New restrictive EU Seed Law - join the campaign to stop it!!!

The Real Seed Catalogue are supporting a campaign to stop a terrible law that is currently under review, which if it's implemented, will hugely restrict the varieties of vegetables that be sold to small farmers and home gardeners.

I have paraphrased slightly and full webpage can be found here, but in a nutshell, Real Seeds have been working very closely with NGO’s and independent seed companies across the EU as well as DEFRA – UK Government regulator of the seed industry – to protect the UK seed industry and to make sure UK gardeners have access to whatever plants they wish to grow.

DEFRA and various NGO’s and independent seed houses are asking for total exemption from the law for home gardeners and small growers. 

I have already written to my local MEP - Ms Marina Yannakoudakis - asking her to support the abolishment of this brutal and restrictive law. An excerpt of my (fairly impassioned) letter is below:

"Please do not discount the needs of individual unique gardeners over multinational corporations who are quite openly pushing to monopolize the fruit and vegetable growing market. Is there anything more sickening than the sad fact, the majority of fruit and vegetables bought in supermarkets has been so modified that the seeds are essentially useless and unable to germinate? 

If this law goes ahead, it will be a complete travesty for our generation and all generations after ours. Climate change and the destruction of our natural eco habitats are already perilously close to the point of no return, who knows what will happen in ten, twenty or fifty years....please don’t let the loss of our individuality as home gardeners and our basic rights to be able to grow our own fresh fruit and vegetables be added to the many man made disasters this generation already has to deal with.

We are all unique as human beings and we deserve the right to be able to choose which fruit and vegetables to plant, tend, and harvest ourselves – and not be dependent on corporations who are acting with profit in mind, not people. Please do not allow this law to go ahead, I implore you as one human to another, do not forget your sense of right from wrong, please think of your own heritage, perhaps your grandmother, grandfather, uncle, aunt had their own garden that was their pride and joy as mine is to me.

I have attached a photo of the very first pumpkin I ever grew...please do not deny future generations the same exciting opportunity" 

Really at this stage, I feel like my blog is a bit like leaves in the wind, I throw some ideas and thoughts out there, but as I don't generally receive feedback, I'm not even sure if people read my updates... which is an odd kind of comfort, I can chat about whatever I like, with little consequence. However, if this post brings even just one more persons attention to this new EU Seed Law, I will consider it a success. 

Thank you and happy seeding....

Phoenix Park - Dublin

The Phoenix Park 

I took this photo in December 2012, I love the hazy morning light and the way the deer are emerging from the mist and glow of the sunrise. This beautiful park is only about ten minutes from my parents house, but I only get to visit it once maybe twice a year, usually around December.

Bare trees in the Furry Glen

These two photos were taken in December 2013, on a bitingly cold day where it "looked like snow" but no snowflakes actually fell. In the second photo you can just about see a grey squirrel in the trees, this little guy was one of the only signs of life in the park on that particular cold and still day.

I just love that this fabulous park - while almost in central Dublin - is so vast that it is undisturbed by traffic noise or signs of pollution. You could quite easily believe you are in the wilderness with just the wind in the trees and the occasional bird song adding to the natural sounds of silence.

Photographs of the Garden.... June to October 2013

Heirloom seedlings I started in April in the top flat

We had to remove weeds and weeds and literally metres of roots from the staghorn sumac from the soil before we started any kind of planting

Bamboo cane supports for peas

Small area I marked out for onions and carrots - this ended up being smothered by the tomatoes, galeuse d'eysines pumpkin and butternut squash

Staghorn suckers - these sprouted along every single root in the garden, the trees had been cut just before we moved in, and as it turns out, the trees respond to a "trauma" by sprouting vigorously along all root lines.... 

Minnesota Midget - this had really small yellow flowers, but didn't get nearly enough sun as they ended up hidden behind the tomatoes and courgette, so unfortunately, we didn't get any melons

The tomatoes take off

Crookneck Summer Squash

Courgette - we got about three nice sized courgettes from this plant, which was perfect, we had so many summer squash to use up!

Cheyenne bush pumpkin

Cleo investigates, while I try to measure the growth of the galeuse d'esyines pumpkin

Hidden under the wide leaves - growing crookneck summer squash. I'd no idea these would do so well and ended up giving a lot of them away to friends and work colleagues, and still had plenty left over for ourselves...

.

Pumpkin and squash patch - the galeuse d'eysines is taking over the patio in the back left of the photo

More Crookneck Summer squash

The bright yellow flowers on the squash and pumpkins attracted lots of bees, it was lovely to be able to hear the buzzing from the backdoor and we plan on planting a lot more bee friendly plants and flowers in 2014

Some of the harvest, heirloom tomatoes and crookneck summer squash

Galeuse d'eysines - this weighed about 7lb when it was finished growing

Mix of Gardeners Delight - cherry vine tomato, Millefleur - yellow vine tomato and Jen's Tangerine - cherry vine tomato 

Little butternut squash, which I discovered after I pulled the plant from the tangle of tomatoes, strawberries and nasturtiums

Almost ripe - Cheyenne bush pumpkin

Bush pumpkin and galeuse d'eysines curing in the glass house

I got all of my heirloom seeds from The Real Seed Catalogue

Guerrilla Gardening Perth

October/November '11 - March/April '12 - Perth WA

Although we had a very small patio-ed yard behind our little "two up, two down" townhouse in Perth, there wasn't much earth that we could use for planting.

M built some raised beds in patches of the yard where there weren't any bricks - using other bricks that we'd found on walks around the neighbourhood (skip-diving) - and we managed to grow some (tiny) vegetables and a huge watermelon plant...no melons ever appeared through, I think the roots may have been too confined in the small space, the plant really flourished though and it had small yellow flowers for about a month of Summer.

We noticed the area behind the townhouse - just behind our parking bay - seemed to be all scrub and weedy wasteland, it was pretty much out of sight from the path and we were the only people (apart from friends) who came up that way..... and we realised we could reclaim a patch of it and extend our small garden, it was close enough to water and pretty much hidden from view 

Guerrilla Garden - somewhere in Mount Lawley

cherry tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, butternut squash, courgette

We started by clearing the weeds and assessing the soil - mostly sandy - and as the area was in a suntrap with little shade, it got really hot up there, hmmmmm...

We weren't deterred and within a week or two - after weeding and digging some bags of manure compost through the sand - we'd planted some cherry tomatoes, potatoes (from sprouting potatoes we had in the kitchen), beetroot, onions as well as baby sweetcorn, butternut squash and a courgette. This small space was the biggest space I'd ever had for a garden and our local garden centre had a nice selection of seedlings and seeds - carrots and peas we grew from seed and the rest of our experimental seedlings were mostly vegetables that we liked the sound of and really wanted to try

The tomatoes really took off in the Summer sun and in a matter of weeks they were 3ft tall and still growing, the butternut squash spread itself liberally across the small patch we'd cleared and started wandering down the slope towards the car bay. 

                  

After a slow start, our potatoes did well for a few weeks - we had about six plants in total, from a variety of potatoes - but they got ravaged by a infestation of black furry caterpillars that devoured chunks of the plants overnight. I caught and disposed of as many of the caterpillars as I could, but unfortunately a lot of the plants died and after harvesting, we ended up with a small selection of baby potatoes, just enough for a meal for two

Harvest

We ended up with a nice selection of (small) vegetables; beetroot, carrots, lots of cherry tomatoes, potatoes and a few baby sweetcorn. The courgette flowered but didn't produce any fruit and the butternut squash had lots of beautiful yellow flowers, but no fruit either... I think the full sun combined with the poor nutrient sandy soil was just too much for the plants.

Baby carrots and beetroot

Fantastic guerrilla gardening website here

I heart you pre loved

I've always loved going to charity shops. I think at this stage, roughly 70% - 80% of the clothes I own (apart from my underwear) are pre loved, and at least 90% of our furniture is either pre-loved, or re-loved, so rescued from the side of the street...or out of a skip and fixed up.

I love charity shops for so many reasons; the main ones are easy to tick off; it’s great helping the charity out, prices are so much more reasonable, I love that I’m helping recycle clothes, I won’t get into the sheer volume of power consumed in order to make a single white shirt (this is apart from the mostly, gross exploitation of the people making the clothes) and this “wear it once and throw away” attitude some people have drives me nuts! To me, there’s nothing better than finding a “hidden gem” in a charity shop or in a skip, for example....

                                                             My ceramic baking hen

I first spotted ceramic baking hens in Habitat in Dublin about ten years ago. If you’re not familiar with Habitat, it was one of my favourite stores, until I realised that while the products are lovely, it’s very much a life style brand and although it has such beautiful “retro” cups and plates etc, they are mass produced and they’re all sold at modern, expensive prices. So I would browse in Habitat, never actually buy anything, just sigh over the lovely faux vintage tea sets. I spotted a terracotta baking/roasting hen there one day that I fell in love with, although I couldn't afford at the time (being a poor art student and everything) and so I just filed it away in the “things I’d like to have some day” section of my mind....

Then in 2011, myself and M were still living in Perth and while walking around Fremantle one day, (don’t ask me why) but I was trying to describe this terracotta baking hen to M, without much success... “you see, it’s a hen shaped baking dish that you take apart and put a chicken inside and roast it and....it’s amazing”.... anyway, we headed into Vintage Vinnie’s (Australian version of St Vincent de Paul’s) and there on a shelf, just inside the door, was a white ceramic baking hen....Which I took as fate, although how my fate is entwined with a ceramic baking hen, I really couldn't say at this stage....so, I pounced on it and managed to get it for the fantastic price of $20, and both of us (ok, mostly me) were just thrilled by the oddly timed coincidence of my trying (and failing) to describe a baking hen I'd seen, some ten years earlier in Dublin and then finding an even more beautiful, vintage version literally minutes after I'd been talking about it. 

This gorgeous ceramic hen has surpassed all my expectations, it’s (obviously) perfect for roasting chickens; the bird doesn't need basting or even checking during cooking, as the glazed ceramic inside keeps the chicken beautiful and moist while it’s in the oven; “fall off the bone” tender is the best description of the meat after an hour and a half in the ceramic hen; it even helps the chicken skin turn a nice golden brown during cooking, with the lid still firmly sealed in place (which must be some kind of voodoo) and it is just fantastic for any kind of slow cooking; casseroles, roast lamb, I've even roasted pumpkin and squash in it, which was delicious and stayed really juicy!

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is, I get so much more out of finding something in a charity shop, or even on the street and fixing/remaking it than I ever do just buying it in a regular shop or online. Even if it means waiting a while, it's usually well worth the wait...

Perth tales...a strange avocado

After many, many unsuccessful attempts over the years, an avocado pit, that I'd carefully suspended in a jar of water using three toothpicks, like so, sprouted a little root. According to popular opinion (i.e. I read it online) this should take three to six weeks to happen...mine took ten...and then, nothing...the big root continued to grow, slowly, with no sign of any leaves, just a big root dangling into the jar of water.


So finally, I planted it, and it sat in the plant pot, looking like a dead stone for another week or two.....

Then, the outer shell split and came off and three little shoots poked out

I debated plaiting the shoots together as they grew to see if that would affect the shape of the tree...but decided against it, it was so fragile and I was so excited that it was actually growing, I didn't want to do anything that might damage the plant

I looked after it carefully, moving it around the house to give it the best light - it didn't like direct sunlight and putting it in the garden resulted in the plant wilting literally within minutes - 40 degrees summer sun in Perth was way too harsh for my little avocado




On a side note - it may have been suggested during these months of moving the avocado around the house, trying to find the best light without too much of a cross breeze from the air con that I was "mollycoddling" the plant.... but I didn't care, I was growing my own avocado tree

Then, one sunny day, I transplanted the avocado from its smaller purple pot, into a larger ceramic one.....and it went limp over the space of a few days...and died.




















                                                                                 


                                                                                   Fin 

Fig Preserve with Vanilla and Ginger

I found this gorgeous recipe for fig and vanilla preserve in my book Wild Sourdough – by Yoke Mardewi -this is a really fantastic book with lots of easy to follow (and tasty!) sourdough bread recipes. Myself and M went to one of Yoke’s workshops in basic sourdough bread while we were living in Perth - there will be a post on this soon -we had such a fantastic experience with Yoke and really enjoyed her classes, please click here for a link to Yoke’s website.

Ingredients

1kg figs

750 g sugar

1 vanilla pod

1 lemon

5 cm/couple of chunks of preserved stem ginger

Helpful Tip - Try to buy the figs the same day you intend on making the jam, otherwise (if you’re me) you will need to pick out all the lovely figs that have somehow turned soft and slightly furry overnight.

Start by carefully picking through your figs, discard (or compost) any figs that have turned soft or furry or if it’s not too mushy, cut out the bit that’s gone bad and use the good bits

Reweigh your figs. Realise that you now only have 600 g of figs rather than 1 kg. Recalculate and reweigh your sugar (it should now be 450 g) so your sugar to fig ratio isn't going to leave you with a preserve so high in sucrose it makes your teeth squeak.

Cut the remainder of figs into chunks, open the vanilla pod with a sharp knife and scrape out the seeds and place both vanilla pod and seeds into the preserving pan (heavy based saucepan) with the figs. Add the juice from the lemon. Simmer gently over a low heat until the figs have turned soft and gooey, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, finely chop the preserved ginger into small chunks – sample a few chunks of the ginger while waiting for the figs to soften. Chop up more ginger

Once the figs are nicely soft, add the sugar and chopped ginger and cook on a rolling boil for approximately 7-10 minutes. Test the preserve for a set using the wrinkle test.

Bottle the fig preserve in sterilized jars, label and date. This preserve should keep for a year if the jam jars have been sterilized properly and bottled while still hot.

Because I had just over half the quantity of figs the recipe calls for, I ended up with just one and a half  jars of fig preserve. This isn't a huge quantity for the amount of effort, but the preserve is quite rich so a smear of figgy preserve on brown toast with brie is just divine and less is definitely more as the vanilla and ginger make it a very fragrant jam. The smell alone of the warm vanilla infusing with the almost spicy ginger while the figs simmered was well worth all the effort.

Fig, and figgy are some of my favourite words, alongside noodle and pudding...I am aware most of my favourite words are food related but that’s just how I roll.