Organic food is no healthier than ordinary food, a large independent review has concluded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8174482.stm

It may have no more or fewer nutrients that the processed equivalents, but organically produced food has a lesser, if not positive, environmental impact and – especially if you GIY (grow it yourself) – converts the equation from “food miles” to “food feet”.

If you have not got your own garden to grow fruit and vegetables, why not ask your neighbour if you may share theirs?

What do our readers think?

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The announcement of the four areas to be the nascent Eco-Towns is, for may people, too little, too late and in the wrong place.  The upheaval, maladministration and bureaucracy involved makes the whole prospect quite unlikely to reap benefits for an appreciable period.  Then the results will be analysed, mulled over, reported upon, have money wasted in stated the bleeding obvious about, then reappraised with some potential further action along simlar lines, perhaps, maybe, sometime later.

These eco-towns are, for the most part, away from major centres of population and industry.  On most levels, it would never be noticeable if they were a success as they are effectively being measured in a void.  Unless fully sustainable, the additional impact of transport and provision of services, utilities and goods may well wipe out any benefits accrued.

Why not start nearer to home, if not at home itself?  Most people live in cities; the most populous in the UK being London; the same will apply to all conurbations.  Why not change food miles to food feet by growing your own food.  Your garden would be a starting point; failing that, an allotment.  With the scarcity of municipal land available, why not volunteer to use some council, church or state-owned space that has gone to wrack and ruin?  The LandShare scheme started after GardenLend approached Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to help promote our garden-sharing and home-grown food and flowers message.  The best systems seem to be ones organised on a face-to-face basis, on a local level – how local do you want?  Miles from anywhere?

Have a scout along the road where you live – has someone got a garden that really could do with a make-over?  Offer to help out; it will brighten up the area and help someone else, as well as providing a healthy outlet for pent-up energy – much more fruitful and cheaper than a session at the Gym.  The owner could guide you as to what their dream garden might be, or perhaps you could volunteer a few ideas of your own.  The social benefits, along with the more obvious health and environmental ones, are potentially enormous.  Why not help your neighbour? Just be prepared to lend a hand.

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“HUNDREDS of people are waiting for allotment plots in Bootle, after an incredible boom in demand.
Statistics obtained by the Bootle Times reveal that some 571 people are waiting for one of 310 plots in five council-owned allotments in the borough, including the town’s Gardener Avenue. Self-managed allotments in Dunningsbridge Road, Seaforth and Litherland also report substantial demand.  Experts put the demand down to the credit crunch, with green-fingered residents wanting to produce home-grown, organic produce.

Seaforth and Litherland Allotment Association, Beach Road, currently has 58 people waiting for one of 89 plots. The public perception of allotments as older-male dominated places has changed in recent years.”

Abstracted from

http://icseftonandwestlancs.icnetwork.co.uk/icbootle/news/tm_headline=gardeners-facing-growing-pains-over-bootle-allotments&method=full&objectid=22908750&siteid=60252-name_page.html

As suggested recently for the eager growers of Formby, garden sharing – as pioneered by GardenLend.co.uk – might go some way to solve their plight. To join, just go to http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/ or the North West section specifically at Board index ‹ Gardens Wanted ‹ North West and post a request.

Allotments in the Bootle area may be found at:http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?near=Bootle,+UK&geocode=&q=allotments&f=l&sll=53.4457,-2.98909&sspn=0.131479,0.363922&ie=UTF8&ll=53.506018,-3.014374&spn=0.505564,1.455688&t=h&z=10

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Well, it just goes to show how unaware you can be: I just found out that October 1st was “World Vegetarian Day.”  What a relief that I did not miss out on the whole month.

More info at: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/world-vegetarian-day.html

“What”, I hear you cry, “has this to do with me?”  Well, quite a bit.

A vegetarian diet is good for you because:

• It is healthier – processed foods are just not as good for you
• It takes far more cow food to feed a cow only to eat it than is required to gain the same nutrition by people eating the grain and cereal crop - and cutting out the middle cow from the cycle of birth, exploitation, death, use of dwindling resources and general rumination
• the Bible tells us so; as do most religious texts if you squint at them hard enough with the lights low
• it is far easier to grow plants to eat than to have a cow wandering around your back garden, although possibly not as much fun in the short term

Since the chances of finding someone willing to make garden-space for your errant bovine is limited to the point of extreme unlikelihood, why not instead offer to grow plants, fruits and flowers in their garden?  The garden gets to look better and become productive, you all have a nice warm feeling like you have just eaten the Ready Brek kid and helped save the world and the cow gets to roam freely elsewhere.  All this and the added health benefits thrown in for free.  What are you waiting for – some gun-toting longhorn to rally the sleeping herds?

Another benefit – you can even get to cook and eat the resulting produce.  Some fab recipe books are to be found in our shop.  Please drop by and have a look around.

Thanks for bearing with me, please join GardenLend, if only for the cows …

Ian

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Shun meat, says UN climate chief

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website Livestock production has a bigger climate impact than transport, the UN believes People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist. Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening. UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. (Full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7600005.stm) All of which begs the question: where shall we all plant these vegetables?  Somewhere close to home, further reducing carbon emissions? Answers on a postcard, or at least on a forum – http://join.gardenlend.co.uk/ immediately springs to mind.

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Well, now that summer is well and truly upon us, as evinced by the appalling weather, all thoughts of global warming, imminent environment and economic disaster and who is doing what to whom on Big EastOaksDale Street are far from our febrile imaginings and we return once again to the thorny subject of growing food and the even thornier issue of controlling weeds.

The battlefield that is the allotment is flourishing: on one side, crowds of courgettes, avalanches of aubergines, kit bags of kale, tonnes of tomatoes, farragoes of French beans, regiments of runner beans, plenty of peas, battalions of beetroot, phalanxes of fennel, legions of lettuce and rocket; ranked in opposition are nettle Ninjas, throngs of thistles and encircled by brigades of brambles, all convulsed by Convolvulus. 

Into this maelstrom, I – the brave Ulysses of the piece – must venture, mattock and secateurs at the ready, with only a watering can for reinforcements, and – if I am lucky – a pair of gardening gloves to keep skin and bone together.

Heartened by the weekly broadcasts of Garrison Keillor with the news from Lake Wobegon online at http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/ I survey the allotment, making a note of my foes arrayed against me and the means and methods of overcoming their collective, joint and several baleful influences on my good nature and that of the plot where we grow food.  Immediately, an idea springs to mind: is it possible to eat *all* this stuff – weeds and all?  Hence the first Competition:

Competition #1

Which “weeds” can be eaten, how should they be prepared / cooked and what precautions should be taken to avoid heartburn, indigestion, flared (or drainpipe) ulcers and death?

Competition #2

Shortly after this flash of inspiration, the answers to which might be found in “Food for Free” by Richard Mabey, available from our shop, another question comes to mind: what on earth is that plant?

As you can see from the photo, it is rather larger than a domestic car, although perspective may have something to do with that; a more detailed photograph is available here.  It appeared first a year or so ago and its roots go somewhere down into the very depths of Abaddon, or at least under a neighbouring buried railway sleeper, and so is a bit of a challenge when it comes to removal.  Does anyone have any ideas what it is, if it is edible and – if so – any recipes for it?

Prize(s)

For both competitions, please post answers as comments.  Should either of these questions be satisfactorily resolved, the winner(s) will have a nice, warm glow in the knowledge that they have helped us and our readers find a better use for weeds generally and this Behemoth specifically.  As well as this feeling gained from the philanthropic sharing of horticultural and culinary knowledge, a permanent link will be placed on this site to a (suitable – Editor’s discretion prevails) site or blog of the winner’s choice, as well as the responses being made available on the blog, at which for all to marvel in awe-struck astonishment.

That’s the news from the allotment where all the vegetables are thriving, the weeds are threatened and the what’s-its-name is plain mysterious.  (Apologies G.K.)

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