One benefit of the work done on my allotment orchard in the summer to relieve flooding problems (see my post of 26 June 2103) was a clearing away of a large part of the very unruly hedge at the back of the plot. Now the space has a new use. Bees. I’ve been approached by a local beekeeper who wants to put four hives on the site. The space carved out by the council digger to lay the land drain is just the right size and the remaining hedge is ideal as a screen, keeping bees away from people.
David and his wife and daughter came up to inspect and discuss practicalities a few days ago. As well as the hives there will be a shed to keep their equipment in. This will include a size-appropriate bee suit for their six year old. Soooo sweet! And for those of you who believe that there is some kind of pre-ordained plan to life, the surname of my beekeeper family? Mead, of course. Nominative determinism rules OK.
A 1,000 litre water container was delivered by Haynes of Challow to the Barracks Lane Community Garden in Cowley recently. All part of the community garden’s practice of promoting sustainability by storing the rain water harvest. Upon inspection it turned out that its original purpose had been the import of honey and that about 35 litres was still left in the bottom. What a find! And what an opportunity.
It didn’t take long to hatch the idea of a mead-making workshop using this unexpected bounty. Fifteen people turned up on 5 October for a day long workshop run by permaculture expert Phil and local beekeeper Garry and those with demi-johns were able to take away some of the resulting liquid. So… cheers to the future rainwater harvest and cheers to the happy accident of so much lovely free honey being put to such an appropriately seasonal use.
What an utterly wonderfully productive autumn its been in the orchard! Apart from figs (see previous post) its been the year for pears and apples. But suffering from a broken right shoulder from my cycle accident in August, harvesting them all has been a bit of a challenge. Step forward Tiddly Pommes – prop Rupert Griffin, who runs this micro company which collects spare apples from gardens, allotments, orchards and hedgerows and juices them. They then sell a range of quirkily-labelled varieties at their outlet at the East Oxford Farmers Market and through Cultivate’s veg van.
So last week Rupert pitched up on my allotment and between us we picked all the ‘James Grieve’ I had – a good apple but so late this year that it was being overtaken by other later-ripening varieties. So rather than leave them on the tree and lose them to birds, Tiddly Pommes will now be selling the juice and I get a 25% cut. Hooray!
You know those recipe books like River Cafe which start with ‘Take 24 ripe fresh figs….’ and you think…. this recipe is pretty straightforward, but where the hell am I going to find 24 fresh ripe figs? For the first in my life I’ve solved the problem easily. Yesterday I picked 26 fresh ripe figs off the tree in my garden.
one productive fig tree
Bringing the total this year to over 150. Such joy! And you know what? I decided to make a figs, buffalo mozzarella and basil recipe which then called for ‘two bunches of fresh basil’. And where might that be? On the allotment of course. And the meal? It looked just like it did in the recipe book. I can’t believe this summer.
They are somewhat off the tourist trail, but Iceland’s network of geothermally-heated greenhouses are an important part of their economy. I got to visit several in the Geysir/Selfoss area about an hour’s drive northeast of Reykjavik in mid July. They rely on the same hot rock system that powers the famous hot water fountains. The produce is impressive, over 90% of the nations cucumbers are produced on the island as are over 75% of the tomatoes and large proportions of peppers, and soft fruit including strawberries as well as cut flowers and bedding plants. The plants are pollinated by bees imported from the Netherlands.
One horticulture business run by Helena Hermundardottir pictured, and her husband and family, Fridheimar, specialises in tomatoes harvesting over 370 tonnes pa. It was established in 1995 and has 5,000 sq m under glass including a visitors centre.
The geothermal energy keeps the greenhouses at a constant 23 deg C and the long hours of daylight are used to advantage by having very thin glass roofs, just 4mm thick. Lighting is more of an issue in winter of course when the hydro-powered electricity kicks in – as indeed it does on cloudy days at other times of the year. All very hi-tech, but energy is both renewable and incredibly cheap in Iceland. Nonetheless viability is threatened by cheap imports from southern Europe, especially in winter as electricity consumption is high.
All the produce is consumed locally, no banana exports from Iceland. Bananas aren’t really a commercial crop . The University of Iceland’s Agriculture department is experimenting with growing them and current annual production is only about 120 ‘bunches’ (3-400 bananas on a ‘bunch’?) but it shows what could be done.
I have been away travelling in the ‘Northlands’, Iceland, Faroes and ferries in between throughout July. Naturally I seemed to gravitate towards the quirkier end of Icelandic culture and while travelling in the Eastfjords came across Iceland’s annual permaculture festival. Running over the weekend of 12-14 July it was centred on the tiny village of Stodvarfjordur, population less than 200. Combined with the village’s annual ‘Polar Festival’ it featured literary, dance and musical events, a graffiti workshop in an abandoned fish processing factory, ‘grass roots film making’, permaculture film screenings and an evenings feasting based around permaculture.
All this included a ‘permaculture stroll’ around the village, a trip up into the mountains to gather herbs for tea, seasoning and soup, a fishing expedition, and a rhubarb competition followed by a ‘rhubarb feast’! Saturday included a kind of farmers market-cum-WI market including a lot of plants for sale, a fishing competition, a ‘cold fresh jump in the ocean’ – I didn’t try that one, all in preparation for the final barbeque, the ‘night feast’ – in broad daylight of course, this is Iceland in July, where the newly-caught fish met the newly-gathered herbs and wild vegetables from the adjacent mountains. These included angelica, thyme, what I took to be wild parsnips, geranium and much else, along with fire-making workshops, small children, much beer consumption and a large camp site with lots of face-painting opportunities. All under a brilliant sun and overlooked by snow-capped mountains on a fjord of stunning clarity and beauty. No photos? Don’t look at mine, take a look at their facebook page. Beautiful, memorable.
The pre-Cowley Road Carnival warm up event to be seen at last night was a gig at ‘The Bully’ (one of Oxford’s leading venues) by fresh-from-Glastonbury Australian band, Formidable Vegetable Sound System. I’m not sure if its the world’s first permaculture rock band – but its certainly the first I’ve come across. The event was a fundraising gig for the Barracks Lane Community Garden. What fun it was. Packed out, the event raised over £600 on a sultry summer evening with a local ukulele band in support and a reggae session before the main act. Hard to describe the mixture of influences but when I went down early to help set up, Charlie the lead described it as ‘..mashing together speakeasy electro-swing style wonk and live ukulele quirk with a side serving of radish beets..’
It was certainly quirky , but the message was spot on with more songs about composting that I could have imagined possible, plus others on permaculture, the end of the fossil fuel culture, waste and recycling (!) and the creative uses of marginal spaces. Funny, relevant, inventive, and not nearly as serious as the subject matter suggests, Formidable Vegetable Sound System apparently were a hit at the Glastonbury Green Field and I can see why as they turned sustainability into an epic dance floor sensation for the 100 plus who turned out to see them. With further stops in Suffolk, London, Bristol and Ireland amongst others in the next few weeks before their ‘world tour’ moves on to Canada and the USA, its worth the effort to check them out.
A Sunday afternoon in Headington, Oxford at the invitation of Low Carbon Headington’s garden group to discuss composting and generally trouble-shoot. Ten eager composters and plenty of informed questions. Debates around the relative advantages of ‘daleks’, rotating bins and the wooden slatted variety. Host Cathy came up trumps by having examples of all three in use in her garden as well as a leaf-mould bin made from wire netting. Most surprising question? The use of seaweed in compost. Well yes it has its place as organic material, but lets face it Oxford is about as far as you can get from the sea in the UK or does this low carbon group know something about global warming and imminent sea level rises that the rest of us don’t? A tour of Cathy’s great selection of composting technologies was rounded off with tea and home-made cakes – none containing carrageen.
I’ve commented in earlier posts on just how wet my allotment has been. It hasn’t been confined to my plot. The whole site has suffered in the past 18 months. Apart from the obvious – its rained a lot, there has be quite a bit of puzzlement as to just why it has been so bad, with plotholders resorting to the construction of deep channels around and across allotments and months of suffering flooded plots and lost crops. The conclusion has been that the 100 year old clay land drains in the area have either got blocked by tree roots or similar, or crushed in nearby construction work and no longer function. Either way the result has been severe flooding on the allotments as water has drained down the hill.
Now, bless them Oxford City Council Parks Department have spent four days on site installing a new one. The risk has been that in running it across my orchard plot to reach the existing access and drainage system, quite a few trees would have to go, or be significantly damaged. I’ve taken a deep breath and recognised that this was for the greater good, including mine. But the line of the pipe is actually parallel to the allotment boundary and straight through the very scrubby hedge at the back of the plot. In the process of connecting to the Bartlemas hamlet pond the Parks Dept staff have selected a route that misses all my trees. Brilliant! And in a charming example of the new thriftiness in local government, the sump is a recycled wheelie-bin (see picture). Fantastic!
The work is now complete and far from causing lots of grief, it has opened up several opportunities. The hedge will need to be replaced and the plan is to plant hazel the whole way along and coppice it for pea and bean sticks. Although it will involve quite a bit of hard work in clearing the old hedge line roots and parts of the hedge that have been ‘stranded’ in the orchard by the line of the new drain, the work has opened up such a large new space, that it looks as if there will be room for three, possibly four new trees in the orchard. I’ll let you know what I plant.
A day in Sheffield visiting the Whirlow Hall City Farm on behalf of the Barracks Lane Community Garden, along with fellow trustee Debbie. Barracks Lane is quite tiny (about 100 x 200 metres on the site of some old council garages in Cowley) and a day at Whirlow reinforced that sense. High up on the moors on the edge of the city it covers 138 acres is a working farm with pigs, sheep , cows and chickens, an extensive educational programme and everything from outdoor horticulture to hydroponic strawberries, an orchard and vineyard. Perfect weather gave the place an almost holiday feel an the excitement of coachloads of local school children heightened that sense. After lunch in the cafe we got taken up the hill behind the farm house to see the vineyard. Planted in 2011 there are 2,900 vines and at 850 ft, it is the highest vineyard in England. Who knows, perhaps the the steel city is about to become the home of a great British vintage wine?
Veg growing, composting, organic gardening, allotments, garden writing, garden history with a radical twist. The personalities, the people, the plants, the goss, the weather and the occasional bit of magic thrown in… Now with a comment option. Please feel free.
