March Winds Doth Blow

And we shall have snow. But not enough to stick – ever.

I remember when I was a child and it snowed, it snowed properly. A good, deep covering of snow. Everyone would go up to the big field in the village and go sledging down the hill there (hoping the cows weren’t there). And you’d build a snowman that would last for a couple of weeks after the rest of the snow had gone, slowly getting more and more doleful as he slowly melted away.

Now what little snow we have falls, but it disappears as soon as it hits the ground. So there’s no more fun to be had sledging or building snowmen. Is this global warming?

Whole lot of Shaking

Last night we had an earthquake.

I knew something strange had happened when I woke up suddenly around 1am this morning – it was pitch black outside and yet the birds were twittering away in the trees across the way. But it wasn’t until I heard on the radio this morning that there had been an earthquake that I realised what had happened.

Apparently last night’s quake had a magnitude of 5.3, but to me it didn’t feel as strong as the 2002 quake, which was only 5.0. But the epicentre of that one had been just down the road from me in Dudley, whereas last night’s was over 150 miles away near Market Rasen in Linconshire.

Just another strange quirk of the planet we call home.

Hold a chicken in the air …

I’ve been watching Hugh’s Chicken Run the past few nights on telly, where Hugh Fernley Whittingstall has been examining how chickens are reared in this country and challenging us to examine what has happened to the chicken before it reaches our plates.

Well, I was challenged – no more chickens from their equivalent of a concentration camp. From now on I’m only going to buy free range.

However,  my first attempt to do this was slightly scuppered by my local supermarket being rubbish and not stocking any free range meat. But the farmer’s market in town does, and the chickens there come from a farm just down the road – even better.

If you want to know more about the whole Chicken Out campaign which is encouraging people to consider where their meat comes from, please look at the information on the website – it says it all so much better than I can.

The Good Life

There’s been a couple of programmes on telly recently attempting to tackle the issue of being ‘green’.

BBC Three have a series called Outrageous Wasters, in which a family who use more energy and water, make no attempt to recycle and have little concern for the environment are taken away to live in a yurt in Wales and be shown green alternatives and made to think about the impact their lifestyle has. Meanwhile their house is modified with solar panels and fun ways of sorting recyclables to try and help them consider continuing this new outlook when they return home.

I’ve been quite impressed with the series so far (and quite shocked at how wasteful some people can be). It’s been interesting to watch the change in people’s attitudes to realising that it’s not really difficult to make some basic changes to their lifestyle, but more importantly how everyone doing their little bit can make a big difference.

Over on Channel 4 there’s been a short series called Dumped. This programme took a group of volunteers and asked them to live on a dump next to a landfill site for three weeks. A good premise with lots of potential for looking at how much of what we as a country throw away is actually useful. Unfortunately the programme makers made it a competition with the person or people lasting the full three weeks getting a share of the prize money. This meant that the programme was more interested in the disputes between the people than it was on considering the issues it should have been highlighting (They were there, but well hidden). So I only managed to watch a couple of episodes before giving up.

It had so much potential.

Where The Wild Roses Grow

Well, my garden is coming along nicely now – I’ve got rhubarb, strawberries and broccoli planted for next year, along with a few herbs. The compost bin is filling up. Roses are blooming and I’ve found and replanted more bulbs than Blackpool illuminations!

My big problem at the moment is slugs. The nasty things keep trying to eat my plants! Despite consulting various sources of gardening information I’ve not found a good solution. I don’t want to use chemical slug repellents, but I did find one which was garlic based. So I thought I’d plant some garlic, but that doesn’t seem to have done much yet. I’ve also put crushed eggshells round my veg plants to create a sort of anti-slug razor wire! I have a feeling this battle may continue for a good while yet …

How Does Your Garden Grow

Well, I’m settling in nicely to my new house. And I’m starting to get really into self-sufficiency. I blame too much of my childhood watching The Good Life. Although actually I think it has more to do with Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage programmes, which really showed what you can do with a little garden and some effort.

So, now I have a garden I decided that I want it to do something for me, so I’ve been clearing the beds of weeds (and there were a lot!!), digging over the soil and generally preparing for planting. I need to find a good local (and cheap) source of manure to improve the soil, but I’ve not found anything yet.

I have got a compost bin from my local council which I am slowly filling up with compostable rubbish, but it will be a while before I get anything useful from it.

And I’m planning what I can plant and grow – I don’t want anything to demanding, and I certainly don’t want to be inundated with anything. So do I plant a few of a lot of things and hope they produce enough fruit and veg? Or do I risk having too much, where I have to give away part of my crop?

Hmmm … the decisions ….