Sallygardens Smallholding

Starting with Herbs

One of the delights of having a polytunnel for me personally is the treat of year round herbs. Rosemary, sage, mint and flat and curly parsley pretty much keep going all year. By March I can expect to add in chives, garlic chives, oregano, lemon balm and thyme. In mid April I can start using coriander, dill, fennel, horehound, feverfew, camomile, clary sage, lovage, chervil, sorrel and mallow. There's hardly a meal I don't sprinkle a selection of chopped fresh herbs onto these days. Herbs are also lovely for adding to homemade cream cheese which I make by straining my kefir (a post on this to come).

Besides tasting absolutely delicious each herb offers a unique array of beneficial qualities for our health and wellbeing. I have written previously about borage which now happily self seeds in the polytunnel.

Yes indeed all herbs are a blessing and a great addition to our diet. Nature provides all we need to heal and stay well. Even if you are not a gardener herbs are so easy to grow. From your local garden centre you can buy a pot for the cost of two packets of lanky lifeless 'fresh' herb leaves from the supermarket. Transfer your herb into a large pot and keep it watered on a windowsill (outside in summer, indoors in winter) and you'll be using it for the year. Both parsley and sage are easy to grow and quite hardy so would suit a beginner. That's a massive saving and a great addition to your healthy diet.

Chickens Flock to Sallygardens

Hee Hee. We have chickens again. I'm so happy. I've missed them strutting and clucking around. When our last chicken got snapped up by a fox almost a year ago I knew it was time to reconsider their housing arrangements. So now instead of them living in a barn that opens into the field they are housed in a little custom made chicken coop in the garden close to the house. And rather than having ten or so hens and a rooster I've restrained myself with a generous two isa brown hens, or for their non technical term, two little red hens. They are cheap, cheerful and lay consistenly like no other breed can.

I had the chicken coop made by a local man who knows all about chickens and is also a great carpenter so I'm really delighted with the design, the chunky long lasting materials and the atttention to detail. This house will last a long time and will be easy to clean out and easy to access the eggs from the external nesting box. Oh yes this is a happy household today.

The kids and I can't wait to start collecting the warm eggs from under the hens in the mornings, hearing their clucking at dawn and closing them in safely at night. The girls and I built a mesh run which will keep out the fox and because the coop is on wheels, yes wheels (I told you I loved the design) .... I can easily move it around the lawn without the slightest effort.

If you are venturing into a lifestyle that is gentle on the planet and you've already started growing some of your own fruit and vegetables, then I highly recommend keeping chickens as your next exciting and rewarding step (only if you eat eggs though, of course!). I have written an ebooklet on the subject and it covers everything from keeping a small flock on your smallholding to only two birds in an urban setting (check out ebooklets at the top right hand side of this page). With large feeding and watering systems its easy to leave your birds for a few days at a time too.

Sauerkraut Success - No Going Back!

Since my last post I've been munching my way through two batches of fermented sauerkraut. It's safe to say that I'm addicted to it. It goes on toast, in soup, on salads, in stews ... and then if there's no sign of a meal anytime soon I just grab a forkful and chomp away. From now on I'll be making sure there's always some on the go.

I can't stress how easy the whole thing is and I'd definitely encourage you to try it out.  The costs are minimal and the probiotic health benefits are wonderful.  All you need is a kilo of finely chopped white and/or red cabbage and a tablespoon of salt.  Mix the chopped cabbage and salt in a bowl, rub the salt in, massage and knead the cabbage just as if you're making some dough. After a little while it becomes limp and a little translucent, perhaps some of the cabbages own juices will begin to collect in the bottom of the bowl. Transfer the cabbage and juices into a very clean jar and use something like a wooden spoon or pestle to thud down the cabbage so there are no air gaps. You'll find there should now be enough juices to cover the cabbage, if not, add just enough water to cover it and a little more salt (more salt only if you've had to add water). Now put a clean cloth over the top and leave it to sit on the counter for roughly four days. When four days has passed pop it in the fridge where it will keep for quite a while. Each time you take some out to eat tap it down again so all the cabbage is below the juice.

After four days in my kitchen the sauerkraut smelled pretty strong to say the least and I almost abandoned the project and came very close to throwing it in the compost. I put it in the fridge and the next day I ventured to eat a mouthful, strangely it tasted very nice but I waited until the next day before eating a little more because I wanted to be sure I'd have no ill effects! Since then I've been munching happily on it and have made a second batch. Even my kids like it so all in all its been a very successful dabble of my big toe in the world of fermentation and I fully intend to go knee deep.

My next post will be all about my kombucha tea, another healthy elixir in the form of a culture full of healthy bacteria and yeast.

Fermenting Vegetables

Fermenting vegetables is a process that produces delicious food such as sauerkraut and kimchi. I'm so excited about fermenting vegetables for quite a few reasons. As a grower of vegetables it's a wonderful way to keep my greens edible during winter and hungry gaps of the year. Unlike some other methods of preserving foods such as jams and chutneys it does not involve cooking the food so the nutrient availability is not only preserved by fermenting, it is actually enhanced. We don't need to add pounds of sugar either to keep the contents of the jar fresh, nature does that job for us instead.

So how does the fermenting work? We have been brainwashed to think that all bacteria are bad, this is not true, we need a symbiotic relationship with bacteria to survive healthily! During fermentation naturally occuring bacteria and yeasts that live on plants begin to break down the components of the vegetables. This means several things for us humans. First of all the plant material is transformed into a much easier to digest form and that means our digestive systems need to work less in order to obtain more benefit from what we eat. The bacteria and yeasts that are thriving on the fermenting vegetables are also themselves extremely beneficial to our bodies. If we buy bioyogurt or sauerkraut in shops these products have been pasteurised to kill bad but unfortunately the good bacteria too.  These good bacteria occur naturally within healthy guts where they work as a carefully balanced ecosystem with a high biodiversity containing many strains of bacteria and yeasts that we require in order to digest food properly. These are what many of us familiarly know as 'probiotics'. So by eating the fermented vegetables we are ensuring that we have these probiotics within us doing their work that we rely upon for digestion. It is extremely important that our guts (small intestines) are working properly as many health practitioners believe that our entire immune system relies on a healthy gut as its foundation block.

Many of us need to repopulate our guts with probiotics as we continually destroy and undermine this ecosystem by taking antibiotics, thrush treatments and drinking chlorinated tap water. These chemicals save lives by killing harmful bacteria but they also cause us harm by killing off our necessary friendly bacteria and yeasts, leaving an open playing field for imbalances to arise and cause a cycle of health problems. I've recently read a book that even links these imbalances which can lead to leaky gut syndrome as a cause of ADHD, ADD, IBS, depression, mental illness and autism.

I'm not a health practitioner or nutrionist, I'm just somebody who is interested in living naturally and healthily, so  I'm experimenting with making sauerkraut and I can tell you that it tastes delicious. I've bought the ingrediants for kimchi and I can't wait to start that later today.

If you'd like to try too watch this inspirational clip by Sandor Ellix Katz aka Sandorkraut, author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. He'll tell you everything you need to know.

 

Inspiring Neighbours

I have some great neighbours who know how to grow great vegetables on the best patch of their land with some well rotted manure and utilising old farmyard machinery. More and more people around the country are calling on skills they once used to grow their own food again and others are learning from scratch. There are many reasons for this .... some realise how much tastier home grown food is, maybe its the increased nutrient content that brings people to growing vegetables, the lack of chemicals used, the benefits to the environment and of course in these times the reducing levels of family income is also a very real factor for a lot of people.

There are many ways to start growing your own vegetables. Club together with neighbours to tend a patch of land, join a local community garden or attend a Grow Your Own meeting in your area for support and information. You might have some garden you can use, even in urban settings gardens can be used. In Cuba many open areas are utilised for growing their own vegetables ... abandoned building sites, sections of parks, hanging baskets, any ground at all. Travelling through Berlin by train last year I saw thousands of allotments dotted along the edge of the train tracks.

Two of my neighbours get their vegetables going every spring. They club together their efforts. Here are some photos of the scrumptious black earth, the site was chosen by the family in the past due to its fertility and the fact that it borders a flood plain so its dry in the growing season. Recent years have seen this vegetable patch resurrected.

And they use a tractor to pull along this ridger.

Nice to see it was made in Ireland too.

Polytunnel Taming

The polytunnel has been somewhat neglected since last summer and requires taming. The potting table had totally disappeared under a big pile of brambles that was so densely tangled that I would not have found it entirely surprising if I had discovered a sleeping beauty in a glass box under there. Fortunately and quite predictably I found my potting table.

Before ...

A couple of hours a week for the last two months has been enough to get most of the beds now cleared and quite a lot of the plastic cleaned. There was so much green gunk (I suppose algae would be the accepted biological term) growing on the outside of the plastic that it had become noticably dark inside. Damp days meant the crusty covering became gloopy and easily scraped off using a window squeegee like this one on the lower easy to reach spots and then very carefully scraping with a hoe to get the higher areas.

Very satisfying work, removing the green shroud in large sweeping actions and seeing the sun shine in again.  After each swathe is skimmed clean a satisfying bounty of algae is then flicked on the ground with a pleasing plop sound, ample reward for aching arms.

One of the beds have been mulched with plastic mesh awaiting tomato plants. I'll probably use seaweed to mulch another and maybe straw on a third bed. I just feel like experimenting a bit this year. The paths are also being made wider, the time is ripe for this as the timbers around the edges of the beds are decaying and falling off anyway. Making paths the width of my own feet to allow for maximum bed size was, in hindsight, a stupid idea.

Left side clean ... right side still covered in gunk!

And still the kale grows.

Elderberry Syrup Winter Warmer

Quickly go and grab the last of the elderberries (sambucus nigra), grab roughly a kilo if you can. Bring an ID book or a friend you trust in the know. Now you've almost got everything you need to make elderberry syrup and it's really easy to do. Don't be put off if you've tried eating a raw elderberry and the tart flavour almost turned your face inside out because trust me, the syrup is quite delicious. And if delicous isn't enough to persuade you then maybe you'll be swayed by the fact that this fruit is bursting with vitamins and antioxidants. Google elderberry nutrition and you'll also find mention of research into it being an immune system booster, cancer preventative and other such claims. Did I also mention it tastes delicious?

Snip the berries from the green stalks into a large pan (do you like the way I've just bullied you into making it?). Don't worry too much about the tiny stalks, well I don't worry about them anyway. I then use a potato masher to push the berries down and pour in just enough water to cover the fruit. Simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the resulting dark purple mixture through a sieve into a measuring jug. For each pint add 450grams (1lb) of white sugar and the juice of one lemon. Simmer again for another 20 minutes and leave covered to cool for 15 minutes or so. Pour the syrup into sterilised bottles. It's too late to mention it now but whatever wooden spoon you've used will now remain a lovely deep crimson colour. I hope you didn't spill any on your clothes.

That's the basic recipe. You can also add to the initial simmering an inch of ginger root, a dash of mixed spice, a cardamom pod, whatever you fancy.

Enjoy your syrup like a fruit cordial diluted with water, on ice cream, in hot water like a non alcoholic mulled wine or in a hot port like a very alchoholic mulled port.

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Fracking Coming to a County Near You

Fracking is a relatively new process used by the gas exploration industry in order to extract gas from geological areas of shale deposits.  Until recently I wasn't aware that I lived in such a geological area myself. Two companies have been granted an onshore petroleum license in my local region.

So what do we get out of it as a community? The two companies granted licenses are not Irish based so Ireland will not benefit from the profits. It seems the jobs created are highly specialised and so employment levels of any real significance will be not be gained here. Indeed, two very important areas of employment in the region are tourism and agriculture. Both of these are likely to suffer a significant blow even if the fracking goes without a hitch. Who would want to visit a landscape dotted with massive concrete extraction pads every couple of kilometres, toxic settlement ponds and rig towers? The thousands of lorries that would trundle along the local roads would not exactly be a picture of peace and tranquility.

You might ask what I mean't when I mentioned the word 'hitch' in the previous paragraph. Well it doesn't take too long when you google the word Fracking to find a lot of concern about very serious environmental issues surrounding it. After weighing up both the evidence of environmental pollution and it's possible threat to life and considering the as yet unknown long term impacts (as this is a very new technology) other countries and regions have banned the process. Polluted ground water will find it's way into waterways, humans, plants and animals. Polluted water travelling from the North West of Ireland along the River Shannon flows through many other regions before it reaches the ocean 386km from its source. That means whatever happens will impact not only the people on the fracking doorstep.

I'm only just scratching the surface here on the issue. If you'd like to find out more about Fracturing watch a movie called Gaslands, click to watch the trailer or have a look on the What The Frack website. For a balanced view also see what Tamboran have to say, perhaps you'll feel that maybe Fracking is a good thing. Or an informative Drivetime short radio documentary. Take your pic and share your thoughts....

Keeping With the Fruity Theme - Peaches

So we've done posts on strawberries, apples and plums ... now it's the turn of the peaches. Yes I did say peaches. In Ireland! Three years ago I planted a peach tree in the polytunnel and wondered how it would fare. I wondered if the flowers would pollinate because I'd been told the flowers arrive earlier than our Irish pollinated insects fly, I also wondered if the fruit would set, if the fruit might get mouldy from the heat of the tunnel, if it would ripen on time because our season is short, if the tree would be too big for the tunnel etc etc etc. Well I planted it anyway just to see. If you don't try you don't know.

In the second year I aided the pollination of the flowers with a paintbrush and there was subsequently a crop of five peaches. They were fluffy, red, juicy, sweet and truly delicious. I wondered if perhaps it had been a year particularly favourable for peaches. This year I forgot to interfere with the paint brushes when the flowers came but despite that the branches of the little tree were creaking under the weight of hundreds of little peaches by mid summer.

I rummaged through my Fruit Tree Expert book and followed the advice to remove a majority of the fruits so that the remaining peaches have a chance to fully develop. The resulting crop was amazing, I'd estimate a hundred ripe fruit there for the picking by the end of the summer. If there's a similar result next year I think peach jam or even schnapps might be on the cards.

Plums

This year has been an odd year for fruit. There has been a decent crop of apples but they've been quite small. The pears didn't do a thing. But as always the plums did really well. There seems to be a general consensus amongst my friends who have fruit trees that plums do consistently well ... so I think it's a fairly safe thing to say that in the Irish climate plums are a great fruit tree to start off with to ensure guaranteed feelings of delight when your crop is a success.

Once they are nearing ripeness keep a close eye on them because within a couple of days of being ready to pick the wasps will have moved in to compete with you.

Just enjoy the bounty.

We are getting with the times here on the farm ... Sallygardens Smallholding has just created a Facebook page. So if you'd like to chat along to other Sallygardens fans and share all your knowledge too, please click on the Facebook button in the top left corner.

Windfall Apples

The apples are falling from the trees and it's a shame to let them go to waste. There's a few things I like to try and do when there are apples on the ground. Pure apple juice is delicious, whether you use a centrifugal juicer or a mechanical one. It's worth doing a litre at a time and sipping at it through the day. It's almost instant and a real treat for everyone in the house.

 

Another option is to collect a basketful and make a simple apple crumble. Just cut the apples into slices, perhaps pour  a tablespoon of fruit juice, lemon, or water over the apples, you could throw in three cloves and a pinch of mixed spice or cinnamon. In a bowl mix some porridge oats, raisins, a tablespoon of sugar and some seeds such as pumpkin and sunflower, some nuts if you like them too.  Stir in 50g of melted butter to moisten the crumble mix. Pour this over the apples and sprinkle a spoon of dark sugar over the top and pop it in the oven for roughly 40 minutes at 180C.

 

Last but not least is the long term option to juice the apples and instead of drinking it instantly pour it into a sterilised demijohn with a spoon of cider yeast. I tried making my cider without adding yeast, relying on wild yeasts to flourish but alas it all went wrong and blue mould took hold. Next time I'll definitely use a commercial yeast to ensure it takes hold before anything else gets a chance. I have an e-booklet about brewing country wines if you'd like to give it a try, it's really quite simple and not expensive to get started (see store top right hand corner).

If you keep pigs they will devour any windfall apples with great glee. Or you could keep your apples for eating over winter by storing them in a cool room. They need checking every week because as they so rightly say, 'one bad apple spoils the bunch'! If you can pilfer some of those paper trays from your local vegetable shop they are ideal for stacking and storing apples.

Strawberries are Winners

This year I've put some effort into getting the polytunnel back on track. The strawberries are one of the crops that's given plenty of fruit without any real input from last year and minimal weeding this year. The bed is mulched with black woven plastic so the weeds have been mainly kept at bay and the moisture has been kept in the soil. The result has been masses of very ripe strawberries, more than we can eat. You can't imagine how satisfying it is to eat home grown strawberries to a point where you simply can't eat anymore! It's also quite fulfilling to know that if you were to buy the same amount in the supermarket you'd be down at least E30!

Strawberries are easy to grow. You can start off by buying a tray of six plants, these will sprout 'babies' on little runners that you can root in a pot and plant out, thus extending and replenishing your bed each year substantially without any further cost.

Stawberries, I just can't fault them.

... and ... we're back

... well I'm back! I've spent the year making sure that the children and myself are doing ok. We've found a new state of 'normal'. I have cut back a lot on animals and work around the farm and just left the bare minimum with the hope of getting back to it bit by bit to a level that's still fun and not overwhelming. I need to make sure I have time for me, the children and other important things in my life that ensure happiness. It's about finding a new balance. The polytunnel has been dormant. We'll thats not the best description. I haven't done any work in there whatsoever but it's far from dormant! It's like a jungle on steroids. In fact there's still quite a lot of edible stuff in there when I do go for ramble. All the perennial herbs of course are thriving and many of the annuals have self seeded. The grapes did exceptionally well with total neglect and were delicious. Self seeded spinach was in great supply as were many salad leaves. At one point in early summer I put in a few bought courgette and squash  seedlings along with several tomato plants but I didn't mind them. I still got plenty of harvest whenever I wandered in to see how the tunnel was getting on but it was hard and quite sad to see it getting so overgrown and out of hand.

I have realised that I need more than just me to get things back on track and keep things ticking along. I'm going to start taking in WWOOFers now and then. I didn't do it this year because I felt it was more important to have the space for me and the kids to find our feet as a new family first. We are getting there and it's time to start looking at seeds for Spring 2011. There's plenty that can be done between now and April in terms of clearing the weeds and preparing the beds. Its going to be a big job!

Watch this space.

Starting off the Vegetable Garden

The best way to give your seedlings a good start is to plant the seeds into a cell tray with a high quality compost. Don't be tempted to plant directly into the beds because everything will be decimated immediately by slugs and you'll be so disheartened it could put you off gardening for life! Also make sure you buy a top quality potting compost. In my experience cheap brands tend to result in spindly week seedlings ... you get what you pay for in that department. If the trays aren't new then before you start planting give them the once over to check for lurking slugs, there'll be a few.

 

In the above photo are thin plastic trays that normally don't survive more than one season, so it's worth investing in the more sturdy type of tray. I buy a couple from the organic centre each year to build up my stockpile. My oldest of these trays is five years old now and still in perfect working order.

Don't put your trays directly on the soil because the slugs with easily find them there. Up on a table is best but if you run out of space like me put a couple of planks down, raised on bricks and off you go.

She's Kidding

Spring is truly spring when the goats start kidding, even if it is snowing again. So far Esme has had a single billy kid. He's very friendly and tolerates plenty of kissing and cuddling from the children! I was unsure if she was going to kid because she showed no signs of pregnancy that I could detect, probably because it wasn't her normal set of twins, just the one. When there are twins packed in there it's easy to feel them moving around if you place your hand on the underbelly of the goat. At first it can be tricky to decipher between the wriggling of the foetus and the constant gurgling of the goats many stomachs, but a bit of practice helps.

I became suspicious that she might well be in kid after all when I noticed changes in her behaviour around the field .... sleeping in the sunshine, grazing a bit further away from the 'crowd' and spending some time in the goat house during the day resting while the others ventured out  ... sure enough after seeing this happen for about a week, along came Billy the Kid!

For more information on how to keep goats try the ebooklet available to buy from the Paypal store on the right hand column.

Grow Your Own Veg

It's the ideal time of year to start growing your own vegetables. If you've been thinking about starting off a vegetable bed now is the time to get going. If you are a total beginner to gardening start simple and try growing some mixed salad leaves, radishes, peas and broad beans. For inspiration head down to your local garden centre and browse the seed packets, but don't get carried away and buy too many .... which is bound to happen!

To get started you'll need to prepare a vegetable bed by digging over a small area of earth, even just a metre squared to begin with. If digging really isn't your thing or you don't have any land, you can still grow a good batch of salad in a grow bag or two.  Use a sharp knife to puncture plenty of drainage holes in one side of the grow bag and then cut away the top side of plastic for planting into.

I've been doing some weeding in the polytunnel and hope to get on top of it with some more helping hands this week. I hope to start planting into cell trays this week too and will probably keep those indoors until this new impending cold snap is over. I'm really looking forward to home grown salads every day and I'm yearning to be sick of courgettes again!

For some good gardening guidelines on starting to grow your own vegetables try my ebooklet which can be purchased via the Paypal store on the top right hand column. Happy gardening.

Book of Green Household Management

I've been asked by a publisher to review a book called 'The Essential Thrift Bible. Ms Harris's Book of Green Household Management', by Caroline Harris. It felt great when it arrived in the post, it was a bit like receiving a gift because this is a book that I might buy if I were browsing in a bookshop. It's a lovely little book and reads very easily with a nice dose of wit. It's divided into chapters which makes it an easy book to dip in and out of whenever it takes your fancy and the index at the back is a very useful addition because this book is jam packed full of very practical and useful tips and ideas on how to live with a low environmental impact. It covers everything from household cleaning, to growing your own vegetables, raising kids and energy etiquette. It's not just anecdotal either, there is accurate information on how to do all these things. It's a little book that gives you the knowledge you need to make changes in your lifestyle that will make a difference. It's a very useful little thing to have as a reference book but it's also a source of enjoyable reading and entertainment. Give it a go ... or give it to a friend ...

Meitheal and Changes at Sallygardens

You may have noticed some changes on this blog lately, changes that reflect things that have been happening in my life over the last month. I am now single, Dan and I having gone our separate ways. I will leave it at that as this blog is about sustainable living, not a sounding board for my personal problems! Practically though there is a lot to think about in terms of keeping the farm going. I have to reevaluate all the activities that I do here. I will have to make decisions about what I carry on with and what things I shall have to draw a line under. I need to consider how much time and effort I can put into the farm while keeping a balance of time for my children, friends, fiddle and fun.

Spring is here and it's already time to start getting the beds in the polytunnel weeded and ready for seedlings. I have to admit feeling a bit daunted by starting into it, not knowing if I'd the energy to tackle it at the moment, but a Meitheal came to the rescue. A Meitheal (meh-hill)  is an Irish term used for the practice of a group of neighbours to come together to help each other in tasks such as preparing the hay, or gathering the harvest. Each person would help their neighbour who would in turn reciprocate. Two girlfriends came over and the three of us worked for 2 hours weeding. It was great fun, we had a giggle and then shared lunch. A huge amount of work got done that would have taken me a lot longer by myself and it wouldn't have been half as much fun either! It's a great way to get work done when you're 'on your own'. I'll be helping them out in their own gardens in return. 

The tunnel looks barren and forlorn at the moment, it's hard to believe in just a few weeks it will be in all it's glory again like in this picture taken last summer ...

 

This is the time of year to get started if you want to try growing your own for the first time. You'll find lots of information throughout this blog, but it's all collected into one handy ebooklet called Grow Your Own, available from the paypal store at the top right hand corner of this webpage.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Sourdough Success

I've been having great success with the sourdough culture. Bread is delicious made with pure strong white flour, or experiment by replacing up to two thirds with rye flour and a dash of oats for plenty of slow release energy. We also had sourdough pancakes on Tuesday ... delicious.

Following my previous post I was offered a mother culture by a lady in Mullingar who blogs about Urban Food Gardening and she kindly arranged for it to be dropped to my home. It's wonderful to have these precious mother cultures live on and I've been asked by two friends now for some of my culture ... passing it on is what it's all about.

Baking With Sourdough

Before we began using modern cultured yeasts leavened bread was made with wild yeasts which exist naturally in the air. I've always wanted to try making sourdough bread because I'm curious about the whole process, want to see what it tastes like and as an added bonus it's supposed to be very good for you.

It's pretty simple. Mix half a mug of white flour with half a mug of water in a sterilised glass jar. Shake it up and leave at room temperature. After 24 hours pour off half the mixture and discard it, top up the remaining mixture in the jar with equal parts of flour and water ... this is feeding the yeast. After four or five days the mixture looks bubbly and frothy which indicates that yeasts are now flourishing and you have an active culture ready to start baking with.  Once the culture is nicely active it can be kept in the fridge and will then only need feeding once a week.

There are sourdough starter cultures you can buy in powder form which I tried out last year, but I killed it by mistake when I placed the bowl in a warm oven after baking earlier that day (thinking it would like the heat!). But this time I like the idea of utilising our own local wild yeasts and so I'm about to try again.

It's the frothy culture which is added to your bread dough to raise it and also impart a unique flavour to your bread. The sourdough process results in a more nutritional bread as it semi-digests the flour and releases important nutrients, making them available to us for optimum absorption. The process of sourdough proofing also results in a very low phytic acid content, something that remains high in modern yeasted breads. Phytic acid reduces mineral metabolism (Healing With Wholefoods, by Paul Pitchford), contains flora beneficial to the digestive system and the loaf stays naturally fresh for days, even weeks, after baking. Apart from all that, it's delicious and well worth a try.

For preparation and baking instructions try this website. I'll let you know how I get on in a week or two.

Don't Panic, I Have a 'Survival Seeds Emergency Package'

I recently had an email from a budding new on-line company called Hometown Seeds asking me to visit their website and in particular to review a package of seeds they sell called Survival Seeds Emergency Package which aims to provide everything a family might need to survive during a time of food supply crisis! The seeds are GMO free and not only provide delicious crops, they are also suitable for harvesting seed from when matured.  This is a huge advantage as many commercially available varieties are designed to be infertile so the consumer has no choice but to buy seeds year after year and if a crises does ever come to pass it's a bit of a design flaw from a survival point of view. It may seem a little far fetched but having peace of mind that you've got a sustainable strain of reliable seeds ready to go might not be a bad idea. You may be relieved to be able to pick from the garden rather than shop in a crowded supermarket during a virulent pandemic, or as prices rocket in the shops due to the increasing cost of fuel your home grown will come in at a fraction of the price. For us, the latter is a major reason for home growing and it helps make ends meet.

But we don't need a world crisis before investing in seeds! What could be a more fitting gift for anybody interested in gardening or starting to grow their own vegetables? Any seasoned gardener would jump for joy with this package under the tree and no better way to inspire a beginner than with a range of seeds and maybe a good gardening book.

Best Sustainable Living Christmas Book Selection

Much of our knowledge at Sallygardens has been gleaned from a range of most excellent books and since many folk are considering what gifts to give loved ones for Christmas this time of year I've compiled a list of top favourites. This is a chance to give a gift that can really make a positive lifestyle difference.

Top of the list for anybody remotely interested in living sustainably, whether living in a rural or urban environment is the now legendary eco  bible The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency by John Seymour. This book is fantastic and covers a huge range of topics. It's detailed enough to get you started on most things but such a delightfully presented book it makes a wonderful coffee table book too. Five years down the line I still dip into it and find new ideas. Everything from vegetable gardening, to rearing pigs to making your own wine.

A great practical, no nonsense easy to understand gardening book is Organic Gardening by Geoff Hamilton, it's ideal for either total beginners or seasoned growers. The layout is crisp (although ours is very muddy from repeated use!) and attractive, the information is to the point. It's a great reference book for anything and everything you might want to consider growing in your veg garden, the organic way.

A brilliant way to investigate how all these eco conscious living ideas can be incorporated into everyday life is to get your hands on a copy of the Earthcare Manual, a book based on the theory of permaculture. It's full of practical information on how to achieve sustainable living not just in the garden, but in your home, work and right across the board. It will change the way you think about consumerism and the use of materials.

Now you have the veggies growing and your lifestyle in tune with the environment a great cook book for utilising those crops is the infamous River Cottage Cookbook. It's full of delicious recipies, tips on gardening and rearing livestock.

With the environment in mind ... you could probably borrow these books from your local library, but if you're planning on buying these as gifts you could check with like minded neighbours to make sure you don't buy the same book, instead plan to buy the range between you and then swap when needed. Any purchased via these links will mean I get a few percent towards a gift token. Happy shopping.

Brussel Sprouts Rock

This is our first year growing brussel sprouts and I have to say they get my vote. For some reason brassicas always make me feel sceptical with regards to success. They have such a long growing season in comparison to most crops which leaves them open to attack on many front. The brassicas ar sown in spring but unlike most crops aren't harvested till autumn or even the following spring. A lot of challenging conditions can present themselves to a slow maturing brassica during that time ; a lone slug can wipe one out in the early weeks, a couple of weeks weeding neglect can see them smothered, then there's caterpillar attacks later in the season, when summers over torrential rain or hailstones can leave the plant in tatters and winds can blow the mature plants flat to the ground.

But the majority of our brussels have come through all of that and we will easily have a good six weeks supply of lovely luscious sprouts. They will certainly feature in our Christmas dinner, as will one of our home reared organic ducks. Some homegrown vegetables outshine shop bought alternatives in terms of flavour and brussels score very highly, alongside sweet corn and tomatoes.