Selling Seeds
Posted: Wed 23 April, 2008 Filed under: Getting Organised, Green, Green Garden, Health, News 4 Comments »It’s good to see that apparently more and more people are buying vegetable seeds, and growing their own veg, particularly in light of rising costs and growing awareness of the environmental impact of various imported fruit and veg.
We’re doing this more and more now that the garden is getting a bit more sorted – so far this year we’ve planted:
- Three rows of potatoes
- Leeks
- Carrots
- Onions
- Bell peppers
- Chilli peppers
- Runner beans
- Peas
- Rhubarb
- Tomatoes
and - Parsnips
We’ve still got plans for broccoli/calabrese, courgettes, pumpkins, cauliflower, more leeks and parsnips for over-winter, and a couple more tubs of potatoes as well as gooseberries, blackberries and (probably) strawberries on the fruit side. And even then, as we get more organised next year we’ll do even more.
It’s just good to see people doing more for themselves in this way – I suspect it’s something that’s going to keep on happening. I certainly hope so.
Norfolk Weekend
Posted: Sun 13 April, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, Green Garden, House Work, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s been a funny weekend, really – I haven’t had the time (or inclination) to be writing stuff for D4D™, as we’ve been fairly busy, yet it doesn’t feel like we’ve been busy enough to have a decent excuse.
Still, we’ve been getting a fair amount done.
Friday night was a social evening for a local charity connected (tangentially) to Herself’s work, doing a wine-tasting event – although it was a bit of a bummer to be the designated driver for the evening, as it meant I didn’t get to do any of the tasting!
Saturday sort of slipped away, really – doing a number of housey things, including fitting a new doorbell (we haven’t had one since we moved in, although the old bell-push was still on the door, which led to lots of annoyed delivery people) and just general domestic rubbish – shopping, sorting out plans for the weekend, that kind of thing.
Today we’ve been doing more stuff in the garden, including planting a whole bundle of veg in the veg patch (admittedly, that was mainly Herself) and sorting out some issues with our various water butts and the like. Oh, and I’ve spent some time putting together the basics for a new site, getting it all set up and ready to go.
So – busy, but not massively so. Just a fairly occupied weekend.
Eco-Towns
Posted: Fri 4 April, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Green, Thoughts Leave a comment »While I don’t agree with all the new locations for the proposed ‘eco-towns’, I do think that they’re (in general) a good idea. If we are so in need of new housing, I’d far rather that it was housing that was done with some decent thought towards green power, water recycling, insulation and the like.
I wouldn’t necessarily want to live in one of the houses – although that’s mainly because I like being out here in the country, rather than in a giant housing-estate, as well as the fact we’re going to keep on working on our own green lifestyle/credentials. but I do think they’re a good thing, and if I had to live in a modern giant housing estate, I’d rather it was one of the eco-towns.
Local Discoveries.
Posted: Wed 23 January, 2008 Filed under: Green, News Leave a comment »Isn’t it bizarre sometimes, the way you find out about things?
For instance, despite having been here a year now, and being fairly interested in Green/Ethical energy sources and the like, I had no idea that the local poultry company was also creating a power station fuelled by chicken carcasses.
While I can’t deny that I have certain issues about an industry that’s producing enough chicken “by-products” (as they call them) to provide a power station with enough raw material to power the town of Attleborough year-round, I’d rather see it going to this use than others. For example, as the site says, these by-products used to go into cattle feed and the like, although that process was stopped with the event of BSE. And if the choice is between just incinerating everything, or using the generated heat to create power, well I suppose that’s better than nothing.
Almost Lost
Posted: Tue 22 January, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised, Green 2 Comments »Over the weekend, I thought we’d lost one of our hens. We’d let the hens out of their run to have a wander about for an hour or so, and then sort of forgot that they were out.
So it was dark when I went up to see if they’d found their way back into the run, and into the nestbox – and of course, being thick chickens, they hadn’t. Two were asleep on the ground (so much for all the books saying they’ll try and get up to a perch before going to sleep) and I couldn’t find the third (Elsie) at all.
I put the other two into the nest box, and then looked all round the garden – but couldn’t see Elsie at all. I even looked over the end fence – although getting the idiot bird back from there would’ve been interesting, to say the least.
Eventually, we did find her. She was snugged right up in the corner of the garden, in the tiny gap between tool-shed and fence. It was a gap so narrow that I hadn’t actually thought she could get in there, which was why I hadn’t looked there properly. I still don’t know quite how she’d managed to get in there, and turn round (she was facing back out to the front, and I’m sure she didn’t reverse in!) but it’s certainly somewhere I’ll bear in mind as and when we “lose” her again – something which is likely to happen, as they’re going to (hopefully) spend more time outside their run as the days grow longer.
But I must admit to a fair amount of relief when we did find her – it would’ve been a very silly way to end up losing one of them.