Food
Asparagus Salad with new potatoes
Ingredients
500g/1lb 1½oz asparagus spears
½ a lemon, juice only
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
225g/8oz small British new potatoes, boiled and cut into quarters lengthwise, and tossed in a little olive oil
250g/8¾oz cherry tomatoes, cut in half
50g/1¾oz stoned black olives, halved
2 shallots finely chopped
1 large bunch basil, finely shredded
150g/5¼oz gorgonzola or dolcelatte cheese, crumbled, to serve
Method
1. Clean the asparagus and trim any white ends and peel, if necessary, with a vegetable peeler.
2. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, drop in the asparagus and blanch for 1-3 minutes until just tender.
3. Drain and immerse in very cold water to prevent further cooking. This leaves the asparagus bright green.
4. Mix the lemon juice and olive oil together with the sea salt and black pepper. Add the boiled potatoes, cherry tomatoes, olives, shallots and basil and toss together.
5. Arrange the asparagus on a large platter or individual serving plates, spoon some of the potato mixture over the asparagus and garnish with the crumbled cheese to serve. Enjoy!
Go Self Sufficient
7th March 2008
For a range of features and tips on how to go self sufficient, there is an excellent site called
"Go Self Sufficient". The site includes over 70 articles on subjects including around the home, energy and water, food and drink, foraging, growing herbs and salads, growing vegetables, keeping animals, and natural remedies. Well worth a visit.
Love Food Hate Waste
Help cut food waste that costs £8 billion a year
Celeb chefs offer their advice on creating top meals to cut back on food waste
British consumers experience 'food blindness' when it comes to the amount we waste. New research reveals that 90% of UK consumers do not realise how much food they throw out each week. Our negligence equates to 6.7 million tonnes of wasted food being shipped off to landfill sites and over £8 billion of our hard earned cash being squandered on produce we never get round to eating each year.
The figures released as part of WRAP's "Love Food Hate Waste" campaign, further highlight that a third of all food is being thrown away. The question is, why are we doing this to our planet and our pockets? The campaign hopes to be able to provide consumers with information on what simple steps can be taken to combat the problem, which has a significant environmental impact.
Top celeb chefs include Paul Rankin, James Martin, Cyrus Todiwala and Jimmy Doherty (Jimmy's Farm) who are lending their support by offering their advice on top meals to cut back on food waste. Click here to view...
To watch the video click here:
mms://groovyg.edgestreams.net/groovyg/clients/Markettiers4dc/webchats/11664/WRAP_vignette_2.wmv
Gardening.
Ten top jobs for June
1. Hoe borders regularly to keep down weeds
2. Be water-wise, especially in drought-affected areas
3. Pinch out sideshoots on tomatoes
4. Harvest lettuce, radish, other salads and early potatoes
5. Position summer hanging baskets and containers outside
6. Cut lawns at least once a week
7. Plant out summer bedding
8. Stake tall or floppy plants
9. Prune many spring-flowering shrubs
10. Shade greenhouses to keep them cool and prevent scorch
Permaculture
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What is permaculture? How can it help reduce global warming and promote biodiversity. Read our feature.
How to build a compost heap
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Compost making is easy, fun, and can be successful in any size garden.Throwing away garden and domestic refuse which could make compost is wasteful. It gets taken away with general rubbish, and when buried gives off methane as it rots away.
What can I compost?
Grassmowings, weeds, vegetable peelings and dead leaves can all be used to make a rich, healthy free fertiliser, and soil conditioner for the garden. Virtually anything which once lived can be put on a compost heap. Woody things like shrubs prunings and brussel sprout stalks should be finely chopped first. Evergreen trimings and pine needles do not rot well and should be avoided, and cooked food should not be composted as it can attract rats. All materials of animal and vegetable waste eventually rot down and return to the soil with the dead of many tiny micro-organisms. A compost heap is simply an environment where this natural process can be speeded up. The resulting material is rich in nutrients and 'humus' (decayed organic matter, important in soil to help it maintain a free-draining structure).
How do I get compost to work?
Compost needs a strong population off micro-organisms, which need favourable conditions - i.e. air, moisture, warmth and food. It is best to mix lots of different materials together rather than just have one material to avoid a rotting smell. Compost heaps should be moist but not wet. Wet any dry material which you add to the heap and water the heap in dry periods of summer - but protect heaps from excessive rain. Rain will 'leach' the nutrients which you are trying to save, e.g. nitrogen and phosphates.
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The compost heap must have air, so most people use clay pipes or bricks at the base, and slatted sides to allow air in higher up the heap. The maximum height should be 1.5 metres (c. 5 feet). A healthy compost heap should reach temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius) at centre, and this heat will kill weed seeds and steilise your compost. However to maintain a good temperature in periods of cold and therefore sustain the process at work you should insulate your heap. Old carpet on the top and bales of straw or corrugated iron around the sides work well - but don't completely block the airflow.
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The correct balance between carbon and nitrogen (the CN ratio) must be maintained in the heap. Many plants (particularly older ones) have a lot of carbon in them and micro-organisms need nitrogen to break it down. This can be added in many forms as an 'activator' layer when you build your compost heap. Animal manure (horse, pig, poultry), bone and fish meal and manufactured products (e.g. from seaweed) make excellent activators. If you live in a town or you have acid material in the heap a layer of lime can help neutralise this. Some gardeners recommend layers of garden soil to 'innoculate' the heap with the right micro-organisms - but don't overdo this. Other high 'N' additives include a layer of nettles or comfrey.
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If you can spare enough room for two compost boxes 'turn' your compost about every 4 to 6 weeks, so that all material spends time at the centre and rots properly.
If you cannot do this, only use the best composted material when you need it, and use other stuff as the basis of your new heap.
Compost takes about 12 weeks to make in the summer, longer in the winter.
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How will I know when its ready?
A mature compost should be friable, deep brown, and smell like good, healthy soil.
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Sources:
Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust
Wikipedia
Gardening Links:
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The Soil Association, Bristol House, 40-56 Victoria Street, Bristol, BS1 6BY: www.soilassociation.org
Garden Organic - the new name for the HDRA, the organic gardening charity
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Online garden centres
BandQ online - a shop that has made considerable efforts to go green
Crocus
Green Choices
Envocare
How green are you?
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Take our light-hearted quiz to see just how green you really are.
1. The latest research shows that man-made global warming is accelerating, and climate disaster is imminent.
Do you-
a) Turn down the heating, switch off unwanted lights, and cut back car journeys and foreign holidays.
b) Run around in a mad panic shouting “The end is nigh, the end is nigh”.
c) Throw an “End of the World Party”, turn on all the lights, crank up the volume and enjoy. You might as well have fun as the ship sinks.
d) Splash out on that sports car you’ve always wanted before petrol rationing is introduced.
2. You local council has introduced a complicated new system with different coloured bins and boxes to encourage recycling and composting.
Do you-
a) Make full use of the new facilities and go round encouraging everyone else to join in.
b) Write to your local paper to complain that it is too complicated, and to grass up your neighbours for putting their bottles in the wrong bin.
c) Think “stuff it” and thow it all in one bin – it’s only rubbish anyway.
d) Start consuming more since you might as well enjoy yourself, and when your bin is overflowing, wait until dark and put the extra rubbish in your neighbour’s bin.
3. Your teenage daughter has decided she is going to turn vegetarian, as it is a more efficient means of feeding the world, and is less cruel to animals.
Do you –
a) Congratulate her on her high moral stance, and encourage her to convert the rest of the family.
b) Take great delight in enjoying your “full Monty” English breakfast, wafting the bacon under her nose.
c) Put a chart on the wall and start crossing off the days until she is 16 and can leave home.
d) Invite all your mates round for a BBQ and hog roast just to show her who is boss.
4. It is “Walk to School Day” at your son’s primary school but just before you about to set off on foot, and do your bit for the environment, it starts raining.
Do you -
a) Walk to school in the rain. A bit of water never did you any harm, and it makes you feel really virtuous.
b) Tell him to walk to school on his own, as it will encourage him to be independent.
c) You were going to drive to school anyway. Who are these jumped up sandal-wearing, bearded, trendy-lefty muesli-eating teachers to tell you what to do in the first place.
d) Put on a hat and dark glasses, tell him to duck down in the back of the car, and hope no-one sees you.
5. There is a Green Party member standing for your local council.
Do you-
a) Vote for them, and offer to help with canvassing and leafleting.
b) Say you will vote for them but vote for one of the others.
c) Not bother to vote. It only encourages them.
d) Write to the local paper to say that you passed their house last week and all the lights were on.
6. Your wife thinks you should trade in your 3 litre 4x4 tank for something more environmentally-friendly.
Do you-
a) Agree with her and buy a bike.
b) Trade it in for a sporty two seater. It will do the children good to get more exercise, and it will teach your teenage daughter to go on about saving the whales.
c) Ignore her.
d) Buy a reconditioned Humvee, spray it in Union Jack colours, and park it outside the Green Party candidates’s house to wind him up.
7. Your employer wants everyone to start being green at work and is asking for volunteers to be “Environmental Champions” for their section of the Council.
Do you-
a) Score some greenie points, volunteer, and go round annoying everyone by turning off their PC every time they leave their desk for more than 2 minutes.
b) Volunteer to get the greenie points, and when your boss asks why your productivity has dropped explain its because you have been idling to save energy.
c) Wait until someone else volunteers, wait until they leave their office, and then use their PC send a Council-wide email about what you saw the Chief Executive doing with his secretary.
d) Wind up the sucker who volunteered by waiting until he is on leave, taking the fuse out of the plug to his PC and congratulate him on saving energy when he returns and spend several hours climbing the walls, trying to get the damn thing to work again.
So how green are you? For every question you answered a) you score 1 point. If you got 5 or more you are an Eco hero. No points for any other answers. If you scored less than 2, you haven’t quite the hang of this green business yet have you!
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High Five for Hemp
Now when I mention hemp the first thing to come to mind is the high-inducing plant of marijuana; actually Hemp and marijuana appear different to the trained eye. Hemp does not contain large amounts of THC, the psychoactive ingredient that causes that alter state of mind. That’s the difference between hemp and marijuana. You would have to eat copious amounts of hemp but even then the effects would be too little too feel. However you would have gotten a huge serving of fiber! You can’t get high from Hemp; but I do give it a high five for all the wonderful things that can come from this sturdy plant. Over 25,000 products can be manufactured from Hemp! Hemp at one point was required by farmers during WWII to be grown in an effort to help the war. President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp; even the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp. Hemp has gotten a bad rap over the years because this little plant is so misunderstood. Allowing farmers to grow hemp again will help our agriculture industry tremendously; considering the US is one of the largest importers of hemp products. Hemp growing will not cause a proliferation of marijuana growers trying to hide their pot plants. If the two ever did meet in a field and cross pollinate you would get a very weak marijuana plant and not a high inducing hemp plant. Hemp is sustainable in everyway. It takes only moderate amounts of water to grow. It grows quickly in most climates; hemp’s gestation period is 4 months, compare that to a tree. The very same fibers that are used to make paper can also be used to make cloth, plastics, fuel, food, building products, and at one point in Henry Ford’s time, a car. Hemp is excellent for the environment as well. You don’t need to douse hemp plants with pesticides and other harsh chemicals in order to grow it. It does quite well without them-unlike cotton which is grown with pesticides and other chemicals that are dangerous to the environment and its growers. Hemp is also useful in helping with global warming. By not having to cut down trees for paper pulp, and other wood products that hemp can replace, we are saving our forests for wildlife habitat, oxygen production, and for taking in excess carbon dioxide. One acre of hemp can produce as much paper as 4 acres of trees! Think about it. We have a plant that can provide the three main things humans need for survival: food, shelter, and clothing. Most importantly its biodegradable. Hemp seeds have a lot of nutritious value. It contains the essential fatty acids so crucial to our diet and in greater quantities than flax seeds. The fibers make a very strong, lightweight fiber board. This is great for construction. Hemp fibers are also more absorbent and stronger than cotton. Hemp is starting to see a resurgence in popularity thanks in part to concerned individuals, scientists, and politicians finally waking up to the importance of this special plant. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art44082.asp