know if anyone else can.

An introduction

2009-09-07T11:27:00.000+01:00

Of late, I have found myself wanting to write about a certain class of thing. About the ways in which the world isn't the place I want it to be; about the ways in which individuals can act to change that. Right now I'm spending a lot of time thinking about environmental issues and climate change, but that broadens out very quickly, into considering the structural problems which have led us to the difficult and dangerous situation we are in today, and where we might want to be instead.

This blog is a space for practical tips: on cycling, and gardening, and reducing your own impact on the planet. It's a space for thinking about the issues: what is the deal with carbon trading? It's a space for thinking and talking about structural alternatives: how do we as a society make decisions, act collectively, talk to one another, and how else (how better) might these things be done? It's time to empower ourselves, through knowledge and skills, to create the changes we want to see in the world.