Water

I never really thought that much about water until I started a course training to become a Naturopath, and that really brought it home how without it you really don’t live very long. How fundamental it really is to life, and how important it is to have a good, clean supply to drink, and so do our plants!

I spent the day on my course with a great tutor, it was the last day of the year, and really enjoyable, we all went out at lunch time and enjoyed eating in the sun. This weather is lovely, apart from the fact that the raised beds, which is what we have all of our veggies growing in, dry out so quickly. Although it has cut down on the problem with slugs, especially as we have gravel around the beds, we didn’t realise how much watering they would need.

The beds don’t tend to retain the water, and so it is a nightly chore to go out and water them with the watering can, and hose. The tomatoes are not looking their best due to me being so busy that I ended up not watering them for a couple of days, and the strawberries are also looking a bit the worse for wear. Although I have to confess they still tasted pretty good! I am also realising that going on holiday may become a thing of the past, especially in the summer months, maybe we won’t need to get away from it all as we simplify things for ourselves and live more naturally.

This is an interesting learning curve, in which we end up spending hours reading about things we never thought were that important to our life due to it just being on ‘tap’. But suddenly I realise that if our supply of water became contaminated, or was taken away for instance, it would be quite a difficult position to be in and potentially life threatening. Water really is a commodity, and one which we buy without thinking about what we would do if something happened to it. Daily, our lives contaminate a system which is vital for life, and this has really hit home now that we are dependent on it to keep our food supply growing, being good quality, and life sustaining. We recently fitted the flat with a filtering system to ensure that the  water we were drinking was the best quality, but now I am thinking how do I ensure I am doing the same for the  growing food I will be eventually eating?

The healing energies of light

I am currently reading The healing energies of light by Roger Coghill, which is a really easy book to pick up highlighting how important light has been and still is on many levels. I’m only about 50 pages in, and I have already learnt so much about how without light nothing would happen. It is something I have never really thought about the light that the sun gives us daily, and why would I as it is something that I just assume is always going to happen. But I am realising how quickly the sun can kill my plants if I don’t water them! As well as without sunlight nothing grows, and in fact I think that resonates with me with us all working in offices all day with little natural light, can that be good for us really?

Of course animals and birds internal clocks tell them when to migrate, hibernate and when to breed. They are much more in tune with the day cycle, those animals that live in the day go and find somewhere safe to sleep at dusk. We have forgotten that this is something we should be doing, settling down to sleep at dusk, but electricity has meant that we all stay up past our natural internal bedtime, and wonder why we are all tired in the morning!

One of the illustrations in the book showed a piece of work by the botanist Carolus Linnaeus, which was a floral clock, which showed the time by when they opened. Pimpernel at 8am, Marigold at 9am, Alpine Dandelion at 10am, Star of Bethlehem at 11am, Passion Flowers at 12noon, Carnation at 1pm, Squill at 2pm, Pyre Thrum at 3pm, Purple Hawkweed at 4pm, Catchfly at 5pm, Evening Primrose at 6pm, and White Lychins at 7pm. It really is a lovely illustration, but how do they know the time?

But key for me is how important light is to us, it has been shown that those who work mostly outside don’t tend to suffer with depression, and we all know how lovely it is to walk and be in the sun. How things always feel better when it is sunny and how everyones moods just seem to be lighter. Growing more of our own food has led to me spending far more time outside than I have ever done, and it really does make you feel good working on the garden in this weather.

Tic’s

Unfortunately the dog has managed to get a collection of tics on her back, (no photo I thought I would spare you) this tends to happen at this time of year, it tends to be worse after it has rained. We have to keep a really good check on her, and only last night we saw one crawling on her. But that wasn’t the only one, and today she has a couple now residing on her neck.

They are uncomfortable for her, and the way we now kill them is not by giving her the chemical treatment which is often advocated by pet food shops and vets, but by putting 4 drops of Fennel Sweet Oil onto the tic. Within a matter of an hour the tic is dead, and it drops off within the day normally. I then bathe the skin with lavender oil which makes FD1 (our dog) smell lovely.  It’s simple, it’s natural, and it tends to keep any other tics off her for a good few days after we have put the Fennel Oil onto her.

Common Vetch

Over the past few months we have been watching the Common Vetch slowly produce its pods along the lanes and hedges that we walk each day, watching for the day that we can try the peas inside the pods. I now see why R has been such an avid viewer of them, as tonight we actually picked them and ate them, raw, right from the plant. It had an amazing taste, I was expecting a normal pea taste but no we both thought they tasted of almonds, which was a real surprise. The peas in the pods where so tiny, and some we could see were starting to go to seed, but it was lovely to be eating a wild food with all the natural energy that they tend to have. Tomorrow we will be going out to collect them to have with our dinner in the evening, not sure though what will go with almond tasting peas!

Common Vetch is quite an easily identifiable plant in the UK landscape, not one you would mix up with anything else. Amazing what you find when you start looking really, there is so much wild food available, and we have only just started looking into it. We tend to now take out small reference books to enable us to quickly identify the plants that we find, every week, even though we are walking the same woods, we find new plants. Our walks with the dog have become a real learning experience, and as tonight a taste experience. D

Strawberries

Such a lovely morning, made all the better because for breakfast I ate our own grown strawberries. We were like kids running to the strawberry plants to beat the other one to the biggest and most delicious ones. I am not totally sure whether they just taste better because they have been grown by us, or that they really are. Because they had been in the sun for a while they were all juicy, and sweet. The best thing about growing your own is that you really do know that they haven’t been dipped, sprayed or irradiated, they are unadulterated, and that knowledge in itself is enough for me.

They were very easy to grow, we bought strawberry containers, and plants from a local garden center which we just potted into it. Watered them each day, a bit of horse manure fertiliser once a week, and that really was all that it took to grow them.

We are now seeing the runners start to happen from the original plants, we will pot these up soon and we then won’t have to buy any more plants. It’s all a learning curve, but I have to say it’s an enjoyable one. D

Dogs dinner…

Pet care is something that has become another part of our life that has changed. We already fed our dog pretty much a natural dog food, which we bought, but in the past few months we have been making our own.

What started by accident due to running out, has now become something we do every couple of days, and is actually far less time consuming than we thought it would be, and no more expensive. Our dog really does love it, and it has given us a wider range of foods to give her, as well as an understanding of what is working well for her.

What works well interestingly enough is Thai Red Curry, who would of thought it, really! The stronger the taste the better, we did worry at first about the after affects but none, so she now has it on a regular basis. Along with a variety of foods with herbs, and spices all mixed in.

After reading a range of pet care books and learning about the absolute rubbish in commercial dog food, it is clear that we can feed our dog far better than any manufacturer can. When I first got this dog it was a number of years since I’d had one, and I was shocked at what I read on the ingredients of dog food, and did search out a good manufacturer of natural dog foods. But on the way I realised how natural doesn’t mean natural, and manufacturers can add that word to almost anything they make, and often many of the more ‘interesting’ ingredients are labeled under an agreed additive food, so being totally unclear. Also it made me think about how pet owners had become conditioned to think that they couldn’t make their own food for their pet, it had to be something you bought. No one really thinks of dog or cat food as TV dinners or convenience food, but in reality that’s what it is, and equally unhealthy for them. We automatically think that to feed our dog or cat we have to buy food which is specially prepared for them, and has labels on it saying how it fulfills all of their dietary needs, when in reality that isn’t the case. In fact just look at the long term affects of pet health which is deteriorating just as quickly as our own is, could this be down to the way we are feeding our pets?

Our dog now has a small amount of raw meat, cooked vegetables, fish oil uncooked, and a mixture of grains, for instance millet, quinoa, buckwheat, and the odd load of lentils. I would give her more raw foods but she doesn’t like them. I can’t highlight enough how much our dog loves it, and its all just cooked up together, she gets a bit of raw meat separate a few times a week. D

Alternative heating for summer!

Hi all, its R’s turn to write, so here I am. You’re wondering why I’ve used the title I have? Well its actually about heating for winter but in order to get that heating I’m starting in the Summer.

We all get lots of junk mail right? Well instead of being bad and throwing it away or if you’re good, recycling it. Why not recycle it in another way, brick it! Me and D have been saving up all the paper over the last few months once its been shredded and have Finlay started making paper mache bricks out of it for winter. The workshop is a costly enterprise and to heat it during the winter with electricity will take some serious £’s from our accounts. Gas unfortunately leaves much to be desired as it’ll cause condensation on the large machine tools and ventilation isn’t that great. So I came up with the idea of a small wood burner, I liked the idea so much I’m building the burner myself from an old propane cylinder (blog for later) and as I need fuel and free fuel at that, the paper that’s delivered every day is a brilliant source of free fuel. Now if you’re like me and live in a clean air area then wood burners must have a catalytic converter which is very expensive, burning paper doesn’t require such measures and saves even more £’s. Making the bricks couldn’t be easier, shred any paper you want, paper not card, as the card takes for ever to mash down, trust me I’ve tried. Soak in a bucket over night for for a day or two. Now I’ve bought a cheap steel paper mache brick maker from ebay and it works just fine. Add mushed paper to brick maker and hay presto, instant bricks. The brick go in the greenhouse for a week or under one of the cloches in the garden. It takes 7-10 days for them to dry out in good sunny weather which again is free. Come winter I should have a fair few bricks made and the wood burner will also be up and running before the first cold snap. I know not every one will have the luxury or need for a home rolled wood burner nor home rolled paper logs for said wood burner, but its and Idea for cheap heating! I’m often picking up the Metro news paper from the train on my way to and from work to add to the paper pile. Don’t be surprised If a tall stranger asks if your finished with your paper as It could be me. R.

New Moon

June 3rd and a new moon, recently we have started looking far more at the cycles and rhythms of life, and how they are influencing what we are doing, which we never thought about previously. We are still learning about its affects, but a new moon from what we know so far, means this is a time of energy, and growth. A time for regeneration, and this one falls in Gemini, a time for looking after your shoulders, arms, and hands,  anything you do for them will be more beneficial than at another time of the month. Or anything you do which is to the detriment of those parts, in regards to putting extra strain on them, will be potentially far more harmful.

Absolutely fascinating for us, and seeing if it is true and a good guide to live life by.

More for the garden, its a good time to sow root vegetables like beetroot, and carrots, more spring onions, and radishes apparently, so in the little space that we have left in the vegetable plot I think I will plant a few more carrots up. I never realised so many gardeners planted by the moon, there is a mass of resources out there, so much to read about and educate ourselves.