The following article first appeared in ‘Grow your own’ magazine back in February as part of my ‘Theory Behind…’ series.
In traditional gardening and farming, land is weeded and/or cleared of crops before a soil improver such as compost and/or manure is dug or ploughed into the soil to improve the soil structure, aerate the soil and add nutrition.
With ‘no-dig’ or minimum tillage the soil is disturbed as little as possible. Instead a thick mulch, usually in the form of compost or manure (or sometimes leaf mould, straw or mushroom compost), is left on the surface of the soil for worms and other soil fauna to work in. The action of the soil life brings down the mulch, whilst naturally aerating the soil and improving its texture and fertility. The mulch is sometimes applied over a biodegradable weed barrier such as cardboard or wetted newspaper or the mulch is placed under a weed barrier such as mypex or black plastic sheeting.
Science of no dig
No dig gardening works on the principle that soil is a complex mix of living organisms rather than a dead substrate. In a single gram of soil there can be well over a 1000 million organisms, most of which live in the top few centimetres, this is often referred to as the soil biota. Worms and larger soil life work down organic matter into the soil creating air pockets as they move around. Then organisms in ever decreasing size break down this organic matter into its component parts which frees the up nutrients into a form our plants can take in.
As it concentrates on soil biota many consider no-dig gardening a way of feeding the soil rather the plants within the soil.
Erosion
As most soil life exists in the top few inches of soil removing it to get rid of weeds can be detrimental to the fertility of the soil. Also with the removal of the topsoil, soil structure can be compromised and therefore more prone to erosion through wind and rain. In extreme circumstances this caused the great dust bowl in America in the 1930’s as ploughing took away much of the deep rooted grasses keeping the soil intact.
A key principle of no-dig is therefore to always keep the soil covered, be it with crops, compost, green manure or black plastic.
Less Water
Mulching the soil will lead to less water loss through evaporation so no-dig plots are often use far less water than plots without soil cover.
The basics of no dig
Preparing a no-dig bed
Although not crucial some prefer to avoid walking on no-dig beds. For this reason beds should be set out to be no wider than the maximum reach the smallest person working the plot (preferably an adult!) can stretch to. On average this is a width of around 1.2m or 4 feet in width (or 60cm/2 feet from either side). Any wider and the bed becomes impossible to work without toppling over into it or deliberately stepping onto it. The beds can be as long as your land allows.
You can coat the ground with a double layer of cardboard (usually wetted), covering this with a layer of compost, a couple of inches deep, before sowing into it. Some will prefer to have the soil raised up in wooden bed but others claim this merely gives a habitat for slugs and will just sow straight into the compost. Also, some gardeners may prefer to clear the ground of perennial weeds first but others say this is a wasted effort as the cardboard blocks out the light preventing any weeds from growing.
You can cover a growing area in black plastic for a season to eliminate the weeds (again you may want to dig out any persistent perennials). Then peel back the plastic and cover with a layer of compost (2.5 cm to 6 cm or 1-2.5 inches). Either sow into the compost (with the plastic removed) or cut into the plastic and sow through it.
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Interview with Charles Dowding
Can you very briefly explain how you use the no dig system on your farm in Somerset?
Every year, preferably but not always after last harvests in autumn, all beds (open sided, no wood) are spread with an inch or two of either cow or horse manure, home made compost or mushroom compost. All weeds are pulled when tiny so there are rarely many to be seen. Many beds are cropped twice each year with module grown plants from my greenhouse.
What are the draw backs with no-dig (if any)?
None really but it may take some getting used to, for instance sowing into compost rather than into soil. Starting off from a weedy patch takes time for mulching to be effective, up to a year for perennial weeds: an initial dig may seem quicker but a patient mulch results in cleaner soil.
Are there any crops that do better or worse?
Where I compare the same vegetables on dug and undug beds, harvests of spinach in May and beetroot in June are bigger on undug soil. Onions are bountiful and parsnips grow beautifully long into my clay, but potatoes make funny shapes unless some extra compost is used to “earth them up”, or you can pull surface soil around potato plants. Total harvests in dug and undug beds are broadly similar.
Criticisms of no-dig
Some studies have suggested that there may be a crash in soil fertility a number of years into a no-dig plot. However its advocates, including Bob Flowerdew, hotly dispute this claiming to have used the method for a number of years without the crash.
Others simply like the exercise of digging and feel no-dig robs them of this pleasure.
However, perhaps the biggest drawback to no-dig gardening may be the need to import organic matter. Charles Dowding disputes this and claims he only uses extra compost to supress weeds and lift fertility. He argues he only does this to remain commercially competitive and home growers may not need such high amounts of compost.
If this importing were necessary it is hardly as strain as local stables, city and rural farms along with community compost schemes will readily supply organic matter to growers, often either for free or for a small donation.
Further reading
Grow your food for free …well almost - Dave Hamilton, Tips on how to construct raised beds and make compost heaps (amongst other things)
Vegetable Growing Course Book, Charles Dowding”, Frances Lincoln, March 2012 Organic Gardening The natural no-dig way, Charles Dowding, Green Books 2007
The One-Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka, Rodale Press in 1978.
Gardening with Compost F.C. King, Plum Tree Publishing Ltd, Revised edition Dec 2002
We are proud to welcome accomplished writer, journalist, activist and according to the New Statesman one of Britain’s top 10 trouble makers Paul Kingsnorth as our latest guest blogger as he turns his hand away from trouble making to the ancient and gentle craft of scything.
It’s that time of year. The grass is beginning to grow, and faster than you would imagine it could. Suddenly, it’s getting to the stage where it needs cutting, lest it overwhelm your food crops or smother your flower seeds or simply ruin your well-tended croquet lawn.
What are you going to do about it? Well here is what you are not going to do: you are not going to get your Flymo out. Or your strimmer. You are not going to do it because there is a much better way to mow grass; one which, paradoxically, is also much older. And once you know how to do it, it is also easier, quieter, more enjoyable and better for the grass and the planet.
I’m talking about the scythe. I’ve been using a scythe for six or seven years now, and these days I’m a confessed addict. I’m not the only one. Scything is undergoing something of a renaissance at present, and it seems to be gaining momentum.
Scythes were used in Britain from Anglo-Saxon times right up until the 1940s, initially to mow grass for haymaking and later also to mow cereal crops. They were operated by large mowing teams in the summer months and they were, and are, a terrific example of what used to be called ‘appropriate technology.’ The wooden handles, known as snaths, can be made anywhere there are trees by any competent woodworker, and the blades can be made by any blacksmith. They’re a genuinely pre- and post-modern tool, and will doubtless be around long after the Flymo has faded into legend. Keep the blade honed and peened, and know how to use them, and you have probably the most efficient and effective tool for cutting grass ever developed. This is proven entertainingly year after year at the Somerset Scythe Festival where the annual ‘scythe versus strimmer’ contest is always won by the scythe.
Like many other rural crafts, scything pretty much died out in Britain after the second world war, though this was not the case in many other European countries. In eastern Europe, mowing grass with scythes is still widely practised, and both skills and tools are passed on from generation to generation. Even Western Europe still has a working scythe culture. Here in Britain, as in so much else, we are both ahead and behind: industrial revolution and enclosure rendered our fields empty and our slums full long before this happened anywhere else, and one of the consequences has been the widespread death both of small-scale agriculture and of the crafts, skills and ways of seeing associated with it.
The recent rebirth of scything in the UK was kick-started by former, land reformer and former Ecologist editor Simon Fairlie, who, a few years back, began importing, selling and teaching the use of scythes manufactured by the 600-year-old Schröckenfux company in Austria. Austrian scythes are terrific, lightweight instruments, with a vast array of interchangeable blades, that can be used for anything from mowing your lawn to harvesting wheat to trimming grass around trees on a forty five degree slope. They are a whole different beast from the old English scythes which you may have seen in the backs of barns or hanging up on the walls of pubs. Old English scythes are much heavier and have bigger, tougher blades. Austrian scythes are lightweight and easy-to-use.
Having initially, and nervously, bought myself a scythe to mow a little bit of grass on my allotment, and having done so very badly for the first couple of years, I eventually plucked up the courage to go down to the annual Scythe Festival, which is held every June on the Somerset levels. I had refused to believe for a while that a scythe festival could be anything other than deeply strange, but when I got there I found it was a surprising amount of fun. I also found that I was doing almost everything wrong with my scythe, and I learned very how to put it right. To top it all, I couldn’t resist entering the annual scything competition, in which I did spectacularly badly, guaranteeing that I would have to come back next year and try and do better.
Things spiralled from there. Going to the scythe festival is now an annual pilgrimage for me and my family, and I have graduated in the ensuing years from hopeless learner to qualified and experienced teacher. These days I teach groups of people across the North of England and Scotland how to use the scythe, and I have been fascinated to see the numbers of students growing, and to see the diversity of what they use these tools for.
On my courses, I have taught people who want to mow their lawns, smallholders with hay meadows, people who want to clear weeds or brambles, greenkeepers on golf courses, wildlife reserve managers, permaculture smallholders and people with mental health problems for whom learning practical outdoor skills is useful therapy.
What I’ve seen over the past five years is a great resurgence in interest in these old tools and their use in the modern world. Sometimes people come on my courses expecting to have a bit of fun learning to use an interesting but basically useless heritage tool. By the end of the day they are usually excited by the fact that it is still possible to use this simple, beautiful and ancient tool in a very efficient, modern setting.
So if you want a sustainable, green, human-scale and self-sufficient way of cutting anything from grass to heather, I’d advise you to forswear petrol and electricity and learn, instead, to sharpen a blade and swing a snath. You’ll never look back.
Paul Kingsnorth is running scything classes for beginners and improvers all summer. For more information, see his website:
www.paulkingsnorth.net/scything
Paul can be contacted by e-mail on paul@paulkingsnorth.net
First published in the Ecologist 2 years ago. Written by Andy Hamilton
In this hot weather plants – and especially thirsty vegetables – are at risk from dying if they don’t get a good soaking. I have two allotments and in hot weather they need at least 200 litres of water poured on them a day. I sometimes picture what it will be like 10, 20 or 30 years into the future as the UK starts to face warmer and drier summers. It would seem that being prepared for gardening in a drought is not only pertinent but imperative.
Water tricks
Most gardeners have a few tricks already up their sleeves for coping with hot summer weather. The first steps for the drought gardener should involve collecting and conserving as much water as possible.
Collecting rainwater should be the number one priority in drought gardening (especially if we have wetter winter conditions). Most houses with pitched roofs should be easy to set up to do so and you might be surprised with how much water you could save. This rainwater calculator is great for calculating the size of the water tank you could use in relation to how much water a roof of your size in your area can collect.
Those on a lower budget who may not be able to afford water tanks can also buy water butts, these are sometimes available from local councils at a cut price rate. A word of warning must be uttered here if you have lead or other suspect material on your roof it probably isn’t such a great idea to have that end up in your belly!
Greywater harvesting means saving and reusing water from your washing machine, bath tub or shower. This should only be done if natural cleaning products are used. It should also only be used as a supplementary water supply, as traces of sodium from the cleaning products can build up and weaken the soil structure. There are pumps and diverting attachments available to harvest greywater, but the cheapest and easiest way has to be that which is used by an Australian friend of mine, he takes a bucket with him into the shower!
Mulching, mulching
Another foolproof way of keeping that precious moisture in your soil is to mulch. When a tree loses its leaves during the autumn months it is not only doing so to conserve energy but also to retain moisture and suppress weed growth. What’s more it helps to put nutrients back into the soil. Wetter winters and drier summers could mean that more of our soil nutrients are prone to leaching out into watercourses, so it is important to put some of it back.
Mulches come in various shapes and forms, and some are free and easy to obtain. Our local park is full of leaves and every autumn and last year the council came along and burnt them. Likewise, grass clippings can often be seen sitting on top of lawns going to waste. Both can be put to good use. I put grass clippings straight down on my allotment and surrounding water hungry plants. If using leaves as a mulch it pays to let them break down a little bit by running a push mower over them. Pack a bin liner full of leaves in the autumn and put a couple of holes in the liner. Apply the contents as you need it during the following year.
In areas where they are used to drought, such as Australia and California, they also let their plants savour every drop of water. Tubes can be embedded in the soil next to plants and used to water plants, meaning deeper moisture penetration plants root development (you might have seen a tube next to urban trees this stops the roots from disturbing foundations). My own experiments suggest that a tube the size of a hosepipe is too small and using a 2 litre pop bottle with the end cut off will certainly do the job. It is also good practice to water either in the morning or the evening so that the sun won’t evaporate the water you do use.
Plant choice
Planting drought tolerant plants should be another consideration. You have to think long roots when planning your drought garden. For instance, many vegetable gardeners will have a patch of Jerusalem Artichokes (neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke) on their plot. I haven’t watered mine all year and they are still very happy and growing strong. In fact you might hear some gardeners bemoaning the fact that once planted, Jerusalem Artichokes just keep on coming like weeds! Other vegetables with longer roots include leek, parsnip and carrots (once established). Some herbs with woody stems, such as oregano, thyme and rosemary, will do well in a drought.
A thought must be given too to the design of your garden. Often in gardens there are areas that will hold water and areas where it will simply evaporate. Drought gardeners learn to manipulate the land slightly and channel water from water logged areas to areas that really need it. This might sound rather daunting but it need not be – a simple trench between your tomato plants will suffice.
Spaced out
Finally, if you have ever wondered about why plants have spacing instructions on the back of the seed packets it is to give them optimum conditions. If plants are grown too close together they will compete for water, leaving the soil empty of moisture. However, forest gardener Robert Hart has undertaken some experiments and has found that you can often cram in plants together if they are of a different species. Therefore you can ignore the spacing instructions a little as long as you plant varied species, another argument for rich biodiversity (not that we need one)!
As for myself, well I have found one sure-fire easy way to cope with the future drought conditions in the South – I am moving to Scotland where there is more water in Loch Ness than there is in every river, lake, brook and stream in England!
Winter is becoming like last night’s dream and any hazy reminders of its presence are starting to seem out of place. On seemingly dead wood once a tightly packed parcels have now opened to reveal their true nature, these little green miracles are growing with such vigour they are changing the landscape daily.
It might be a hungry gap in the garden, but it is anything but in the hedgerow. It’s one of the best times to head down to the coast and what’s more you can pretty much survive on what you forage. Last year I spent two weeks living off wild food, my diet was a highly nutritious one consisting of mostly seafood and burdock or alexanders root as my staple.
The Foragers Way with Andy Hamilton from Andy Hamilton on Vimeo.
For those who can’t get down to the coast then out parks, fields and wastegrounds are abundant too. Wild garlic will be at its best this month, hawthorn leaves which can be added to salads, jack by the hedge is starting to appear everywhere too. Nettles too are full of goodness right now and the youngest ones can be eaten whole, cook first of course. But let us not forget everything that was growing in winter, how about a spot of Chorizo, chickweed and avocado soup?
This light soup is very simple to make and packed full of flavour. Foraging for ingredients is different than shopping for them as you have to be somewhat opportunistic about what you find. That is until you get to really know an area; then it can be like find an aisle in a supermarket (although a lot more enjoyable). When I first made this recipe it was from a patch of chickweed I found growing in a media park. It had rained the previous day so the chickweed was looking lush and green and well, irresistible. I was surrounded by bemused media types as I picked, which made the foraging seem like a naughty act. I think this added to the enjoyment as there is nothing wrong a bit of adult rebellion.
6 slices (50g) Chorizo ham
2 tsp nettle or mustard seeds
1 avocado
100g chickweed
500ml Stock
Chop leak and ham and fry together. You don’t need oil as the fat in the Chorizo will do the job. Throw in the seeds. When the leak is starting to wild down, cut the avocado into small chucks and fry for 5 mins.
Roughly chop the chickweed add to pan then cook until wilted. Add stock and simmer gently for 10 mins stirring frequently to infuse the flavours.
Blitz in a blender and serve with a thick butter slice from a seeded loaf.
This can be made the evening before and heated up in the microwave at work. Or, for the early birds first thing then put in a flask. I tend to freeze batches of soup so I have them ready for lunch whenever I need them.
Many thanks to our latest guest blogger Mandy Allen, aka Millymollymandy, one of the longest standing and most loyal selfsufficientish forum members. She lives the good life in over in Chateau Moorhen, France and is a prolific gardener, nature lover and blogger.
Pollinating insects such as bees, hoverflies and many other flying insects are absolutely essential to the reproduction of much plant life, to such an extent that if they disappeared then so would many types of fruit, vegetables, flowers and even some arable crops. For pollinating our fruit and vegetables which are not wind- or self-pollinated, it is predominantly bees which are our main allies so it’s these insects we need to encourage into our veg patches.
Bees are attracted to the nectar and pollen in flowers and gather pollen on their legs and bodies to feed to their offspring. Whilst flying between flowers of the same species drinking their nectar, pollen grains transfer from one flower to another as the bee moves around, allowing pollination to take place and the plant to reproduce by producing seed.
In an ideal world we would all have large gardens full of the kinds of flowers that attract the pollinators and the habitat that they require for survival. The reality is that many people who are interested in growing vegetables have neither the time, inclination nor space to grow flowering plants which attract these insects, or prefer to use all available space for vegetable growing.
So, one of the best ways to ensure that pollinators visit your allotment or garden rather than your neighbour’s is to allow a bit of space for flowering plants which are also useful to you. The plants I’m talking about are herbs, many of which are attractive plants in their own right, and which of course go hand-in-hand with vegetable growing, as the flavours will enhance those lovely dishes you will be preparing with the fruits of your labours!
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but just a few suggestions to provide nectar for as long a period as possible. These plants can all be grown in tubs if ground space is not available, and require minimal attention, mostly just needing a haircut after flowering to tidy them up. Some will even repeat flower.
Very early flowering and much loved by bees of many different species, rosemary is also one of the few herbs that is harvestable throughout the year, even in the depths of winter.
Main flowering time around April/May, then repeat flowering afterwards, bees will be attracted by the flowers. Don’t put all those flowers in your new potato salad, leave a few for the pollinators!
Whilst the first two are undoubtedly among the top culinary herbs for all sorts of flavourings, sauces and pizzas, lavender can be used in many ways, from the traditional lavender bag to flavouring bread and biscuits with the dried flowers and perfuming home-made toiletries. All three are adored by bees, which are attracted to the thousands of tiny flowers produced on each plant; a bonus with the first two is that butterflies love their nectar too, and there can be nothing more relaxing than just sitting awhile beside a patch of these herbs listening to the buzz of the bees as they go about their business and watching pretty butterflies flitting about.
This is an annual with beautiful sky blue and pink flowers which is an absolute bee magnet. Although it can be quite a large, sprawling plant, the beauty is that it flowers for months on end and self-seeds easily. Due to the large size of the seedlings they are easy to hoe off, or you could leave another plant to grow to take the place of the original, and have two crops in the same year – effectively giving you flowers for about six months of the year as it can survive light frosts. The added benefit to you is that both the leaves and the flowers are edible, and the flowers look especially attractive decorating a salad or floating in a summer drink.
Now you may well be thinking of your annual courgette and runner bean gluts, and saying that you have never had a problem with a lack of pollinating insects before, and also muttering that the last thing you want to do is encourage cabbage white butterflies into your garden. Well, cabbage whites are going to find your brassicas whether you grow nectar-rich flowers or not, but bees and other pollinating insects need our help, because their numbers are declining due to the loss of food and habitat, use of pesticides and herbicides and, in the case of honey bees, disease and parasites. Every little thing we can do to aid and encourage them by offering them food for as many months of the year as possible will help them, as after all, they are a gardener’s best friend.
When you are in love it fills you with a sense of joy and wonderment. You want to go around telling everyone you meet about your love. You don’t care if you are boring people, indeed you often want them to see how amazing your newly found love is. This is how I feel at this time of year, every year about this time of year. Spring in the UK is without a shadow of a doubt one of the greatest places to be alive in, I am truly, madly and deeply in love with it and I want everyone else to be too. So, get a coat on get out there and get foraging. You never know you too might fall in love.The sap of the Birch rises throughout March in the UK, this is just before the tree is about to bud. If you wish to tap a birch do not tap young trees (less than 30cm in diameter) and don’t tap trees that have been tapped in the previous year. If you plan to tap in a populated area check the whole tree for signs of previous tappers, normally a tell tale bit of wood is sticking out the tree as most people seem to be messy at plugging up the hole.
To tap simply drill a few cm inside the bark of the tree and push a drinking straw or a length of tubing into the hole. The Sap will drip out and you can direct it into a bottle. This can then be turned into Birch sap wine.
Yes, Japanese Knotweed can be eaten as a food; it makes for a delicious substitute for Rhubarb. Go for the new shoots at around 15-20cm any taller they can be a little too tough. Although it has never happened to me, Robert K Henderson reports in his highly informative book, the Neighbourhood foager, that younger shoots can cause stomach upset.
If picking do not leave any of the plant on the floor or waste a single morsel. Just one piece the size of a thumbnail can spread this invasive plant and you might even get a criminal record for doing so.
To read more about Japanese Knotweed including a recipe for knotweed fool, have a look at my blog.
I say root of the dandelion as it is during March that they have grown fat ready to push that stored energy into throwing up bright yellow flowers next month.
Dig up the roots with a trowel or a spade, cut off the tops, (which can be made into a beer using this recipe – substituting the hops), and wash them. The resulting white roots can be slow roasted in the oven, I tend to keep a baking tray full of roots which I then put in the oven after cooking. This means I am using no extra heat in order to roast my dandelion roots. It normally takes four or five oven sessions.
If you really can’t wait then bake in the oven for a couple of hours on about 100c / 220f, or until the roots have turned to dark brown. Next put them in the grinder section of your blender and grind to fine powder, they can now be used in a similar fashion to coffee grinds.
I would like the name of dandelion coffee to be changed to delicious dandelion drink or anything but coffee as it immediately makes people think it will taste of coffee, it really does not but is a great drink – just don’t think of it as a coffee it could never be a substitute. It is much more similar to barley cup if there is need of a comparison so perhaps dandelion cup would make for a better name.
To eat dandelion roots simply cut up like you would carrots, lightly fry in butter for a couple of mins then cover in water and simmer until soft. They are an acquired taste which some, such as Richard Mabey in his seminal work – food for free suggests that you should try with soy-sauce, this I think disguises the flavour which may be a bonus when first tasting.
Hop shoots are considered to be the most expensive foodstuff by weight other than saffron and some truffles. They can be used like asparagus. Hops were introduced in the middle ages as they were (and still are) used in making beer.
In the UK hops tend to grow more in Kent and around Herefordshire and on my allotment and if you are lucky you will find some escapees from gardens and allotments elsewhere. As I live in Bristol I have never found enough to really experiment with hop shoot recipes and tend to just steam the shoots, but you might benefit from these recipes.
Nettles are pretty much available all year round as long as you only pick the top few leaves, but in March the new growth means that younger nettles are available, so picking is easier. There are many uses for nettles and we have covered some of the edible uses on this site such as nettle beer, nettle haggis and nettle soup. It also makes an ok wine.
You should wear gloves when picking to avoid getting stung and wash the nettles before use.
Also known as stick weed or Sticky Willy (in Scotland) In China Cleavers is eaten as a vegetable. You should discard the stems as they are far too stringing and just use the leave as with many wild foods use as you would spinach but unlike many foods I would suggest to use in small quantities perhaps to bulk out a soup as it is not the tastiest of vegetables.
Cleavers use as a spring tonic is a far more suitable use, simply fill a jug with cleaver cover in cold water and leave overnight. The resulting drink can be refrigerated and drank by the wine glassful. It is said that if you drink nothing but cleavers juice for 60 days your skin will be so beautiful everyone will fall in love with you. At the moment I have been drinking it for a about 30 days (along with other drinks) and have noted a small improvement to my skin although on the downside I seem to be farting much more, which might repel all of those would be admirers.
To find out more about wild food and foraging then please join us on one of our foraging courses. Or search around this section of our site.
Sometimes the simplest ideas carry with them, when thought through, such a powerful taste of how the future could be that they are quite irresistible. One such idea has led me to spend the last couple of days immersed in trying to find out as much as I could about it, and it has been time well spent, which I want to share with you here. The idea came in a post on the City Farmers website, entitled ‘Brixton Beer’. The idea is a simple one: rather than breweries in London buying their hops from wherever they can source them (sometimes as far afield as New Zealand), people across London grow hops in their back gardens, on their patios and balconies, allotments and community gardens, which are then used by local brewers. As they put it, “we want to grow hops across a network of individual and community gardens, get local breweries to make beer out of them and drink the result. Simple!” As someone involved in efforts to create a Totnes Community Brewery, the idea held huge promise and intrigue and warranted further exploration.
Brixton Beer
I started my investigations by catching up with Helen Steer from City Farmers. She told me that the idea had first emerged at the AGM of Incredible Edible Lambeth in October 2011, inspired by the ‘Brockwell Bake’ where people grow urban wheat on allotments which is then milled to make local bread. She met with the Independent Brewers Association in London who were very enthusiastic, in fact as she put it “they bit our hands off!” when the idea of their buying and using these locally grown hops was raised.
One of the unexpected side effects they have found is that the idea acts as a great way to get men involved in gardening, a nice antidote to the fact that the majority of people involved in community gardens apparently tend to be women. The plan is to pilot the idea over the 2012 growing season in a number of gardens across London, and to produce a starter pack of rootstock and tools, as well as instructional videos for backyard hop growing. The idea then is to gather the harvest together in September and to brew a beer from the hops, which would then be shared at a harvest party. Longer term plans include the possible launch of a Brixton Brewery. Here is the longer interview I did with Helen (I am trying an approach in this post of mixing audio with writing, and making my research available for you to go into more depth if you’re interested: I hope it works for you):
The idea in practice
This is a wonderful and very attractive idea, especially as a way of making a community brewery truly feel like a community brewery. But is it practical? What are the obstacles such a project might encounter? Well it turns out it’s already being tried in at least one brewery. I spoke to Greg Pilley of the Stroud Brewery, and it turns out he’s been growing hops in his garden (40 plants), as have a number of other people close to the brewery. On one day in September, the hops are harvested, brought to the brewery, and a pale ale called ‘Brewers Garden’ is created which everyone involved then gets 9 pints of when it is ready.
Stroud Brewery describes it thus:
“These hops have been grown by members of our ‘Hop Club’ in their gardens and allotments. The hop bines were harvested on Sunday 5th September 2010, and members congregated at the brewery to hand pick the hop cones, and enjoy a few ales. Hops are dried in our home made ‘oast’ and go into this years brew of ‘Brewers Garden’”.
Starting with the basics: a crash course in hops
Let’s go back to the beginning and have a quick crash course in hops. One great place to start is with an episode of BBC Radio 4′s ‘Food Programme’ that looked at the revival of the UK hop industry. It would appear that the first hops to arrive in the UK turned up in 1524 when Flemish planters arrived and started growing them here. Initially they were grown for their medicinal and herbal properties. They were introduced into brewing as a preservative and also to introduce a bitterness to the beers, replacing the use of herbs and other bittering agents, such as bog myrtle, that was used up to that point.
The role of hops in brewing is two-fold. According to Ray Daniels in ‘Designing Great Beers’:
Hops provide bitterness to counteract the sweetness of malt, this making the beverage more palatable. They also provide some antibacterial properties that at one time increased the safety and potability of beer. Today this quality still aids the preservation of beer. Hops also contribute more than just bitterness. Although it seems incredible that a single element of one plant could do so much, hops also contribute appealing flavours and aromas to been when handled in the proper way by the brewer … hops are indeed a source of tremendous richness and variety in beer flavour”.
I spoke to Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust (who has produced an essential fact sheet about hops), who told me that traditional varieties grow up to 6 metres tall, but that there are dwarf varieties which grow to 2 metres which are better suited to back gardens. According to Martin, there is only one dwarf hop that is commercially available, called ‘First Gold’. Here’s my full interview with him:
Dr Peter Darby: outstanding in his field (sorry)
At the moment, almost all the hops grown in the UK are either grown in Kent (as was documented in George Orwell’s fantastic “Keep the Aspidistras Flying”) or in Herefordshire. I spoke to Dr Peter Darby, who is in charge of the National Hop Association for Wye Hops, and is one of the UK’s leading experts on hop breeding, and asked him why that was. Does it indicate that those are the places with the best soils and the best microclimates for hop growing? Apparently not. It turns out that with the industrialisation of brewing, and the demand for large amounts of beer that was generated by the British Empire, that large workforces of pickers were required, so the large urban centres of London and the West Midlands provided that, and it fitted in nicely with the picking of other crops, most notably apples. Prior to the British Empire hugely increasing demand for beer, hops were grown in most parts of the country.
He told me that the UK hop industry is now relatively stable after years of decline, due mainly to a shift from growing hops to add bitterness to growing hops to add flavour. This has been helped by the emergence of a strong microbrewing culture and more craft brewers. About a quarter of hops grown in the UK are exported, and the UK imports about a third of what is used here. Current production, were it all to be retained for UK brewing, would only be enough to meet two-thirds of demand. Most brewers like to use a mixture of UK hops and imported hops, because, he told me, imported hops grown in sunnier climes, can give beers a ‘high impact flavour’. Traditionally though, they were grown in every county in the UK, and could be again. Here is the interview I did with Dr. Darby:
The advantages and disadvantages of growing urban hops
In some ways, growing hops in ‘patchwork farms’, that is, a number of gardens across a city, is ideal. According to Martin Crawford, the two main challenges that affect hop growing, aphids and mildrew, will sweep through hops on a field scale, but in a more dispersed context, in a more biodiverse setting, should be less of an issue. They can be grown in containers, although they would need to be pretty deep containers as hops need a deep soil. Again though, growing them in containers could actually be a benefit, as it prevents them from suckering, something they are prone to.
Also, given their inclination to climb and to clamber, being able to grow up buildings and other structures, so long as they are accessible for harvesting, can be an advantage. Dr. Darby added that hops are well suited to urban growing because they are classed as horticulture, rather than agriculture. He also stated that hops are a plant that needs quite a lot of attention, something that is easier to provide on a small scale. He added another dwarfing variety that would be suited to urban growing, called Golden Tassels, or ‘Diva’. There are others too, but they are fiercely protected, and can only be grown under licence from the National Hop Association.
Dr Darby cautioned, however, against the idea that growing hops is an easy thing for the amateur to pick up. The pests and diseases to which hops are vulnerable can be dealt with, but knowing what you are looking for and how to deal with it takes some training. City Farmers are already assembling their team of volunteer hop growers, and have been surprised by the levels of interest, and the quarters from which it is coming. One of their local councillors has asked be become one of the growers. It will be interesting to see the degree to which the skills required to to prevent pests and diseases trashing their first harvest can be communicated through videos and leaflets.
Another key challenge revolves around drying herbs on a community scale. On the large scale, hops are dried in huge warehouses where warm air is blown through them. According to Dr Darby, hops must either be used straight off the plant (what is known as “green hopping”) or dried within about 4 hours of being picked. This is to avoid them becoming musty or losing a lot of their volatile oils. To dry them they need to be warmed at 30-60°C, in a long steady dry (10-12 hours), with a high air throughflow in a darkened space in order to bring their moisture down from 80% to 10%.
Drying hops at home. Photo courtesy of GreenWellies on Flickr.
On the home/community scale this is tricky. It is too low a temperature for the domestic oven, and more like a greenhouse on a hot day (hardly reliable when you have only 4 hours to get the drying underway! Martin Crawford suggests a blacked-out polytunnel or the use of an attic (this is September we’re talking about remember, attics should be pretty hot then). He also states that building a thermostatically controlled medium-sized drier shouldn’t be too complicated. Greg Pilley at Stroud Brewery dries some, but only on the domestic scale. Here is my interview with Greg:
Another challenge for brewers using green hops is that as brewers they are, in effect, flying blind, in that hops usually arrive having been tested for bitterness and so it is not clear what they are introducing into their brew. For this reason, when Greg Pilley brews his ‘Brewer’s Garden’, he still has to use some bought-in hops for the bitterness, and the garden-grown green ones for flavour.
Another practicality is how much could actually be grown in urban gardens. Greg grows 40 plants in his garden, which he reckons yield him 5kg of green hops, which would dry to 3kg. Each year his brewery requires 600kg of hops for its brewing, by which calculation he would need 200 other gardeners doing the same if he were to be drying and using Stroud-grown hops. Do-able but ambitious. The beauty of hops is that, as a climber, you can still grow other things underneath them, and allow them to clamber up buildings or ramble through trees. You can also, as Martin pointed out, eat the young shoots, lightly steamed, they are sometimes referred to as “the poor man’s asparagus”.
So, should the hop fields come to town?
Looked at in isolation, encouraging lots of untrained amateurs to take on planting potentially demanding crop in a dispersed way across a city doesn’t perhaps seem like the brightest idea. However, placed in the context of creating a community growers, sharing their experiences, focused around a community brewery initiative in which they have an interest, it starts to make a lot more sense. As a way of land use and gardening helping to build social capital, it is very valuable. As a story to unpin and help promote a social enterprise it is fantastic. Me, I’m intrigued, and think that certainly for our initiative, this will be a central part of what we are planning to do.
Greg Pilley will be speaking, along with Dan McTiernan of the Handmade Bakery, at one of the events that Transition Network is convening at The Guardian Open Weekend in London March 24th at 1.45pm. My thanks to Jonathan Smith, who sent me a really good guide to growing hops on the small scale which you can download as a pdf here.
I hope you will all give a a warm welcome to environmental writer Ellie Garwood as she tells us about her selfsufficientish approach to spring cleaning.
March is here – hurrah! We survived winter, and now as the days get longer, the sun starts getting higher in the sky, and temperatures break into double figures it really does feel spring-like. Spring for most people comprises daffodils and crocuses, Easter eggs and the clocks going forward, and for many people it also marks the time for a good old sort out. If I’m honest I’d have to say I’m not the world’s most diligent cleaner, and my love of having my hands in the soil and feet in the sea means I’m forever bringing mud-clad wellies into the house, or sand filled trainers. Still I love the idea of following any seasonal traditions and historically spring cleaning is one, encouraging a clear mind and clear house for the upcoming season.
It’s great to see more natural products appearing alongside chemical laden ‘traditional’ cleaning products on our shelves, but there’s an even more environmentally friendly way to clean our houses, and one likely to save you a host of cash. Naturally occurring food stuffs such as baking soda, vinegar and lemon juice have been used for centuries, it’s only really been in recent years that our love of buying anything and everything has lead us away from these useful eco-friendly techniques and products.
Baking soda: Baking soda is a cleaning gem, and can be used for so many different jobs. Baking soda makes a fantastic deodoriser; if your fridge is starting to smell mix up a solution of baking soda and warm water and clean your fridge in the usual manner, then try leaving a small cup of baking soda in there afterwards to keep it clean smelling. Baking soda can also be sprinkled at the bottom of smelly rubbish or compost bins to deodorise the smell.
In addition to this baking soda can be used to clean kitchen and bathroom sinks and bath tubs as well as dirty ovens. To clean your oven with baking soda, sweep out all the crumbs then shake baking soda over the bottom of the oven, quite thickly, before spraying with water. The sides of the oven should be covered with a baking soda and water paste. Leave on for several hours, or, ideally, overnight. Once the paste has been left on for a significant amount of time wipe out, removing any stubborn patches with a scourer. Where there is baking soda residue use a little vinegar to remove.
Vinegar: Vinegar is another great all-rounder, it works wonders removing limescale from showers, baths and sinks (although the best way to avoid limescale is to try and prevent its build up in the first place – so try and remember to wipe down showers, baths and sinks after use). The best vinegar to get your hands on is white, distilled vinegar, spray/pour onto bath/shower/sink, leave for at least 30 minutes, longer if possible – the longer the better, and clean off as you would usually.
Vinegar is also great at removing any stains in your toilet. Pour half a cup of vinegar into the bowl, leave over night and scrub down in the morning with a toilet brush.
Scourers, toothbrushes and manpower: Never underestimate the results a bit of man/woman-power can achieve; this doesn’t mean you should spend hours scrubbing away, but instead of reaching for the chemicals without thinking, try a bit of warm water and a scourer and either of the above products to see the kind of results you might just be impressed by. Also great cleaning devices are used toothbrushes, not only are you getting a bit more use out of passed-their-best brushes but they are fantastic for removing stubborn marks and stains.
As with most truly environmentally shifts this is less about breakthrough, revolutionary techniques and more about re-skilling ourselves in the practices of previous generations, before synthetics detergents and chemical-laden products became the norm. Complete the clean-green experience by picking up some natural (decomposable) luffas, and donning FSC certified latex marigolds.
In this our second instalment of guest blogs, Jono Stevens founder and chief of the excellent one man blog Real Men Sow “a cheery allotment blog”, tells us just how much an allotment can save you in a year.
Last year I decided to work out how much money I saved by growing my own veg.
I weighed every individual harvest during 2011, from 4g of mint leaves to over 3kg of tomatoes. My wife thought I was nuts. I thought it was brilliant (all 444 times I weighed something).
My overall harvest total was £473.90, leaving me with a tidy profit of just under £400, after outgoings, which included 2 fancy blueberry bushes. I didn’t factor in man-hours, but hey, you can’t really put a price on the joy that is allotment time.
For savings, fruit and veg you like to eat or are expensive in the shops are obviously the ones to grow but I also found all the other top saving veg shared other qualities too.
One such quality was versatility, you’ll want to be using the veg in many different dishes to maximise savings. Spinach or chard are great examples of veg with this characteristic (£28.67 saving in 2011). You can use it in all sorts of ways, from spreading on pizza, to folding into curries and bulking up quiches.
Spinach and chard are reliable veg, another important requirement. If you’re trying to save money, it’s difficult to justify risking time and space on iffy croppers. Beetroot (2011 saving of £42.77), French beans (£29.62) and potatoes (£18.94) are all dependable and dead easy to grow. They need next to no attention, aside from a quick weed and a little water.
Longevity helps too. If you’re canny, spinach and chard can be available for 9 months of the year, presenting optimum opportunities to save cash. Leeks (£27.73) and curly kale (£17.99) will last all through the winter as well.
The veg doesn’t have to just keep well in the ground or on the plot, though. Tomatoes, my biggest saver at £64.62, can be made into passata and frozen to use in pasta dishes or curries, whilst beetroots are easily pickled for use in winter salads.
A late row of beets can provide a real bonus when grown for this purpose, as will French beans sown for freezing. I’ve planted both these veg well into August, and being reliable and prolific croppers, have fed me all through winter.
Anything that stores well is definitely worth growing. Squashes (£41.29) are the kings of storing, and keep into the next spring if left in a cool, dry place. Crown Princes are the best ones I’ve found for storage, and last for months.
Sqashes a considerable saving
I love squashes and I’d say that if you want to grow a single veg to save money, then squash is the one to go for. They’re expensive in the shops, prolific if treated well, reliable, tasty, attractive and incredibly versatile in the kitchen.
Money saving isn’t necessarily the main reason for growing veg, but last year’s experiment has certainly focused my mind on what I grow and how much attention to pay to certain crops.
When I made my first picking of 2012 I felt a little peculiar not to have weighed my veg, but it’s still great to know that each time I harvest, I’m saving myself a few quid.
In the first of our series of guest bloggers Emma Cooper writer, gardener and podcaster, talks about peat free seed sowing.
We have reached the time of year when kitchen gardeners everywhere start sowing seeds – the race seems to be on to see who can sow their tomatoes, peppers and aubergines first. Unless you’re growing for the show bench you can wait a few weeks to start for most plants, as seeds sown later benefit from higher temperatures and light levels and usually catch up without running the risk of going leggy before they can be planted outside.
But whenever you decide to start your seeds, how you do so can have a big impact on the environment. Gardeners traditionally use large volumes of peat, extracted from peat bogs that were once valuable wildlife habitats, and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to boot.
If you are used to sowing seeds into peat pellets or peat pots then look for peat-free alternatives this year – coir pellets and pots are increasingly available and in the same price range. It may also be the time to invest in good quality, re-usable module trays that you can refill year after year. Or to practice your origami skills and turn old newspapers into little seedlings pots that are planted out whole.
Once you have your containers the next important decision is how to fill them. Seed composts have a fine texture, are sterile (no weeds or diseases) and low on nutrients – but most of them have a very high proportion of peat. There are some peat-free brands on offer, but they can be very variable, so you may have to try a few to find one that works for you. Coir is an alternative – it comes pressed into blocks that you soak and break up into a fine compost that is naturally sterile and fine for seed sowing. It’s also possible to make your own seed composts from leaf mould and comfrey, although that’s a project you would need to start in autumn when the leaves are falling. If you have a favourite brand of peat-free multipurpose compost then simply try sieving a portion to remove the lumps, and you’ll have a perfectly acceptable seed compost.
If you are using a seed compost, whatever it is made from, then they key point to remember is that it is low on nutrients by design. Once your seedlings start to unfurl their first true leaves they’re either going to need repotting into something a bit more nutritious, or supplementary liquid feeding. And if you’ve changed over to peat-free seed sowing this year then pay careful attention to watering, as peat-free composts take in and hold water in a different way than peat-based composts.
Peat-free seed sowing is not only possible, it’s easy – I’ve been doing it for years. You may need to experiment a little bit to find the peat-free solution that works for you, but once you do there’s no looking back and the peat can stay where it belongs – in the ground.
Emma Cooper is a garden blogger and podcaster and the author of ‘The Peat-Free Diet’, a no-nonsense guide to gardening without peat.
