garden crops

I had a lovely little potter around the garden for quarter of an hour yesterday. Ben gave me a sprouting garlic bulb so I planted some cloves in a ‘nursery’ bed/pot. I will be sorting out a proper place for them when my next batch of money comes on the 15th, probably a big tub, but maybe some upcycling possibility will come my way, if I keep my eyes open.

Garlic is one of the easiest of all the crops to grow and leave, as long as you respect it comes from the open plains of Asia, so it wants loose soil, that’s less nutritious, open to the air and the light, with plenty of drainage. (Yeah, kind of the opposite of the forest garden 😉 ) It’s happy to be

transplanted while quite young. I normally grow Solstice garlic – sow in winter, harvest in summer- so this will be a very early sowing indeed, though Italians sow from August I believe.

I will move the young plants on when they are 3″/9cm high, watering very well half an hour before, so that the roots are loose. Then scoop gently and place in a prepared drill (round hole large enough to not squash the roots) and fill with peat-free compost, just like for moving leeks on.

They’ll probably join the container garden as the new herb area is so new, I’m worried about people trampling it as a short cut to the bbq 😉

Then I had a little wander checking the potatoes weren’t drying out in all the heat we’re having. My tomatoes have recovered from little blight, nowhere near as luxuriant as Ben’s, but productive, so fine by me 🙂

And what really surprised me is that the peas have run away with themselves and the first ‘umbrellas’ of pods are showing. All that sun, and now plenty of rain has done all the work for me, though I do need to add some more support, even short pods get heavy when they’re ripe and ready!

The sweetpeas are over (I didn’t come down and cut them often enough, you need to cut daily to keep them flowering) but I am letting the plant dry out so I can gather seeds, these had a lovely scent, and try again next year. The violas will stay in the pot with the daffodils, but I might add some hellebores this winter.

Just pottering and having a sitdown as needed, but managing tiny tasklets and seeing them bear fruit, and finding free gifts from the compost and the ‘weeds’ (see my blackberries? if I can just keep the boys away with their power tools, these will be lovely with yoghurt or in a smoothie)  all these moments add up to a lot of pleasure, to a guaranteed upswing for my moods – pain and fatigue are really depressing, and garden therapy is one of my best re-set activities. It used to be really hard to stop in time – I was used to having an allotment garden the size of 2 tennis courts and bringing home barrows of produce. But pain is a hard teacher – I have gradually got used to doing a tiny bit at a time, and asking for help for all the heavy work. I’m not sure I could live anywhere I had no piece of garden to work in now, it’s so clear to me how much good it does me keeping in touch with the seasons and viriditas – the power of greening/quickening , and helps to balance the fibromyalgia. The days I’m too tired to get downstairs are twice as bad for that reason, but the days I can play and get my hands dirty with soil are twice as good for that reason!

waste not, want not 3: Tshirts to bags 1

Amazing the difference it makes when I have almost no pain from my elbow! Suddenly I feel lively and interested in things, and life is sending lots of interesting artists to research – excellent timing 😉  So, as promised, another installment of upcycling goodness, inspired by turning out my drawers! I have a brand new washing machine (first time ever!!) and while it was very useful to discover I still had Tshirts on their last legs when I had to manage after the last washer broke, now, now I would rather have some space to see what I look halfway respectable in (ok, clean and tidy 😉 artists are rarely respectable!!)

  Nonie gracing a pile of tired and pilled and washed out trousers and shirts…all will be upcycled in ways I will share with you 🙂

Bottom Tshirt is a long sleeve crew neck from Cotton Traders that has served its time…but I feel really guilty not wringing the last drops of use out of cotton, because it is such a horrible crop to pick and process. And with a little energy and ingenuity I can make new things:

CROCHET HANDLE TOTE

1) Cut a snip next to the first respectable bit of the under arm, then tear across to the other side. Check for holes, stains etc., I have a gift for catching on barbed wire at the allotment/in the woods, just by the hip, so I cut that out. Turn it upside down and inside out – the colour will be fresher on the inside and the bottom seam (hem) is almost definitely sound.

2) Find some bright remnants, this is a leftover from Diversity, but a tired scarf or flowery top might come in handy here. Stitch the feature piece where it is most effective, using a zigzag or staggered zigzag if you have one.

3) Use a strong stitch for the edge seam – I used triple stitch, but you could just go over straight stitch twice, but do use good thread 😉  Start the seam at the hem edge as this will be the most noticeable join on the finished bag! Trim any raggedness, but leave at least 5mm for turning, and now zigzag the edge down. This is a lazy French seam, and it protects the edge and looks neater 🙂

4) See how much neater it looks? But it’s increased the weight-bearing strength of the bag too, as have the rows of stitching holding the decoration, cool, huh?!

5) Take a length of fabric, either the Tshirt sleeves or the decoration if you have enough, that is 2metres long by approx 10cm, that’s a sleeve cut in half on the length, twice, about a finger wide.

6) Fold it double and zigzag the edge so you have a tube, it’s fine to stitch right side out, but try to stay close to the edge but not over!

7) Now make a loop with one end of the tube and pull another loop through, using the long end of the fabric…and again, and again, until you have a crochet chain. It should be long enough for a handle, but just check! Now fold the ends in and stitch the handles down firmly, using a satin/heavy repeat pattern stitch ( I use lazy daisy) or, go backwards and forwards 3 times on straight stitch. Using the bottom hem of the Tshirt as the top edge of the bag just about guarantees a good straight edge, and stitching the handles to the double/ treble thickness means they shouldn’t tear when you fill the bag with shopping – it will stretch, so you can get a lot in!

8) Repeat for the second handle, trim any ends and admire your new tote! 😉

9) Keep the rest of the Tshirt, I will be showing how to make a swimming/gym kit/shoe bag out of the next section 😉 or make another tote to give to the first person to admire your work!

diversity at Pride

First: a big thank you to the friendly strangers who helped me when the taxi driver jammed the brake on my rollator again! They pushed the rollator lifted on to its front wheels and carried a big bag of diversity (!) down from Addison St to the community stage so all I had to do was walk slowly, and only once! I was panicking about how to manage two trips with nothing going missing or wrecking myself 😦 And they weren’t even going to Pride, so it was particularly nice of them to help me 🙂

So, a lovely sunny day, with lots of entertainment, people dancing barefoot on the grass, lots of stalls to look at and good causes fundraising – including Pride itself, as it all costs money to sort out. I was at the community stage at the beginning and saw the march coming in as Single Bass sang, then went home for a rest and came back to take down the installation about an hour before the rain was forecast, which meant I got to see an excellent singer, Emily Franklin, wow, what a voice! And it was lovely to hear Single Bass sing again, she is such a thoughtful writer, ‘Aseity’ (empowered groundedness) is one of my favourite songs, and as ever I got tears in my eyes when she sang ‘Weather the Storm’. I missed her second set, which matters less now this is available online 😉

http://single-bass.bandcamp.com/track/heavy-woman

– Keith helped me hang ‘Diversity is our Strength’ and then took some photos, so here is your eyecandy 😉

And now I am resting and very slowly pottering round tidying up the yarn explosion…where did all the feathers come from???

diversity is our strength

So, this is a detail of the Diversity is our Strength installation I am hanging near the Community Stage at Nottingham LGBT Pride. It’s not finished yet, but while Cherise and I set the world to rights this afternoon, she wound some more pompoms and I sewed more feathers and opalescent pink buttons and generally wrangled until two dozen components have become a piece. It is very long as it will be hanging from a tree branch about 8 – 10’/2.6m – 3.3 metres high, so these are detail shots and I’m hoping Keith may take some in situ shots with his good camera, depending on heat and health of course 😉

It’s freeform crochet, with lots of organza, some batik print which is really like the Black Pride image background, a ton of eyelash yarn and lots of other rainbow-y elements. I used the knitting mill to make some long i-tubes, twice my height 😉 and then chained them, ooh very satisfying!

A couple of people helped with cutting fabric as my elbow is not happy using scissors, the lime, orange and black is an industrial remnant I bought at the place near Fixers, the nylon velvet ribbon was upcycled from a friend’s skip find, the 60s neon rainbow/lace fabric (Cherise called it “the most of more”) has been waiting patiently for the right project as has a lot of the yarn! Some of the long chains have been made with skip yarn and some are nets and nylons that have been given to me by stashbombers (they call themselves friends…!!) So I have cleared a lot of stuff from yarn drawers and fabric stash (hurrah!) and hired Cherise to help me consolidate my stash when I’ve gathered spoons after Pride. I’m guessing at least 3 x 20litre storage boxes will be freed up!! I’m also going to put my millinery supplies on E-bay as with this new complication with my arm, my 3D work is going to be yet  more limited, so time to downsize some less possible materials and tools (let me know via comments if you’re interested) and gather more space 😉

fixing our communities

There is a joy in making something work again, or giving it a new life, that people have been consumerised out of in the last 20 years. I have a weakness for £/$ shops, as I often find bankrupt stock there, but increasingly, the goods on sale have been produced in China/sweatshops to sell there. I remember seeing a documentary on how they are changing the thinking of mainstream factories too  – if a chocolate bar is made smaller, they can sell 4 for £1 etc., And as austerity drags on, there are crowds of people looking for something new and shiny (to get the consumer hit) but affordable.

And some of the craft and children’s play goods are quite inspiring, more basic materials with room for imagination, less shiny uselessness. 2 dozen skeins of embroidery silk for £1 will keep a child happier for longer than one kit of friendship bracelets for £6.99 (or more!) and the workers will have been paid the same, you are paying for a box, a TV ad and profit to some company. If that money was ensuring fairtrade, it would be worth every penny, but paying for advertising and boss bonus, hmmm…

Those boxed kits became very popular in the 70s, as sewing and knitting began to drop from the curriculum, and by the 90s as art and workshop skills became CDT (craft, design and technology) some very traditional skills began to fall out of public awareness. The internet with the huge resource library of youtube videos means everyone has an aunt or uncle to share skills (I’m biased, my favourite aunt taught me everything from butterfly cakes to picture knitting!)

So first people learned 1-to-1 or 1-to-small group of family or guild (where you went to live as an apprentice in a craftsman’s family for several years till you could work as well as your teacher) for millions of years; then 1 teacher-to- 1 class, with the extended family backing up those skills; then 1 teacher- to- 1 crowded class, then no one, so the box kits had instruction cards to replace family knowledge/community skills. A new product was created from people no longer having a skill bank at home or knowing each member of their interlinked community well enough to trade for those skills. And now that product is losing its market, as youtube tutorials provide the information for free, so you only need the materials again. Meanwhile lots of those materials are harder to find as the market shifted to kits and people found it hard to learn from them (learning from a printed sheet is the hardest of all approaches – the most successful for the greatest number is to watch someone, see the process broken into units, then try each unit, then be supervised as you string each unit together, after which, practice makes perfect 😉 ) so for instance, haberdashery stores are few and far between and many people have no clue what one would sell anyway! (Findings for sewing, small domestic tools like tailor’s chalk, needles and crochet hooks, ribbon and other finishing materials)

And people now work in very dull call centres, supermarkets and factories, shelving and picking and packing, who have a very particular set of skills, including the mental stamina not to go wappy with boredom, but who get out of work desperate for some release. A lot of people get hooked into working to buy what’s next on the list, rather than enjoying free things already within their reach. A century ago, lots of these people in Britain would have been “in service” meaning working in a household, fulfilling a very particular role eg boot cleaning boy, nursemaid, dairymaid, footman. The servants hall was full of people with a huge skill bank though – ladies maids and valets had to understand tailoring, dry cleaning, fashion and hairdressing. Butlers and housekeepers knew thousands of recipes, food hygiene rules, ways to remove stains, how to manage staff… A good household staff  kept a ‘great’ house (think of the National Trust properties that belonged to private families) in constant good repair, and were often very critical of bad husbandry/estate management by the most senior male and female members of the family. Somewhere the baby got thrown out with the bath water as my granny would say! Being in service was to be appallingly vulnerable to abusive employers, but to live very well, esteemed for one’s particular skillset, among other skilled people in a ‘good’ family.

Luckily we can have skills without feudalism nowadays! And by consciously choosing to expand our skillset, self esteem based on what we can do and be, not on what we can buy or own is within most people’s reach…small projects make bigger ripples; the frugality/ upcycling and environmental movements are all having an effect. Today I will be at a local marketplace, offering sewing advice, garment repair and upcycling of textiles and yarns and letting people use my scissor sharpener, all as part of Nottingham Fixers (luckily there’s some cloud cover today, but I’m still taking sunscreen and ice water!) The fixers movement and Hackspaces, where people can share space, tools and other resources to be able to make things/fix things beyond what you can do in your own small space promotes the best of community sharing – individuals can make their own things, but often become very useful community figures, gathering likeminded people around them. Being visible in a popular Saturday market (and being on the radio to promote it) will hopefully encourage people still trapped in the rat race to brush up their own skills, develop what they feel is missing, and again find contentment in doing and being…and that has to be good…

fibromyalgia mystery solved?

reposted :

Fibromyalgia Mystery Finally Solved!

oh, if this means a treatment that works, wow!!

holding my breath!!

Thinking outside the button box…

So even though it is hooooot! hothothot! hoooooooot! my hands still hurt, grrrr, and now my elbows have joined in, grrr.

Rassen frassen… The chiropractor has advised me to do less and avoid chopping in particular, rest with icepacks, and get the doctor to check it out, so now I have blood tests to come on Thursday to help with narrowing the diagnosis, though I suspect the real answer is fibromyalgia trigger points, sigh…

This is deeply frustrating, as I explained to the doctor, as I rely on making stuff to keep my moods buoyant…

So let’s try and apply creative thinking to handsfree living:

– meditation/ skywatching/ 5senses/ visualization

– foot spa/soak; moisturize and eye spa (slices of cucumber or cooled teabags, any green herbal is normally very refreshing)

– audiobooks, I use these regularly to help me sleep, but perhaps something more challenging? Non fiction or poetry rather than humorous fiction? My favourites are Barbara Rosenblat’s readings of the Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody series, her expressive narration adds a whole layer of enjoyment, and similarly with Ray Sawyer’s reading of the Tom Holt novels, but perhaps some more eco-politics/sustainability/climate change titles?

– youtube documentaries and dvds? I keep buying dvds but I find it very hard to sit still long enough to watch a whole film…but then that is the problem 😦

– design sessions. Permaculture thinking is based on thorough observation of the cycles of use and consequences of  respectful intervention in natural cycles, so if  I deliberately schedule times to have thinks/design times and used a voice memo rather than writing/drawing diagrams, that would keep my brain and moods engaged.

Meanwhile, Nonie and I wear similar expressions round the toys I cannot play with this week 😉 and I save my spoons for writing my appeal form to the DWP, no I am NOT well enough to return to work, d’oh!

Hollie McNish: the best poet of the streets since Benjamin Zephaniah?

A friend sent me a link to Hollie McNish on you tube, and I was stunned: she is the best poet I’ve heard perform for ages! I went to a lot of performance poetry events with Andy (Andy Postman, my missed by many super funny/ out there surreal/zany poet and artist husband) and I have seen some very good poets, call outs to Mark Gwynne Jones and Dave ‘Stickman’ Higgins, local stars Sue Allen and Michelle ‘Mother’ Hubbard, and the nationally acclaimed, truly amazing uncrowned poet laureate Benjamin Zephaniah (the ‘Naked’ album is outstanding…)

So this accolade is not given lightly.

She is human, witty, politically aware in a very “personal is political” way about the underpinnings of the system, but, as she says in ‘Mathematics’ she has done her research, she has found out for herself, she has checked her sources. Like Zephaniah she is on the side of life, the overflowing cornucopia of  delight it can be, that is imperilled by thoughtlessness and greed. Like him, she knows WE have the power to change the unquestioned into the unthinkable. She engages us, and leaves us wanting more – I’ve checked with friends and I am far from the only one to repeat play immediately, with a “wow, that was good!”

She appeals to the part of everyone who knows what is fair, but may have been gaslighted (manipulated) into silence or denial, shouted down or isolated to the point of self doubt. She knows when to be positive and affirming; we must protect the wild places, honour the mothers doing the best for their babies, stand up for our right to be ourselves…

She is an original thinker, with fresh imagery and an ability to set out clearly the issues that may have been niggling at the back of our own minds – the school uniform fetish has always set my teeth on edge and I’ve been able to articulate why quite easily. The cloying cutesy cupcakes/vintage housewifey thing has annoyed me ever since it came in, but I assumed it was an age thing that these girls/women had no idea how much physical hardwork and brain numbingly boring real housewifery was in the 50s, whereas I could remember my aunt talking about getting her first hoover: in a pit village, dusting and sweeping was a twice a day job and depressingly pointless. Hollie joins the dots and holds up an image that makes me shocked, yes, little girls playing house are little girls with no power and could be depressingly easy targets for the predators waiting to pounce, but more importantly they are women missing out on their own lives. They are missing the now, the only place where we have power to respond to what happens in our life, to set aside the endless daily lists to make the memories that will sustain us, and if we are caring/parenting, making happiness for others too. No one at my memorial will stand up and say I was always on top of the dusting (friends rock with laughter at the very thought!!) but they will remember fruit smoothies in the garden with laughter as we made bunting to cheer up a friend moving to a new city, they will remember calls to say, the chestnuts are ready, fancy a bike ride? Paints and fabrics at the ready, seeds and trowels, and yes funky food….though pesto scones, 20 ingredient salads and lemon and marzipan cookies are what happened this week, not cupcakes, and duster, no, fraid not  😉
She breaks down the barriers of political thinking that run on rails, with no room for manoeuvres… if ever there was a time when we needed fresh, heartfelt thinking, humane values and clearheadedness, this is it. And the best news: she is young, all being well we have years ahead of us of her work, her questioning eye and clear voice calling society out and inspiring us to find a better way. Viva Hollie!

waste not, want not: raised beds for veg

The number of self seeded and unwanted sycamores in the communal garden is almost beyond counting: Ben took down 35 in one weekend and hardly made a dent on anything except the woodpile 😉

Not totally true, of course, some areas still need a lot of clearing, but the slabbed area the guys use for bbqs suddenly had lots more light, enough to make it a vegetable growing area.

There are many ways of  making raised beds, but first think about your materials to hand and your long term goals. On the allotment I would make temporary raised beds as a way of mulching the next area I wanted to bring into cultivation:  knocking back weeds and enrichening the soil and making a reservoir of compost AND growing a main and companion crop all at the same time is incredibly pleasing! 😉

4 STAR land clearing beds

1 old tyres

1 lay waste cardboard boxes to cover the area you want to mulch

2 space out large tyres to anchor edges and joins

3 stack a second tyre on each pile, line with landscape fabric, fill the middle with manure, woody prunings, hedge clippings, top with balled newspapers

4 stack a third tyre and add comfrey and nettles or green waste/weedings, top off with soil and plant squash/potatoes / tomatoes or aubergine with borage, marigolds or nasturtiums, with an empty flowerpot angled towards the roots, a stick holding it in place, with a bright rag at the top.

5 water and crop as necessary but at end harvest have your next patch ready mulched with cardboard so you can just roll the tyres to their new position 😉

2 builders bags:

1 lay waste cardboard boxes to cover 5′ x 5’/1.5 x 1.5m

2 if possible lay bricks around the edge

3 builders often abandon the white recycled plastic 1m cubed  bags that sand etc is delivered in, as some depots will not refill them. ask nicely or keep an eye out for nearby skips, ask people on your street who are having a new drive etc for the bags, people are mostly happy to get rid of them, though i have paid 50p sometimes. If the bag is for sand and gravel it will have a long funnel in the base, make sure you fold this over so there are no gaps for weeds to come through. Fold the sides down on the outside, so that as you fill the bag, you can pull the sides taller.

4 fill the bags with: raw horse manure or rabbit hutch clearings to a height of 8″/20cm or 4″ 10cm poultry manure, then add 6″/15cm woody prunings, hedge trimmings and shredded paper or balled newspapers and cardboard, next add rotted horse manure or grass clippings or non invasive weeds/spent foliage*, top off with soil and shake the bag and raise the sides. Now add more newspaper/torn cardboard/1 year leaf mould/old compost and if you have them, a layer of comfrey and nettles and 2pints/a litre of human urine. Cover with grass clippings and leave for a week.

5 shake down again and I used to use a claw or hand fork to aerate by raking through, a bit like tossing a salad 😉 Now put good soil or compost on top, plant in a squash plant with an empty flower pot angled towards the roots, sticking an old cane or long pruning wand in, to anchor the pot, with a bright rag on the end. When the squash has enormous foliage you will still be able to find the roots and get water where it is most needed 😉 plant marigolds or nasturtiums around the edge to bring in pollination insects and make pretty colours and composting bulk for next season 😉

6 water weekly as needed but otherwise leave till autumn cropping

7 when the first frost is forecast, harvest your pumpkins/gourds and leave to cure in the greenhouse/full sun for a couple of days, bringing in at night. Meanwhile, fork all the fresh foliage into a barrow and put on your overwintering compost heaps or the next builders bags* see instruction 4 😉 Use the remaining mature compost to fill a raised bed or to mulch your overwintering brassica patch/beds

I used to have half a dozen or more of these each year and it kept the allotment committee happy as weeds were being contained and the plot was productive, while I didn’t have to dig bulldozed soil (my allotment had been totally trashed by the previous guys, who were scrapmen fixing cars…they even laid gravel at one end! After 4 years I  had lots of permanent raised beds that meant I could lay proper paths with builders fabric and chippings/hedge trimmings. Try to become friends with everyone in your street who has a hedge or big lawns, they will often bring you their bags of trimmings right to your allotment as it saves paying for a garden waste bin or a long trip to the tip. I used to give the cleanest white bags with no funnel to the neighbours to collect their clippings to bring to me and they progressed down the chain to raised bed base and side linings s they deteriorated.

PERMANENT RAISED BEDS USING UPCYCLED MATERIALS

1 dig post holes at the corners and joins, put in posts and join sides  OR

line a trench vertically with small logs and add narrower pieces horizontally, usin nails or screws

2 line with builders weed cover fabric

3 fill with layers of fresh horse manure etc as above

materials:

wooden doors, sawn in half

logs from clearing trees

treble layers of building site mesh (often abandoned in skips at the end of the job) with old tent poles every 6 inches

fence panels, doubled up for strength

old bricks/slabs

pallets

railway sleepers

if you drink lots but don’t make wine/beer, save the wine bottles, turn upside down and bury to half height or lay on sides and cement – I’ve not done this myself as I would be worried about the glass cracking, but others have, google for advice 😉

tyres on their sides and buried to half their height

old pet cages/hutches with cardboard box lining

and lots more, the trick is in how you look at what has ended its FIRST use…

Happy scavenging 😉

Updates on the potatoes: rocketing away! and an aubergine seems to be growing from seed in the compost?

sunny days in the garden

The dog rose is flowering, and the loveliest thing is seeing how many more are to come! There are two dozen buds on that branch alone 🙂 This bush was drowned in sycamore weedlings before Ben in flat 2 rescued it, and his efforts have been rewarded, out in the sun, the rose has flourished and every branch has clusters of buds! An empty space has been cleared next to it which will be my herb garden.

The bees are very happy, this is another kind of comfrey, not sure which, it’s neither symphytum officinale or bockingii, but the bees don’t care, they love the purple bells almost as much as the foxgloves. I tried to take a photo where the big yellow bloomers of pollen would show, they make me smile, for all I don’t like honey…you can sort of dimly see them, the yellow blurs on his back…

And the sound of bees in a garden makes me happy…I’ve been exhausted all week, slept 3 days straight (!) and felt a bit down that I couldn’t hold Emilia’s lovely baby Finn for a proper cuddle: at 5 months he is already too heavy for my cotton wool arms, I would hate to get ‘folding’ wrist and frighten us all 😦

So coming out to play in the garden has been very healing. I potted up the tomato plants a lovely volunteer at Nottingham Fixers brought to the stall last weekend and getting my hands covered in soil always helps 😉  They look a bit shabby next to Ben’s, but there’s already a tomato 🙂 and the torn up comfrey leaves will help them catch up..

and at the end is a shot of the dying branches of the horrid laurel, with lots of feverfew and weeds coming through, but with the colours inverted… Picasa  is such fun to play with, and inspiring – I’m sure I can make something with this 🙂