Grow your own – Space and Time Not Required

Hi there,

So it’s April and we are all hungry. Organic box schemes are good but a little light on the salad, herbs and other tasty plants you might want to chow down on a few leaves of. It is raining, so instead of showing you my (wet) results so far. I will write a quick start tutorial, as it is not too late to build a tunnel and grow some food.

“But wait”, I hear you say. “I have no space for a veg plot, and no time to look after it”. Well my time and space challenged friends fear not. All you need is a strip of earth a few feet long (yes it is space but hardly a footy pitch) some wire, and a clear plastic sheet.

That’s right, if you can find some soil we are going to build a polytunnel. If you can’t even squeeze one into the front garden, I will be writing about grow bags soon. So as long as you have a hard surface (even a path would do it) you can get some food.

So here goes:

Firstly you will need to dig the ground over and remove the roots / bits of car / glass that makes up British soil.

Secondly gather your materials. Get some wire, any type will do as long as it is fairly rigid. Garden wire is your best bet and is readily available. Even 3 core household cable can be used (if it’s the stiff stuff). You will also need a trowel / big spoon your girlfriend doesn’t know you’ve got / stick. This will be to dig with. Once you have these, find yourself some clear plastic sheeting. A large clear bin bag cut open will be fine.

Right, now for the build. The idea is to create a semi circular structure with your wire to drape the plastic over. There are many designs for this but I have a favourite that is strong and easy. As a bonus it uses one continuous piece of wire so few cuts have to be made. Get your wire and bend a few inches into a striaght bit. Turn that bit 90 degrees anti-clockwise from the rest of the wire. Now use the rest to make the first “arch” by bending a semi circular shape into it (as wide as your earth-strip). You will see (hopefully) that if the first striaght bit is laid flat on the ground the semi-circle will point into the air and curve back toward the ground. Once it is there bend another flat piece to sit on the ground. This time make it a couple of feet long and pointing in the direction you want your next “arch” to be in.

You will hopefully see that without cutting the wire you can make a continuous 3D “semitube” by growing it one arch (followed by straight bit) at a time. Once you reach the end make another small straight bit.

Now for the plastic, take 2 end corners and tie a knot to “bunch up” the sheet. Place the knot on the ground, on the outside and in the middle of your first arch. Drape the sheet over the tunnel and tie another knot in the other end to make a long semicircular shape. Now, remember those straight bits of wire you have laying along the ground. Weigh the sheet down above these and your tunnel will be steady.

Now, dismantle it a bit and start digging. Make channels an inch or so deep and a few inches apart for your seeds. I have lettuce, radish, carrot, parsnip, beetroot and more in my tunnel, your local hardware / garden shop will advise the best ones. sprinkle generously in each channel, cover with earth and water. You can also use ready grown plants. I have sneaked a few strawberry plants into my tunnel. Now you can rebuild your tunnel and admire your handywork.

The tunnel will keep the seeds warm and moist in the day and frost free at night. After a few days you will start to see a few shoots, make sure if the channels look dry you water them. I water mine every week or so at the moment.

As soon as the weather clears up I will post my results so far.

A Poly(thene)gamous relationship

So, summer is here. (no it’s not) and thoughts turn to the garden.

With a little help from my folks I’m going to try making a veg plot. They used to run a gardening business back in the day, so I am sure advice will be good. My ma seems to  think a thing called a polytunnel will do the trick. I have only seen these on TV and they seem massive but I am told a small one will be easy to make and will help me grow some tasty organic goodies. Hopefully this will detract from my total food miles too.

This weekend I will be found outside my house consuming vast amounts of tea and wielding a spade in anger. I will keep you posted about any good / bad results.

Organics put to the test

So, is Organic better for the everyday (wo)man?

Pizza, the answer to many questions.

The foodies will say Organic is better, so will the Greenies. But is it a real way forward for normal men and women?

I can see only one way to settle this.  A showdown.

Over the next few weeks I will be settling this question with a number of VS style showdowns.

In the first of these, I will make an Organic Pizza, and compare this with a shop bought version. This should highlight any issues involved around cost, convenience, health and environmental considerations. Plus I get to eat Pizza.

A pleasant surprise…

This week, the second installment of our Organic box delivery scheme.

Lots of really good quality fruit is a box staple.

Before anything else is said, I will be honest. The expectations for this box was fairly low. The past delivery included quite a few types of food I had not come across before. I was a bit daunted by the new food, this is where my lovely girlfriend stepped in. With her help or, if I am honest, her cooking skills. I was able to enjoy even some of the weirder residents of our veg box.

The off-putting effect new and strange food had on my enthusiasm for this weeks delivery was immediately stopped dead once I unpacked the delivery.

The feeling of dread I had was extinguished once I saw that not only was there new and interesting food to try. But the Riverford Organic box scheme guys had replaced the permanent residents of my delivery with subtle variations on the same theme. Shallots replaced Onions. The potatoes were a new variety with a different flavour and there were other surprises.

A large squash has been delivered, giving us reason to turn to the cook books again. What amazed me most came in the shape of two small dark sticks. Very much to my surprise our delivery included some vanilla sticks. Included with them were some recipes and I am currently in love with the idea of vanilla coffee and vanilla pannatone.

A very welcome guest appearance from this week's box, vanilla pods.

This week will definitely be a culinary delight and I hope to keep you all updated on how the amazingly promising vanilla recipes turn out.

Given that this is our second only week on the box scheme I can say with all honesty that we are both over the moon. The produce is top notch and has the variety to keep us interested. The portions are spot on, Veg that will serve 3-4 people is sering the two of us (and the  rabbit) for 2 weeks almost exactly.

Hopefully we will not get complacent with this easy source of greener food and should be checking out other alternatives in the next few weeks. hopefully venturing down to the local farmer’s market.

Organics. Green, Tasty or both?

It has been a over a week now since my box of Organics arrived, and I must say I’m impressed.

As I sit here drinking my first (I skipped this morning’s brew, see here for why) Organic, Fairtrade coffee of the day. I can’t help but reflect on a recent trip to the supermarket. There I was surrounded by odd folk and food that was not only expensive but looked, to be honest, a bit skanky.

The people probably looked odd as, just as I had done, they had fallen out of a packed train moments before at the end of a working day. The food however was a different story. For the last week I have enjoyed a variety of dishes from classic British roasts, to more adventurous culinary ensembles. And all of this food has looked and tasted exactly as it should, Delicious. Now I am no Nigella, which is good as Dads up and down the country want to leave my pants on, but that’s not the point. The point is even with my basic skills, a roast tastes fantastic omelettes are thick and juicy, bursting with the flavour of lightly fried mushrooms, creamy cheese and crunchy onion. This has lots to do with the ingredients and very little to do with the chef believe me. Even the supermarket Organics taste a little better than the regular junk. The thing is though, you don’t pay through the nose for it. I have fruit (Including some of the best pears and apples I have ever had) and veg delivered to my door while I relax. I’m not hanging out with other stressed folk in long ques waiting for my chance to work in the supermarket for 5 minutes at the self service desk.

If you don’t believe a word of this then I urge you to try it. Go to the Internet or local shops / farmers market and buy some of this great food. Maybe you too will make Organics a life choice, and why wouldn’t you. Every meal will taste better and your wallet won’t be as light as you think. I’ve personally found it’s a similar price to buy good grub over the chemically filled rubbish. And while you are out there, visit your local Butcher. Supermarket Organic meat has a huge premium and the alternative “value” rubbish is just that. Even sausages and the cheapest cuts of meat from a good butcher taste much better and aren’t any more than you’d usually pay. This is understandable as a butcher not only likes and knows his meat, but has to rely on quality produce to bring customers back. He can’t just throw thousands at advertising promising 50p off 12 sausages. He just has to make good sausages.

The final word I would like to submit to this forum of food is this. You may believe that supermarkets are the be all of food. What you will find with good local food and Organics in particular. Is that you will save by buying less. As each item will be high quality and should have you raring to eat, you are less likely to overshop and throw out food. This means you spend less money, so you can treat yourself to those premium pork and herb sausages (yes real pork in a sausage) the butcher makes. Where each one is half a foot long and two of them will make your breakfast the king of the sunday morning fry ups.

So people, you heard it here first. Buy Organic, if only to pimp your breakfast.

You have mail, and its full of food.

This evening I was greeted by the result of my over complex delivery arrangements. Real food, in the place where I specified and uneaten by foxes.

This is an immediate step up from my past experiences of box scheme deliveries. Either involving eco-washing up liquid being used as a replacement for eggs, or the contents of an entire farm being mis-delivered to my doorstep.

Having inspected the delivery and found all to be well, I hit the kitchen.

One thing to note about box schemes, is that they do require a knowledge of cooking veg. This was a knowledge I quickly found that my 90% pizza 10% junk food cooking skills were lacking. I would urge anyone getting their first delivery to find out what’s in the box first and spend a few minutes with Mr Search Engine or Mrs Cook Book.  In fact it was the former that almost led to a laptop singed by a passing mini-mushroom cloud, as my 90% pizza based cookery skills were employed lighting the gas hob.

The reason for all this pre-planning is simple. The more seasonal your veg is, the more eco-friendly our scheme is. Local veg reduces food miles and helps local producers. It is grown in harmony with the climate, and saves energy over vast artificially heated and lit greenhouses. It is also fresher and tastier as a result. On top of this, most box schemes are Organic. This means you won’t ingest any unnecessary chemicals. and neither will the environment.

Knowing what to do with carrots, brocoli and a turnip when they all arrive together will be the test for most people.

Anyway, I’m off to make a fresh food feast. The results will follow shortly (assuming I keep my laptop away from the hob).

Boxing Clever.

As an experiment, myself and my lovely girlfriend are ordering some food from our local organic box scheme.

Ordinarily I would not have been keen on this idea, but this situation arose as I was a little annoyed to find our local area lacked an organic food supplier.
The reason for my box scheme avoidance is that I have had mixed experiences with these schemes in the past. Once receiving part of my order with “online shopping” style inappropriate replacements for the missing parts.
And once receiving my own (very modestly sized) order along with 2 of somebody else’s huge sacks full of food. These were a new delivery man’s first misadventure, and I was assured I would have to keep them. Needless to say I stopped ordering from the company in question.

So here we are again thinking of entering into the unknown.

After a brief Internetsearch, our local scheme provider was found. As the delivery will be made when we are working and will definitely not fit through the letterbox, I was forced to draft complex instructions for the delivery man.

The contents of our first delivery have been chosen to represent  a cross section of food we buy.

There will be the traditional fruit and veg, some dairy products like eggs and milk and a few treats.

I will keep you posted on the results.