A week after we moved in, the boxes were barely unpacked and it was time to start work on the allotment:

We were given a  grassy patch of land at the bottom of the field, previously unused it meant we’d be starting from scratch. We pegged it all out with sticks and string and set to work taking off the top inch or so of soil. The area is a bit of an odd shape that somehow lent itself to being formed to read ‘211′:

In total it gives us somewhere near to 20 square meters of growing space plus we’ve been given another big bed which we will start work on soon as well as space in the poly tunnel! A very good start!

The layout may look bizarre but much thought went into the design… well at least 5 minutes of thought. The fence to the adjoining field runs diagonally along the left side meaning we had this oddly shaped piece of land to work with and so couldn’t do standard straight lines of beds.

We made the two long strips narrow enough so we can reach the middle from either side and so won’t need to stand on the soil when weeding.  They are divided by one path, just wide enough to kneel on for weeding, and another path dividing them from the “2″ is wide enough to fit a wheel barrow down.

We created the 2 thinking it would give us the most bed space while still having easy reach for weeding (and not trampling the soil) all the way to the middle of the bed via the two short paths that jut in. Very clever hey?

The turf squares we removed have all been stacked (grass to grass, soil to soil) in a tower and covered. In a year or so all the grass and weeds will have disappeared and we will be left with lovely new top soil to put back on… hopefully!

We plan on putting planks around all the edges and building up the soil over time to make raised beds, I’ve always found them easier to work, plus they look good, which I think is also important. It is much more pleasant to work in a good looking orderly place. I think it makes the work more enjoyable and therefore you are more likely to keep up with it and not get overwhelmed by the task of weeding a huge sprawling weedy mess.

We put rotted down grass clippings on the beds, covered them with card board, then covered the whole thing with carpet, weighed down with logs to keep the soil warm. Lucky we did, as the next day the temperature dropped suddenly, all the ground froze and it would have been impossible to do anything.

It was pretty amazing really. With the protection of the mulch and carpets the soil underneath stayed fine while all around the ground was frozen solid.

Now all we can do is wait for it to warm up a bit before we can get on with the exciting task of starting to grow our own food. I can’t wait!

Any tips for good things to grow would be great, especially things that grow well in the cold wet climate of mid-Wales!

This is a very special place. There is very little to do other than sit in relaxed cafes and bars, read books, be inspired, have a massage, do some Tai Chi  or maybe go for a trek in the hills. It is great. We’ve already stayed here twice the amount of time we planned to (lets hope the guy we left our big bags with in Bangkok hasn’t sold all our stuff!).

We’re staying over the river from the main part of town, it’s very peaceful. We have only the noise of the geckos,birds and the occasional downpour of early monsoon rain on the roof of our little bamboo hut to listen to.

Bridge to our hut

We’ve discovered a few things while we’ve been here, the first of these discoveries is that we both have an amazing ability to sit in a cafe for over 5 hours without really realising an hour has passed. Something strange has happened to time. Or perhaps it’s just that our cafe of choice has an atmosphere and menu that appears to lead to a meditative state that removes you from the usual worries of time and the urge to “do” things.

The cafe, aptly named “Good Life”, specialises in tea, the must have over 50 different types on their menu, many of which have been used as remedies for various ailments in traditional medicine. Today we sampled the ‘Jiaogulan’- tea of immortality!

From their leaflet,

“Jiagulan has grown wild for millenia in the Guizho province of Southern China. Here the people were mot much unlike any others. They woke up with the sun fed the animals and tended the fields… In 1972 after completing the first ever nationwide census … the Chinese government found that the Guizho province had a remarkable number of people who lived to be well over one hundred years old “

“Researchers were sent from Beijing university to investigate. They considered diet, lifestyle, genetics and nearly every possible factor, their conclusion? Jiaogulan”

Personally I’m not quite sure how to feel about these kind of  “healing” teas, I’m definitely interested though and along with sampling more teas I shall be doing a bit of research . Either way for now at least I know it tastes good and I reckon with this tea and my trip up Tai Shan I’m set up. Ooo,I’ll get a letter from the Queen, or rather Prince Charles, or whoever. How very exciting!

Two other very interesting things have been tried in this place, Kombucha and Wheatgrass. Now these two I am convinced of.

Kombuca

Kombucha is a tea that has been fermented by a kind of mushroom which is a culture of yeast and acetobacter. What this really means is it turns the tea into a very slightly alcoholic drink which tastes, in my opinion, a bit like cider.

Good Life sells loads of this stuff,  and I’m not surprised, I’m completely hooked – it’s amazing. It’s subtle, but it produces a kind of mild euphoria and keeps you alert in a happy kind of a way. We’ve been having it just after breakfast. What a way to start the day!

Here’s a few photos of the culture they have. They have loads! Jars and jars all growing in the back of the restaurant. Amazing stuff.

bottling the kombucha

Again, there’s all kind of health claims, from Seeds of Health,

“There is a lot of experiential evidence from people who have been using kombucha over many years. Many of the benefits reported include improvements in energy levels, metabolic disorders, allergies, cancer, digestive problems, candidiasis, hypertension, HIV, chronic fatigue and arthritis. It ‘s also used externally for skin problems and as a hair wash among other things.”

As with a lot of these kind of natural health products, the kind of  “proper” scientific research seems to be somewhat lacking, but from the experience  of it  I’ve had I’m definitely willing to give it a go and look forward to starting my own culture as soon as possible. I like it too that it’s one of these things you kind of pass on, like a gift. Once you have some of the culture, it keeps growing, you can have enough for yourself and pass it on to other people. I would love to hear from anyone in the UK who makes it!

Wheatgrass

Wheatgrass shot

This is another new one on me courtesy of Good Life. Wheatgrass. This too seems to have an incredible energising effect. Down in one, a shot sized glass in the morning is enough for me, but some people are hooked on this stuff, I’ve heard people saying they’d have up to 8 a day!

The health claims, mostly based on the high chlorophyll and vitamin content  include a wide range of benefits including increasing hemoglobin production, detoxifying, helping skin problems such as eczema and psoriasis, keeping hair from greying (!), prevention and cure of colon and other cancers and boosting energy. Bodykind has a good “is it all just hype” article which details some scientific evidence supporting the benefits of drinking wheatgrass.

Again, it’s hard to know, all I can tell you is that after a tour of Pai’s bars finishing at four followed by only 3 hours sleep I had a shot of this with my breakfast and was certainly more perky than I was before and have made it through the day with much more energy than I usually would after such a night. I do not however know if my hemoglobin production has increased!

Wheatgrass can be grown easily at home in trays, there’s lots of information and instructions here. If/when I start my own I’ll let you know how it goes! Would be great to hear from any other fans or growers too!

Finally, here’s a few photos from the lovely trek we did while we weren’t getting high on grass. We had an amazing time and were very lucky to have the company of two lovely Dutch girls Juul and Eliza. Lots of good chats plus perhaps more than a few beers to celebrate their last night in Pai, sob:-( Celebrate is not quite the right word, sad to see them go, we had a good time together. Keep in touch you two!

Presented by Rebecca Hosking it goes through all the key points in a clear and concise way, opening with the lines,

“An approaching energy crisis will likely force a revolution in farming that will change the British countryside forever. It will effect what we eat, where it comes from and even the alarming question of whether there will be enough food to keep us fed.”

From an interview with a geologist comes the conclusion that what matters is not the exact timing of the peak, but that whether it is in 1, 5 or 10 years there will be a peak in the production of oil after which oil will become more difficult to extract, more expensive and that this will have huge implications for every aspect of our lives.

She uses a simple example of a ham sandwich. The oil needed to power the tractors to plough the wheat fields, plant the seeds and harvest the grain and the petrol based fertilisers that helps it grow. Then on to the meat, with a single pig consuming nearly half a ton of grain it is even more energy hungry. Even the small pieces of salad are currently highly dependent on oil, whether because they are shipped from abroad or grown here in heated green houses before being transported around the country in lorries. She sums it all up perfectly with a great quote that says exactly what it is hard for people to see, “this sandwich, like so much of the food we eat today, is absolutely dripping in oil”

But what’s great about the film is that it’s not all doom and gloom. There are lots of people who have recognised this problem and are working in inspirational ways that offer an alternative for the future.

She visits the Dixons in Snowdonia, who run a small holding based on permaculture principles, and an experimental forest garden in Devon ran by Martin Crawford that just looks incredible.

There’s also Fordhall Farm an organic beef, pork and sheep farm that relies on the quality of it’s soil and grass rather than chemicals to feed the animals. This includes one of the saddest parts of the film. A clip of a film from the 80s of a tractor plouging a field followed by flocks of birds draw to the unearthed worms and wildlife is compared to a shot of a tractor on the same land now – nothing ,no birds, no worms, the soil is dead, surviving to grow now only with the aid of chemical fertilisers. Makes you realise what we’ve done.

All in all it’s a brilliant film. It’s powerful introduction for people who might not know about the issues of peak oil and food security, but also an inspirational piece for anyone already aware of the issues that shows what can be done. Highly recommended. Watch it here.

For more on peak oil watch the film ‘The End of Suburbia’ and for more information on the transition from an oil based society see Transition Culture.

We made halloumi!

A couple of weeks ago now Andy and I spent a few days WWOOFing at Canon Frome Court, a community of around 45 people in Herefordshire.

As part of our UK tour we’ve been trying to fit in a bit of WWOOFing, as well as it saving us a few pennies (a few hours work in exchange for accommodation and food) we also wanted to experience different ways of living, both from the ideas of having a small holding, and also living as part of an intentional community.

This was our first stay in a community and we really didn’t know what to expect. We has just spent a week entirely by ourselves, doing very little, house sitting in Devon, so as you could imagine it was a bit of a shock to the system to drive through the 15ft gates topped with a statue of an eagle with a bloody torn off hand in it’s mouth and then down a half mile drive, to a beautiful, though rather daunting, Georgian mansion where we were to join the whole community for dinner just 20 minutes after we arrived.

Luckily everyone was very nice, no one tried to chop off our hands to feed to birds of pray, and we spent the evening eating lovely homegrown food, drinking wine and chatting. Phew!

From what I’ve seen it appears no two communities are the same, they all run differently in terms of numbers, membership, ideals, living arrangements etc. Before we got to Canon Frome we weren’t really sure how this one was set up, we’d just been recommended them by a friend who told us it was the best example they’d seen of a community that “worked” in that things got done and people didn’t just constantly argue.

Canon Frome was set up in 1978 (so it’s exactly as old as me!) and they do seem to have managed to get things sorted in that time (although I was told there were a few fist fights in the first few years).

They run a 40 acre farm, with cows, chickens, geese, sheep, an incredible 1.5 acre walled garden for veg and an orchard. Everything seemed very well managed and productive. At this place people buy an individual unit, their own house basically. In fact I suppose it’s a bit like buying one of these “luxury apartments” in a converted old house in Manchester, except for these really were luxury and you actually interacted with your neighbours instead of ignoring them in the hall ways.

People have responsibilities for a certain space of land or care of animals, it’s recognised that some people may be able to do more than others and all produce is shared equally. Most people have a job outside of the community too. Really it was all very sensible and definitely not just a load of hippies rolling around naked in fields as part of some kind of cult (you can tell this is what some people are thinking when we say where we’ve been).

Not sure it’s the place for us, definitely not at the moment at least, I think I would prefer somewhere smaller with more communal meal and activities (although I’m sure that’s exactly the kind of place where people constantly fall out!), but it was a great experience anyway. I imagine it would be a lovely place to bring up kids. At one point while we were working we saw a group of kids appear from between the trees. They peered over curiously at what we were doing, all of them were munching their way through whole cucumbers. Kids choosing to eat cucumber, imagine that.

I think my favorite part was the walled garden, which was fantastic. It had a great rotation system, split into four sections the same group managed the same plot each year and the crops moved, so you would have your own patch to nurture and improve while getting different things to work on each year.

The polytunnels were very impressive, one was entirely full of tomatoes, the other had melon, early courgettes and crazy cucumbers, which on one single day had produced a crop of 42 cucumbers, some were wriggly and spiky.

Perhaps the best thing about it though is when you get to go pick and make your dinner out of the food grown there. On the last night of our stay Andy and I cooked for ourselves and we had a small feast including the halloumi we’d made that day, lots of different spicy salad leaves, nasturtians, courgettes, tomato, basil and mozzarella salad and tzatziki all of which were made entirely from home produce. So satisfying.

I was particularly excited about the tzatziki- goats yoghurt fresh from the day, garlic they’d just harvested, mint I’d just picked, cucumber from the polytunnel. I just thought it was crazy it was possible. I want a goat now. Halloumi and Tzatziki. Hurrah!

Thanks to all the people at Canon Frome for all you taught us and the great time we had there!

Click here for more information on WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms).

Click here for more about Canon Frome including how it is run, farm stays, room hire  and membership application.