Give and Grow, Walk and Be Well

Sustainable Bungay's 4th annual Give and Grow event last Sunday (20th May) at the Bungay Community Library garden held a particular significance this year in the light of the recently passed EU "Plant Reproductive Material Law" aiming to regulate and restrict the sale, exchange or growth of all plants unless officially registered.

This would have impacted severely upon our freedom to (legally) "Give and Grow" in the manner of even our humble SB events, had the law not been mitigated in the final hour due to pressure from growers, gardeners and lovers of plants and freedom from all over Europe. See The Real Seed Catalogue's page for more information and why we need to keep an eye on this law (and take a look at their great vegetable seed list, too).

Our 2nd Well-Being walk took place after the Give and Grow with a group of six adults and three children setting off through town and the annual Bungay Garden Street Market, where we were joined by Sofia, recently moved to Norwich where she is studying midwifery. So here is a story in mostly pictures and some words of both the Give and Grow and the Well-being walk:

Lesley Hartley, who is curating this year's Edible Bed in the centre of the library garden. Note the crimson flowered broad bean to Lesley's left. After a slow post-cold-winter start, the garden is beginning to respond to Lesley's hard work.

Plant Medicine 2012 meets Edible Bed 2013. Mark and Lesley trying not to hide behind flowering brussels. What was that about Brussels, seeds and plants..? Keep giving and growing!

Brussels, A-Board and the big old red Post Office van, which Eloise has picked up all the large Give and Take day furniture and garden donations in over the last three years and used to deliver items to people after the events. As well as couriering display boards for Bee group events and other talks and workshops.

 Nick shows Mark how to construct a make-shift seed envelope. This turned out to be a double (flowered?) version.

Richard demonstrates how to divide primrose roots and replant them. Primroses respond well to root division and the best time to start is just as the flowers are going over. Here Richard explains that even a small section of root like the one in his hands will resprout, though a misting table is best for roots this size.

 A new tray of primroses.

Double-flowered feverfew growing out of the cracks and just about to come into flower. Feverfew leaves are a well-known herbal remedy for migraine. I'd never heard of anyone who'd actually used it till last year. A lady from Beccles came to a Plants for Life session and told us she swore by feverfew and used it any time she felt the beginnings of a migraine lurking. "Do you put it in bread," I asked. I'd read countless times that bread helped it to be easier on the stomach. "Oh no, I just eat a couple of leaves raw. Always works!"

You can't go to a Give and Grow event anywhere these days without coming across someone reading the Transition Free Press! Tony in  deep concentration.

And isn't that the TFP's editor sitting there with Tony? What a coincidence!

Goodness me! Is that ANOTHER copy of Transition Free Press sticking out of Paul's pocket?

Straw bale culture. Cucumber. nasturtiums and giant pumpkin planted by Lesley for EastFeast at the Street Garden Market.

We've now left the library and the Give and Grow and started our well-being walk. No one was in any rush to leave the courtyard garden though, it was so relaxing.

We mapped out the route between us deciding to go via the market to the bridge at the bottom of Earsham Street and then down Castle Lane which skirts round the castle ruins. A favourite walk for several people, some found the castle ruins romantic, some liked visiting the wildflowers and others found it an  enjoyable route for walking the children to school.

A brief stop at the East Feast stall (love that hat, Dano!), to play a board game with the children, and then on to  Orchard End Herbs: "I know you," I said to a young woman there. "You came to my Trade School class on rosemary and circulation at the Common Room in Norwich a few months back. Would you like to join us on our well-being walk?" "That'd be great," said Sofia. "And I'd like to bring some friends to Happy Mondays tomorrow. How do I book?" "You need to talk to Josiah," I said. "And he's coming on the walk, too."

Leaving the market (and the Punch and Judy show) and heading down to Earsham Street bridge and the River Waveney. This is one of Sally's favourite places to visit.

Waterweeds in the Waveney.

Reuben leads us purposefully to Castle Lane.

Take Me To The River, but don't drop me in the water... at least not until August when we combine our annual picnic with a swim.

Back lanes full of wildflowers and garden escapes, from cow parsley and Babington's poppy to shining cranesbill and grape hyacinth. One of Bungay's delights.

Sitting (and climbing) on the bench, before heading back to Sally's for a cup of tea. The whole walk was very relaxed and took about an hour and a quarter. To find out when our next Wellbeing walk is, check out the Sustainable Bungay Calendar - all welcome!

Images (all by Mark Watson): Beans, peas and seeds; Lesley and the Edible Bed; Mark and Lesley behind the flowering broccoli - medicine plant bed 2012 meets edible plant bed 2013; brussels, board and red van; making seed envelopes; Richard demonstrates primrose division 1 & 2; double-flowered feverfew growing through the concrete; Tony gets the lowdown with Transition Free Press; And again with TFP's editor Charlotte; Give and Grow and sit down for a chat; straw bale culture; garden street market with Dano; Earsham Street Bridge; waterweeds; follow the leader;  down by the Waveney; plants along the wayside; on the bench

First published 27th May 2013 on Sustainable Bungay's website

Green shoots

Meteor peas

Most people know that the shortest day is the 21st December but not many people realize why it is well into January before they feel that the days are getting longer.   The reason is that only now is sunrise beginning to get earlier.  The evenings have actually been getting lighter since the middle of December - before the Solstice but the latest sunrise continues through to the new year and today it was a full 2 minutes earlier!

 We may still be struggling to get up in the cold and dark but the plants are quick to sense the lengthening days and my peas and broad beans are now getting going - helped by some mild weather.   I had my annual seed planning meeting with my friend Jane last night and we dined on the beans that had been hulled by the bucket load whilst we watched Wimbledon on the TV.   It was good to know that this years crop is already growing. 

Broad beans

The first onion

The autumn sown onions are also putting in an appearance - the chicken wire is to stop the birds pulling them out to investigate! 

Unfortunately the lengthening days also mean that the moles' thoughts turn to breeding and some have decided that my nicely dug veg patch is the perfect place to excavate a family sized underground nest!

Winemaking - 'For Medicinal Purposes'

For Sustainable Bungay's 10th Plants for Life event last Sunday, Winemaking - For Medicinal Purposes, Nick Watts invited a dozen of us to his house for a practical demonstration of how to make fruit wine, in this case (sic) from raspberries.

Nick’s front room was filled with people (including Sophie and Nick from Transition Norwich's Low Carbon Cookbook group),  funnels, demi-john’s with deep red liquid and when you opened the door of any one of the cupboards you would discover a large container filled with a fermenting fluid. One demi-john contains enough for 6 bottles of wine at 750cl per bottle. Nick calculated he had about 80 bottles of wine fermenting at the moment.

First we took a look at some of the medicinal qualities of  raspberries. I’d been aware of the raspberry leaf  as a uterine tonic during pregnancy and childbirth and have used it along with yarrow to make a salve for piles. But for me raspberry fruits were always a delicious sign of high to late summer, picked fresh or bought from a roadside stall, and eaten long before they made it home to be turned into anything else culinary, let alone medicinal.

Raspberries, in fact, are incredibly rich in anti-oxidants and vitamin C. Eating them can help boost a poor appetite and they are useful in arthritis. See Hedgerow Medicine, by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal,  for an excellent chapter on the many virtues and uses of  the raspberry, both leaf and fruit, with some great herbal recipes.

Penelope Ody in her book 100 great natural remedies has a simple recipe for raspberry vinegar: Soak 500g fresh raspberries in wine vinegar for 2 weeks, strain thick red liquid into a bottle and use in cough syrups, as a throat gargle or add to salad dressings.

Nick took us through the winemaking process in three stages, starting off a new wine and then using ones “I’d prepared a bit earlier.” He was keen to point out he was not an expert, having started about three years ago, but had really got into it and was happy to share what he knows with people.

This was the essence of not only this session but also a main impulse behind the whole Plants for Life project, and indeed Sustainable Bungay as a group and the wider Transition 'movement': If Nick could make so much and such decent wine (not to mention his delicious dandelion and burdock beer) from home and allotment-grown and foraged fruit by just doing it and immersing himself in it, then anyone with sufficient interest and initiative could. Watching Nick describe the process and go through it physically with a friendly group of people was absorbing and instructive, as well as good fun. It was a true skill-share.

What follows below is not necessarily the whole story, but what I learnt from Sunday's session:

STEP ONE
In a big bucket with 3lb raspberries (you can choose your own fruit, almost any will do), Nick poured on 5pts of water and added a teaspoonful of pectin enzyme to prevent ‘pectin haze’. He then mashed the raspberries with a wooden spoon and covered the liquid with a tea towel (very important esp. in summer to keep insects out).

This is left for two days.

STEP TWO 2 DAYS LATER
Add to the bucket between 1kg and 11/4 kg of sugar (preferably fair trade/organic, white) dissolved in 2 pts water off the boil. Add 1 tsp dried yeast with a little sugar all dissolved in some of the fruit liquid in the bucket.

It’s the yeast that turns the sugar into alcohol and the more sugar the sweeter the wine. Nick uses less (1kg) as he likes a drier wine.

This liquid is then stirred 2-3 times a day over the next four days, and the process is called ‘fermenting on the must’.

STEP THREE 4 DAYS LATER
This is the messy bit, where you strain all the liquid through a muslin sieve, before funnelling it into the demi-johns and putting an airlock on it. This is then left to ferment for between 3 and 18 months until there are no longer any bubbles to be seen in the airlock. During the fermenting process a stable temperature is important. Nick doesn’t worry too much about whether it’s warm or cool, just that there is as little fluctuation as possible.

STEP FOUR 3-18 MONTHS later
Decant into bottles and leave for 1-2 years depending on the fruit. Raspberries need less time than elderberries, for example.

After the demonstration, Nick invited everyone to taste some of the wines he's made. My favourite was the dry and fragrant Elderflower and Rosehip. I took half a bottle home and tried a glass with a dash of elderflower cordial - for medicinal purposes only, of course. And it was the perfect antidote to the recent gloomy days of continual rain and lessening light.

Photos: Raspberry wine fermenting in demi-johns; Nick instructing; Mashing the raspberries; Straining the liquid; Cheers on a rainy day (Mark Watson)

Knowing your onions

Today is the village flower and produce show and whilst it is all very friendly, I would like to keep my record intact and win at least one First certificate! So it was a bit of a blow to find that of the six onions put to one side, in order to choose the three best to exhibit, only one was in good shape. Last year the onions had not stored well and this season I experimented with autumn sown sets that I planted last September. The wet summer had produced a record crop of massive onions and I was confident that once again I would give the local Norfolk bors some competition. So it was a bit upsetting to find that not only had most of my best onions developed neck rot but two thirds of the onions that should have lasted us all winter were also affected.

Of course, the wet weather was to blame and it seems that my considerable efforts to give the onions a good dose of sunburn had not been enough to kill the fungi that was all around us this year.

I like to support the village show (and the people that work so hard to keep these community events going) so I managed to find three onions that are roughly the same size but I think the old bors will be sniggering at my efforts. At least only my pride will have suffered and we won't be facing starvation this winter but it made me realize just how fragile the cultivation of food is and how just a bit too much rain at the wrong time can ruin a year's hard work.

So how will my onions fare against the competition? Check back after 4pm, when I'll be posting an update live from the show! I'm pinning my hopes on the cucumber to bring in a First!

** LATEST - SHOCK RESULT **

I just peddled back up the hill and was surprised to find that my cucumber had been passed over and not even placed but the onions had got a first. Then something even more surprising happened during the prize giving when I was chatting and not paying much attention. People were turning round and beckoning - I'd won a cup and a gift voucher - the onions were the best vegetable!! So, some compensation for losing so many to rot.

Fortunately my main onion rival was well into his 3rd pint by then so was not too miffed.

Gleaning from the past

Contractors were harvesting potatoes in the field next to us yesterday and as is usually the case a lot of potatoes were missed by the machinery. I reckon that enough were left on the ground to feed the entire village for the year - if anyone could be bothered to pick them up. I grow my grow my own potatoes and don't really need any more but I spent 5 minutes picking up a large bag load from just a few metres inside the entrance to the field. I tried offering them to other people but no one wanted them and were certainly not prepared to pick up some themselves. I got the distinct impression that they were only comfortable with food that had been 'authenticated' by being sold by a supermarket - and I can understand why people are rightly concerned about what they eat.

Not so long ago, gleaning was an important privilege for country people and people depended on gleaned food for the winter. I suppose it is good that people are now so wealthy that they don't need to worry about paying for food but is still seems a shame to see so much food go to waste. I wonder how long it will be before rising fuel and fertiliser costs leads to people keeping an eye open for gleaning opportunities once again.

The potatoes rapidly went green in the bright sun and most are now too poisonous to eat.

ARCHIVE: Plants, Bees and Fascism in the Garden - High Summer Photoblog #1

From 18th July 2011

Every day this week on This Low Carbon Life, one of the crew will be telling a story in photos (and maybe some words!) on the theme of High Summer. As the weather turned wet and windy last week, John joked that we might need a plan B for our theme week. Or was that plan Bee? Everything reminds me of Bees at the moment - as if with Bungay Beehive day next Sunday (where I'm leading a Bee and Flower Walk and also giving a talk about honey as medicine), I need reminding...

Meanwhile back to the photos, and a few words about my letting go of fascism in the garden. I have grown a white-seeded form of sunflower for years now, faithfully collecting the seeds at the end of each season to plant the next Spring. You can see if you click on the picture below that the flower has vibrant gold sepals with a beautiful green-gold centre.

I'd nurture the young plants (probably quite obsessively) and Charlotte would always make sure she was somewhere else when it came to planting them out as I would become inexplicably bad-tempered.

Anyway, this year as usual I planted the seeds, the plants grew and I was alone when it came to planting them out. But what were these flowers that emerged ten days ago - with bronze flames!?! Then I remembered the dark sunflower we had in the garden last year given to us by Rose at the Transition Norwich Plant Swap...

A moment of bewilderment and shock! Then over the next few days a strange sort of relief as I relaxed. I don't have to control everything! The new sunflowers are undeniably beautiful. And it means that the bees have been busy in the garden too. I think I can live with them.

Anyway, it seems I'm not alone when it comes to 'fascism' in the garden. I was telling Becky from Greengrow about my sunflower awakening on Saturday at All Under One Roof, where she had a stall next to Sustainable Bungay's.

"I know, it happens to me in the garden, too. And not particularly anywhere else," she said. "Have you read any Zygmunt Bauman, the Polish sociologist? He talks about the fascist elements of our modern consumerist 'gardening society'."

But enough of fascism. Here are a few more pictures of my low carbon high summer. Here's Charlotte on Saturday holding up the local paper with an article on Bungay Community Bees, featuring our main beekeeper, Elinor, and Elinor herself.


Here I am with Amanda, manager of Bungay library, looking at the Anise Hyssops I brought for the bee bed in the library courtyard garden this year. I talk about them so much that John tells me they are known locally as 'Mark's plant' in Little Melton these days! Amanda says they are very popular with both bees and people.

And last but not least, here is a St. John's Wort being visited by a honeybee in the garden. One of the great native wildflower medicine plants, I had never seen honeybees on it before. But this one clambered over every single flower gathering up the pollen. And yesterday the plant was full of bumblebees.

A few hours later: I just received a request from fellow Transitioner Nick asking if I'd lead the planting of the medicinal plant bed next year in Bungay Library Community Garden. I said yes of course and I'm already excited - by then maybe the fascism will have gone completely! Mark Watson

Pics: Banner of new sunflower, result of non-fascist gardening techniques; last year's white-seeded sunflower head; new sunflower this year; Charlotte and Elinor at Sustainable Bungay stand at Satuday's All Under One Roof; Talking Anise Hyssop with Amanda at the library; St. John's Wort and honeybee

FROM THE ARCHIVE: Feel The Beet

2012 has been a very different year from 2011 for many people growing food here in the UK. At least three people I've spoken to in the last week have reported blight on their potatoes. And there are hardly any cherries, damsons or sloes in evidence. Then there are the slugs.

This is a post I did almost a year ago about beetroot as food and medicine and I include it here with its beetroot and carrot salad recipe as these vegetables seem to be doing okay, at least here in East Anglia. And it's a salad that really makes you feel good.

Recently I've come to like beetroot so much I forget there was a time when I was rather snooty about it. "Beetroot - so, so...common! Peasant food!" Accompanied by dismissive wave of hand.

Which goes to show that I knew nothing really about peasants (though I come from a long line of the Irish variety). And that I was not paying proper attention to food. Including beetroot.

Not paying attention to food is something I can't really get away with as part of The Low Carbon Cookbook crew. After all we talk in detail about all the food we bring to the meetings, with each other - IN PUBLIC! But the more attention I pay and the more I engage in the food I'm eating and where it comes from, the more enjoyment and meaning there is in it.

Rainbow-coloured root and leaf salads and slaws appear frequently at our Low Carbon cookups. This has got to be one of my favourites:

Beetroot and Carrot salad
1 or 2 Beetroots, raw
1 or 2 Carrots, raw
Small handful of chopped parsley
Pinch of Salt
Black pepper
Tablespoon of cider vinegar (or juice of 1 Lemon)

Local honey (optional)
Hemp oil

Grate the raw beetroot and carrot into a bowl and mix together with the parsley. Alternatively the parsley can be sprinkled on top as a garnish. Stir cider vinegar (or lemon), hemp oil and honey together and whisk it with a fork. Stir into the salad. Keep in a cool place until ready to eat.

But this is also medicine food. Each ingredient in this salad has a long history of medicinal as well as culinary use.

Parsley counts being a kidney detoxifier, diuretic and tonic amongst its many actions and virtues. And most of us have drunk hot lemon and honey to ease fevers and chills.

Carrots help digestion and contain beta-carotene which changes to Vitamin A in the body and assists night vision. In large doses Vitamin A is toxic, although beta carotene itself is safer as the body excretes what it doesn't need. You'd have to eat a very large number of carrots before you turned orange!

Apple cider vinegar with its anti-oxidant properties has a long history of medicinal use and features extensively in Jethro Kloss's classic herbal treatise from 1939 "Back to Eden". It is used for arthritis and its high acetic acid content means it helps our bodies absorb minerals from the food we eat.

And Hemp Oil provides the perfect alternative to oily fish for omega oils 3, 6 and 9 that our body doesn't produce but which we need for a healthy immune system and circulation. Surely this is a food that can help with the overfished seas.

But back to the beet. As well as being full of nutrients and minerals such as iron and zinc, it stimulates the lymphs, boosts the immune system and helps the kidneys and digestion. It also lowers cholesterol, helping to prevent heart disease. The juice can also be used in wound dressing. But beetroot becomes even more exciting and relevant for the future because it is easily grown without the need for pesticides. A truly transitional root vegetable.

The main key to food and well being here however is that growing food ourselves or buying it from people who grow locally connects us directly with the place we're in, the plants that grow there and the people growing them. This in itself is good medicine (in the sense that being in synch with your environment creates harmony and health both inside and outside).

The actual beet roots and leaves in these photos were grown (organically) by Kris (Sustainable Bungay), who pulled them up and gave them to us the other day on a visit to his house. The carrots are from Swallow Organics in Darsham where we have a weekly veg box. The parsley is from The Blue Shed in Walpole and bought from local grocers Focus Organic in Halesworth.

And when I get home later I am going to make that salad!


7.15pm Just about to eat the above!

Useful resources:

• Plants for a Future database - excellent, vast and user-friendly storehouse of 7000 plants and their myriad qualities and uses
• 100 great natural remedies (and other books) by Penelope Ody
• LOVE BEETROOT.co.uk
• The Low Carbon Cookbook - posts on This Low Carbon Life by the LCC crew

Pics: Parsley leaf, carrot slice and beetroot round on beet greens, Beet green veins (signature of heart medicine) by Charlotte Du Cann; Beetroot, Carrot and Parsley by Mark Watson

News from a very busy Norwich FarmShare

This really is a last minute blog! I was trying hard to relax tonight, trying to calm my head from its perpetual buzzing and get it to settle down and enjoy a weekend off. I know that I need to organise that irrigation rota for the farm (must call Christophe to see if we've got the electricity sorted yet); find two more volunteers for the Norwich Lanes fair; four more for the Norwich veggie fayre; sort out the email to all our members with loads of hot off the press exciting news (which I mustn't accidentally post here and spoil the surprises!); and goodness know what else... but I most of all need to switch it all off for a couple of days and do very little. But then I checked my email and found a friendly reminder from Charlotte that it's my turn to blog. Cripes. Well, as long as it squeaks in just this side of midnight, I reckon I'm in the clear.

What's changed on the farm since last theme week? Everything, it feels like. Last time I blogged, it still felt like early spring. We were eating a few of the first spring crops and mostly polishing off the last of the overwintering veg. Now we're in the depths of the Hungry Gap with barely a cabbage to keep us going. We're relying on a network of growers around the UK and even further afield to keep our member's shares full. But our polytunnels are full to the brim with summer veg merrily climbing, flowering and thriving: beans, tomatoes and aubergines are full of promise of good things to come and even the tomatoes in the field are looking sprightly.

We've just crossed the 100 member mark, which feels like an unbelievably huge milestone, and this month we'll also reach the first anniversary of sharing veg with our members. I remember the excitement last year of those first veg coming out of the ground; this year I think I'm even more excited as I know how good they're going to taste. When you pass people working on the farm, more often than not they're discussing which is the vegetable they're looking forward to the most this year. I think mine is tomatoes. Or maybe new potatoes. Mmmmm...

If you'd like to know more about the farm, join us for a workday or anything else- it's all on our website: www.norwichfarmshare.co.uk

Pics: Onions, Elena; Summer veg share: Jan