Two Scientists Were Racing For The Good Of All Mankind

A cycle up to the top of the Dovey valley

 Gone are the days when scientific breakthroughs and new discoveries seemed, to me at least, to be limited either to the abstract but fascinating (superstring theory, planets discovered around distant stars) or to the benign and potentially useful (medical physics, gene mapping - OK, perhaps not so benign). An exception in which science sounded alarm bells that really hit the headlines was the detection of the hole in the ozone layer, prompting governments around the world to ban CFC's. Generally speaking though the work of scientists rarely seemed to impinge on the public at large. They worked away in their lab coats and occasionally gave cause for an “And finally..” news bulletin or improved some people's lives (normally the wealthier slice of humanity) in some small way.

No longer. The world's climate change scientific body, the IPCC, is regularly announcing to anyone who will hear that our current fossil-fuel-based lifestyles are having a damaging impact on the planet's climate system which will have, and is already having for some, terrible consequences for everyone (the poorest will be hit hardest, of course). And this week a group of scientists issued a report stating their study showed that the entire human food supply is at risk from the way we are producing our food. This is not a lightly humorous “And finally...” story, this should be a “And firstly...” wake up call.  By spraying all our crops with insecticides, particularly neonicotinoids, we are polluting the soil and killing off the bees and other insects which we rely on to pollinate all the crops. Without pollination it's game over.

Unbelievably, within my lifetime, science has been forced to adopt the role of an Old Testament prophet. To put it succinctly, change the way you live or things will go very bad. Like all respectable prophets the message is hard to hear, and as there is apparently so little we can do individually we learn to filter it out. There are however some things that can be done.

Planting french beans and sunflowers outside Machynlleth's police station

Should look good when they flower!

We can 'de-carbonise' our own lifestyles as much as possible. This means different things for different people, but could include limiting (or cutting out) car and plane travel, or making our home more efficient to heat, or switching to a so-called 'green' electricity tariff, etc.  I suspect one reason why many don't bother with any of this is because they don't want to be tarred with the 'green' brush, accidentally joining a minority that they don't consider themselves a member of.  This is a real tragedy and one day I hope it will be the refuseniks who are the minority, those social deviants who choose to continue recklessly burning fossil fuels at the expense of the planet and the next generation's quality of life.

We can join with others in calling upon our governments to stand up to the colossal power of the fossil fuel lobby and enact and enforce reasonable legislation to reduce global carbon emissions dramatically, or in shaming certain companies into changing their practices. (Joining Greenpeace is a good start – there's that word 'green' again!)

As our global food supply is apparently at risk through the indiscriminate and systemic spraying of chemicals, another thing we could perhaps do is seek out locally grown, certified organic or at least chemical-free produce instead. (Should I declare my interest here as the producer of locally-sold vegetables grown without any pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilisers? If you live in the Machynlleth area, get in touch..)

Harvesting pesticide-free spinach one leaf at a time

And finally...  the answers to last week's quiz! If you got them all right, you have earned a free flower to keep of your choice(redeemable when you come and visit).

A : Tomato

B : Wild Blackberry

C : Potato

D : Mange Tout

E : Mizuna

F : Nasturtium

G : Rocket

H : Broad bean

I : Asparagus

I've Got The Spinach, You've Got The Parsley, Let's Make Lots of Money

From front to back : Beetroot, spinach, salads, runner beans and more runner beans

Nearly a year and a half after buying the land, and after nine and a half months of working on it, it  has finally happened. Someone has paid me for the plant life I've teased out of my soil. The joy of finally becoming an actual producer of edible goods was perhaps disproportionate to the sum of money involved (£5 for five small bags of spinach) but that's because a principle has been established. I am in business. My labour has begun to be recompensed.



Broad beans on their way



This is definitely a different kind of feeling from when I received a salary as employee of the various businesses I have toiled for in the past. Then I simply had to do what was expected of me by my bosses and I would be rewarded each month, the agreed amount deposited in my bank account. Now it's the stuff that I have chosen to create, or at least try to nurture into being, that is itself of value and for which people seem to be prepared to pay.  No doubt soon it'll start to sink in how small the sums are that one gets for fresh veg considering the hours input, but for now it is time to  celebrate (with a glass of nettle beer!).

My very first produce for sale

I delivered the spinach last Wednesday to Machynlleth's Bowling Club where all the other growers also deposited this week's produce. It was the second week of the veg bag scheme and Katie had already got the system down pat. She had organised a rota of volunteer “packers” and this week I was down to help. Three of us gathered at the Bowling Club at 12:30pm and spent the next three hours or so following Katie's instructions on which of the nearly forty bags gets which types of veg. Because the scheme is taking vegetables only from small-scale local producers there isn't enough of each item simply to make all the bags identical, so each week Katie has to divide them into four batches, each batch getting a different selection of veg, making sure that everyone gets a fair amount of roughly equal worth.  Add into the equation some customers saying they don't want celery or whatever, and one batch only being half-size bags for people paying less, and it gets complicated pretty quickly.

A few of the veg bags in the process of being packed. Those are my bags of spinach at the front!

At least we didn't have to deliver them to houses. Customers are expected to collect the bags from one of three drop-off points around town, so all we had to do was take them to the drop-off points. Not having a car we had to use a large wooden two-handled trolley to transport the bags which only took about eight, but the main drop-off point was close to the Bowling Club and with three of us we got it done without too much stress. 

Not content with the £5, this week I have also made another £7.90 by selling four salad bags (150g) and another spinach bag to three sets of customers – neighbours and others I have met to whom I had let slip that I was able to offer freshly cut leaves in a bag. My neighbours have even promised to take two salad bags a week from now on so the big bucks are really going to start rolling.

I'll end with a quick quiz. Below are some flowers from the vegetable plants in my garden, your task is to name them. To make it easier I'll give you the plant names so it's just a question of matching them up. Some of the flowers will turn into the fruit I'll pick – tomato, broad bean and mange tout (pea pod); some flowers are not relevant to the edible parts – potato and asparagus; others are from salad plants which have 'bolted', which means they have given up producing leaves for me to pick and decided to make flowers and seeds instead (this is a bad thing) – rocket and mizuna are pictured here; still other flowers are being grown to go in salad bags and be eaten - nasturtium. And I've thrown in a photo of a wild blackberry flower too from the patch outside my caravan. Good luck! Add your answers as comments below, if you're able and willing. I'll post the definite answers next week.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

Quake, Rattle and Roll

A young oak on my land with Mallwyd mountain behind

I consider myself something of a connoisseur of church weddings, having been to so many of them. During my twenties many of my friends, both from university and those I'd made subsequently, decided the time was right to declare public vows of lifelong commitment to another human being in a place of Christian worship. In fact by my thirties I found that the number of my friends remaining unmarried I could count on my toes without running out of feet (something I do from time to time when at a loose end). As most of them had also produced a number of progeny by that point, Christmas cards were getting trickier as the names of the various children all had to be matched to the right parents in the correct card.  Writing “To my friend, his/her spouse and all their dependants” in all of them turned out not to be acceptable. Of course at the age of 34 I myself joined the ranks of the married for a brief period but that's another story.

So to accept an invitation to a Quaker wedding was to step slightly out of my comfort zone. My friends Matt and Mary, both of whom I met at Pilsdon Community when we were all living there in 2012, had been regularly attending a Quaker meeting for some time and so it was natural for them to have their marriage solemnised there, according to Quaker customs.

The day chosen was Saturday just gone. All such trappings as an officiating priest, hymns, music of any kind, procession down the aisle, sermon, best man fumbling for a ring, were dispensed with. Everyone filed into the room past a sign requiring absolute silence and sat on chairs arranged in concentric circles around a table. The room was full, maybe a hundred souls were there. Both bride and groom were absent until 11am when they walked in together with their family members and sat near to the table on reserved seats. As I'm aware that there may be people reading this blog who just have to know, I will simply remark that Mary's dress was beautiful and simple, a colourful floral pattern overlaid on a dark background. Matt's dress was different.

A small woman stood up, gave a general welcome and briefly explained the format of the proceedings. There was then silence. Five or ten minutes later the happy couple stood up, faced each other and first Mary spoke her vows to Matt and accepted a ring onto her finger and a kiss; then Matt said his (identical) vows to Mary and received his ring from her and another kiss. They sat down. Some were already in tears. There was then a period of perhaps forty minutes when anyone was allowed to speak out words they felt appropriate to the moment. Family members, friends of many years and more recent friends, spoke words of blessing, encouragement and sometimes humour. It was quite an emotionally charged atmosphere as the depth of people's feelings for the couple were given voice in many differing ways.

Finally the registrar stood up and had Matt and Mary sign the large certificate that was laid out on the table, but not before she read out what was written on it. It included the vows, word for word. Parents signed it too then everyone in the hall was asked to add their name to it. And that was it – once you had scrawled your name it was time for drinks, sandwiches and cakes out in the exquisite flower garden under a bold blue sky, and the festivities began.

Matt and Mary have been of so much help to me as I've started up my new life in a Welsh bog – you can check back on this blog to find them assisting me with positioning the caravan and building a compost toilet right back at the beginning in March 2013, and constructing the greenhouse frame and a wood-store last September. Not only that but they phone me up each week to make sure I haven't succumbed to the madness which apparently lurks close by those who live solitary existences (they tell me there's no sign of it yet.)  If any couple deserve a wonderful, enriching and life-long relationship, they do.

P.S. The nettle beer I made two weeks ago turned out fairly sweet but very quaffable and it hasn't killed me yet.

P.P.S Apologies for the lack of wedding photos, I forgot my camera, but here's an up-to-date video of my garden in recompense.

Pop Goes The Weasel

Slowly my vegetables grow

I saw my first weasel the other day. In fact I saw two, scampering across the lane in single file before my car reached them and diving through the hedge. These miniature carnivores, the smallest in Britain, are not particularly rare but somehow I’ve lived nearly forty years without bumping into one, until now. It probably has something to do with spending much of my life in towns which are apparently not where weasels like to hang out. Rats, sure. Foxes too are increasingly moving to the city to make their living. But the humble weasel still prefers the quiet life out in the countryside.

These were not Welsh weasels as I was not far from Pilsdon in West Dorset when I spotted them, unless they like me had travelled from Wales for a short break in the south. For a whole week I am leaving my crops to grow untended. The hope is that they can manage well enough without me for a little while although it won’t take long before the slugs realise I’m not coming out every night with murderous intent, and send out invites to all their slug relations in neighbouring woodlands to the biggest feast of young beanlings, cabbages, lettuces and spinach that their sluggish minds can dream of. Let’s hope the party’s set for next week when I’m back. The vegetable plants sheltering inside the polytunnel - the tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and butternut squash - are being watered daily by a kind neighbour. I have left the polytunnel doors open so it doesn’t get too hot during the day, and constructed a makeshift wire gate across them to prevent pheasants from wandering in for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

Tomatoes and butternut squash on the left, courgettes and spinach on the right

So now all I have to do is try to forget my concern for all my baby plants struggling to survive in the Welsh heartlands and focus instead on the wondrously luscious and bountiful place that is Pilsdon’s garden. Cared for as it is by a team of six or seven enthusiasts and primed with tonnes of rich cow manure over many years, the plants have had no trouble in exploding into maturity in a few short months. Broad bean plants in the big polytunnel that were just a foot or two high when I left at the beginning of March have since shot up, fruited, been harvested (twenty kilos of beans now in the freezer) and partly cleared. My job on Tuesday was to clear the rest of them from the bed and get it ready for about a million over-large tomato seedlings that are itching to get out of their cell trays and into some proper soil. In doing so I disturbed a mouse which had made its residence amongst the forest of broad bean plants; it scurried off to make mischief somewhere else. 

We suspect a mouse or possibly a larger rodent to be responsible for the devastation of one of the rhubarb plants that I had covered with a dustbin back in February to “force” it, i.e. to make it grow quicker and more tender in the darkness. It  should have been removed and the rhubarb eaten by now, but this had been overlooked with all the thousand other things going on in the garden. When we lifted the bin all we found was a sad looking limp stalk lying on the soil, and a hole.

The spinach bed, or the slug's party zone, depending on your perspective

In the spring we had discovered a rat living in Pilsdon’s one of compost bins whilst I was demonstrating to those taking over from me how to look after them. Even though we are careful not to put any cooked kitchen waste into the compost so as not to attract them, obviously the rat still thought it a worthwhile place to set up home. So far I haven’t found rats on my Welsh plot, although last week I was woken up one night by a scratching sound under the caravan somewhere, which stopped when I poked my nose out. Let’s hope it was just mice, of which I have seen one or two around there. Of the other mammals that are possible co-habitants of my land, I have seen only grey squirrels and the occasional mole. No rabbits, thankfully, although there are some in a field a mile away. No otters, although the ecologist who surveyed my land last year reckoned they would be around by the riverbank. No deer. Certainly no weasels. What I would really love to see is the pine marten, but the last concrete evidence of any of these rare animals living anywhere around here was some poo found near Aberystwyth in 2007.  I’ll keep my eyes peeled.