Into the New Year 2020

 Saved succulent offsets

A ‘Gift Free’ Christmas has always been popular with me. I’ve been practising it since the 1970’s and have no intention of stopping. The problem is that most people have now caught on to my methods and I didn’t even find a pair of socks, jar of pickled onions or lump of coal in my stocking from anyone last week. Whatever happened to “It’s better to give than receive?” Still, what can you get for the man who has everything?

Now the Festive fuss and fun has died down we can look forward to ringing in the New Year. After that it’s time make and break our resolutions. Mine this year is to avoid any stress and unnecessary pressure. I’ll give myself a week. 

The first job of the New Year for a lot of us will be to take the tree to the recycling centres dotted around the peninsula. We have until the 5^th or 6^th of January to get the decorations down so there’s no rush. 

Composting

There are plenty of things produced over the holiday you can compost. A majority of leftover trimmings can go in the bin as well as non-plastic wrapping paper and uneaten food (as long as you have a lid and base to keep the mice out). You can even put old Quality St wrappers in the compost as these are apparently made from biodegradable cellulose. I generally find the best use for the wrappers is covering broken tail lights on cars. I was thinking of putting different colours on each glasses lens, casting some Kool & The Gang and pretending I’m at a disco. I’m easily entertained.

Neglecting

I’ve neglected a couple of things in the garden this year. My asparagus was coming along really well after growing it on from seed for three years. This year was supposed to be the harvesting year but I inadvertently covered the plants with a few barrow loads of soil. I managed to dig up the roots and transplant them in the polytunnel but these soft juicy treats proved to be too tempting for Chips the dog. She managed to dig the roots up and eat them in one of her bored spells.

The other is an annual neglect. I forgot to get most of my established succulents in before the frost came and now they are just mounds of slimy grey brown mush. I have a few large plants that survived and also saw this scenario coming so took loads of offsets and planted them up under protection in cell trays before the frost came so all is not lost. My cacti are all doing well as I put those in the house just at the end of summer.

Protecting

It might be an idea to protect alpines if you have them in the garden. These plants are really sturdy and hardy to frost, coming from high up in the mountains. It’s the wet that kills them though so if you can cover the really vulnerable ones up with a bit of glass or Perspex this might help to keep them from rotting. Having a well-drained sandy soil is good too as well as having small gravel around the plant so they are not sitting on wet ground.

Planting

Bare root fruit trees and bushes are now available. Raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrant bushes can go in as well as apple, pear and cherry trees. You might like to try putting in a plum tree too.

When planting trees it’s been well documented that we should backfill the planting hole with the original soil without any embellishments like manure or compost as this doesn’t give the tree roots any incentive to spread out into poorer soil away from the planting hole. This is called the ‘container effect’. 

It turns out that digging a round hole for the tree to be planted in also gives the roots a poor start. The roots have a tendency to get to the perimeter of the loosely filled soil in the hole and then spiral around the edge where it meets the regular un-dug soil instead of branching out.

There is a solution. Dig a square hole. 

Research has found that roots aren’t very good at going around 90 degree corners so when they hit the edge of the square they carry on in a straight line making inroads into the soil further away which helps support and feed the tree. I see an experiment coming on.

Tofurkey for Christmas Dinner - How did that happen?

 Tofurkey (wiki)

I’m not too sure how it’s happened but we seem to have gone vegan for our Christmas dinner. 

If I think about it this has been creeping up on us for years and with less and less young ones eating anything meat or dairy it’s just been a natural progression.  It was many years ago we offered a nut roast as a side dish and since then the meat has slowly made its way off the table.

We usually shy away from making vegetarian or vegan dishes to resemble meat. Not everyone likes the feel or taste of meat so why try and replicate it in a burger or sausage?  For the festive meal though we have decided to try something called a “Tofurkey” and made an exception to the non-meat flavoured dish. 

This actually does taste like turkey. We didn’t want to be bringing anything to the table which had been shop bought so looked up a tofu recipe and settled for this one.  The reason we know it tastes like turkey is because we have done a trial run. The loaf shaped tofurkey has an outside of spiced tofu and the inside is a stuffing flavoured with sage and thyme herbs from the garden which give it that festive smell and taste. Meat and tofu don’t generally taste of anything, it’s the flavourings, herbs and spices that enhance it and in our experiments this seems to be the case as we basted it with more flavours including soy sauce every fifteen minutes in its 2 hour oven cooking time which gave it a lovely rich colour. We offered out samples to the kids and they all loved it. We just have to recreate one for the big meal. 

It’s at times like this I really appreciate the pots and planted herbs in the garden. Fresh leaves really enhance any meal. They can even be used as table decorations for the Christmas meal.

Table Runner Weight

In the past we have used clip on tablecloth runners. Our regular ones are made from ceramic lemons but have you thought about making small posies out of fresh foliage?

Aromatic, shrubby evergreen herbs, such as rosemary, sage and bay, and winter foliage, such as Eucalyptus, Pittosporum and Sarcococca, are all suited to this mini-posy. They can either be pinned to the side cloth draping over the table or just put around the corners of the table.

Leave the rosemary and Eucalyptus sprigs to rest in water for 24 hours before arranging. Allow to dry then form into a small posy. Tie together with twine, leaving a long piece at each end to attach to the table linen.

Gather the table runner at the top end of the table and position your posy just short of the table top. Tie it to the linen with the twine.

To stop it moving, secure the posy to the table runner and tablecloth at the back with a safety pin.

Festive Wine Glass

Decorative winter foliage can be used in many ways. Create simple, thoughtful Christmas table decorations by adding scented foliage to glasses or napkins. To transform your wine or champagne glasses, use soft, small-leaved stems of Eucalyptus or choose sprigs of scented, winter-flowering shrubs such as Christmas box (Sarcococca).

Decorate Chairs

Add an extra touch to your Christmas table decorations by adding something extra your dining chairs too. Tie ribbons around them, adorn them with mini wreaths made from evergreens from the garden or just simply hang a few of fir branches off the back. It might not last long, but looks lovely for the big day and it can all be composted after the event.

One item I shy away from on the festive table are lit candles. They do tend to get in the way when you are passing around the bowls of vegetables and bread sauce.

Home Grown

The only home grown vegetables on our plates this week will be broccoli as my Brussels didn’t come on well enough. Root vegetables come into their own for the Christmas dinner but I don’t really grow any. Carrots, parsnips and potatoes all go well and for this you’ll need a bit of forward planning. Seeds of these are usually sown in March/April time so one job to do over the holidays is go through the seed catalogues and pick out what you want to grow in the veggie patch. It’s handy to have an idea of long term planning when you look through the list. 

Pea Milk

 Some of the huge range of milk alternatives

At one time, being sent to the shop by your parents to buy milk was an easy job. You only had to ask if you needed to get full fat or semi skimmed. I don’t think gold top has been an option for quite some time but I remember it was always the bottles the birds pecked the silver foil off in winter when the bottles sat on the doorstep. 

If someone asks you to get milk now the choice is enough to bring you out in a cold sweat.  The choice of dairy-free milk drinks has grown massively over the last few years. It’s debatable (in court probably) if manufacturing companies can actually call their plant based products ‘milk’ as such but it’s in the public domain now so it’ll most likely stay.

 We have a choice of almond milk, oat milk, coconut milk, rice milk, hemp milk, soy milk as well as other nuts, macadamia, hazelnut and cashew. 

Plant-based milk sales are on the rise, while sales of traditional dairy milk continue to decline, although sales of yogurt and cheese are staying strong. Recent research from Nielsen has found that the plant-based milk category is up 3.1% since last year, while cow’s milk sales are down about 5% over the same period. According to research from 2016, almond milk is the top-selling milk substitute with sales growth of 250 % from 2011 to 2015.

I’ve tried and bought all of the variations. I’m usually influenced by two factors, one is price – I go for the special offers, and the other is that they don’t contain sugar to make them sweet. I always go back to soya milk and the cartons I buy are sweetened with apple juice. The others are sweetened with sugar which is the second highest ingredient and that doesn’t suit me.  They are often found in the fridge section of the supermarkets/shops. If you have a vegan lifestyle or are allergic to either dairy or nuts the choice of regular milk and alternatives can be a bit limiting too.

Some people can’t drink some of those milks mentioned due to nut or soy allergies. Some aren’t good for the environment: Almond milk production uses a lot of water to produce the finished product and there is a concern about the estrogen-like compounds in soy. Oat milk seems to come out the best for environmental impact and seems particularly popular among vegans, according to PETA, thanks to its slight natural sweetness, neutral flavour and consistency.

Pea Milk

Just when you thought the choice was daunting enough, along comes a newcomer -Pea Milk. (Supress the giggles please).  There were talks about changing the name at one stage as producers didn’t think the idea of drinking ‘pea’ sounded very appealing. Thankfully they realised people could spell and kept the name and because it’s a creamy white colour you don’t have to drink green goo.

This one appeals to me because as gardeners it’s great to know that we can make this at home. The same can be said for oats and soy but you’d need a fair size plot or field to grow enough to process. The drink is made from yellow split peas which grow the same as regular peas. It’s a different process to almond milk production and it’s claimed that it takes 100x less water to grow the peas rather than farming almonds and25x less water than farming dairy. 

I bought my first carton and chose the unsweetened one. It’s a bit like the Barista oat milk which is used for coffee and has a rich creamy texture. I really want to like it more than soya but I think it’s a bit of an acquired taste in both drinks and porridge.

Pea milk claims to be free from diary, nuts and soy which pleases most groups and takes far less energy to produce. It has 8g of protein per glass (8x more than almond milk) 40 % less sugar than cow’s milk and twice the calcium of cow's milk. It’s also high in fibre and low in saturated fat. The peas themselves are also high in the amino acid lysine (a building block of protein) as well as iron. it makes a very pleasing, creamy bananas and custard too.

Fortification

Plant milk doesn't always offer us all of the nutrients that cow's milk does, so for people who are vegan or can't consume dairy because they're lactose intolerant, they are encouraged  to check the labels for fortification. Plant-based milks are not required to be fortified,

Fortification is the process in which vitamins and minerals are added to the base product. Some are fortified with calcium, Vitamin D and B12, but this doesn't mean to say that all pea milk products will be.

There's no right or wrong when it comes to choosing milk to suit your lifestyle, it's a judgement call. Like most things, some products are less environmentally damaging than others.

Rewilding in Inishowen

 Photo: Photo courtesy of Adam Rory Porter Photography Buncrana

Rewilding. What’s that?

The term ‘Rewilding’ pretty much encapsulates anything that encourages wildlife to thrive. With careful management initially areas can also become a self-sustaining ecosystem. But it is a bit more complicated than that (like most things are) 

While the word has been around since the early 1990s and included three necessary components: Cores (i.e. core areas where nature is strictly protected), Corridors (to link the cores to each other) and Carnivores – the three ‘C’s.  

The term never went beyond the academic world of conservation biology until George Monbiot published his 2013 book ‘Feral’, and worked its way into the public imagination.

There is a temptation to omit the ‘c’ for carnivore. There was a failed experiment in the Netherlands where the ‘rewilding’ didn’t include carnivores and kept herds of horses behind a fence (leading to overgrazing and starvation of the animals) has done more harm than good for the concept.

Most would agree that for it to be real ‘rewilding’ it has to be big – landscape level; it has to include reintroducing species driven to extinction by people; and it has to steer the land so that, in effect, it has control of itself – something which is sometimes referred to as ‘self-willed land’. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the case as we are encouraged to rewild our own back gardens by being more tolerant of wildlife and careful maintenance and planting.

New relationship with nature

Padraic Fogarty writing in GreenNews.ie thinks that trying to reassemble our collapsed ecosystems is an enormous task.

He thinks that one of the principle arguments from some detractors is that we cannot simply walk away from our landscapes to be overrun with invasive species or with nothing to keep a lid on deer numbers.

They have a point – for the foreseeable future there will be a need for people to be involved in the land: helping to remove barriers on rivers and restoring floodplains, re-profiling mined-out bogs to hold onto water, eradicating rhododendron, converting conifer monocultures to native woodlands and monitoring populations of reintroduced species.

And this is good news for landowners – rewilding has enormous employment opportunities and is a chance to reverse rural decline. Another big objection is that rewilding is the opposite of farming and that its supporters want to see swathes of the country ‘abandoned’.

Yes, farm animals, and sheep, in particular, will need to be removed from large areas, especially in the uplands. But our landscape is diverse enough so that this would not exclude small-scale farmers producing, say, high-end organic beef, artisanal dairy products, or honey.

Rewildling can exist – as it does in many European countries – in a mosaic with these small producers. And, of course, ‘real’ rewildling would be a boon for tourism.

Wild Ireland

One person who has been aware of rewilding even before the term was created is zoologist Killain Mclaughlin from Buncrana. Ever since he was young Killian wanted to create a haven for wildlife.

I’m sure you have already heard that this has been made a reality. Wild Ireland is a wildlife sanctuary in Dundrain, Burnfoot and is set in 23 acres of ground.  Introduced in the sanctuary are animals that had been rescued from dangerous or unsuitable places and working with three international charities Killian has even rescued three bears.

Killian has spent over six years transforming the site into the perfect habitat for the return of other animals. Along with the bears. Lynx, wolves boars and deer all roam free. All the animals were native to Ireland, but they were hunted to extinction or went extinct due to habitat loss. There are also Barbary Macaque monkeys that were living in Ireland according to archaeological digs and you’ll see those in the sanctuary too.

Killian says that just a few centuries ago, Ireland was clothed in a thick blanket of Temperate Celtic Rainforest. Due to destruction and deforestation, this woodland has all but disappeared, in a small pocket of remaining woodland on the Inishowen peninsula, the hands of time have been rolled back to an era were ferocious beasts ruled the Irish countryside. 

Here they live in their natural habitat in the temperate rainforest.

Lots of wild birds also call Wild Ireland home and the beautiful lake is home to swans, ducks and even a cheeky pair of otters.

There is a lot to see and do for children too, take the fairy trail around the rainforest, be delighted with tales of ancient folklore, play in our state of the art play park and finish off with some tasty treats from the Wild Ireland Shop and café.

If you would like more information go to their website www.wildireland.org

Treasures in the Garden

If you bury your memories, make sure they are sealed up

My motivation for vacuuming the house is that I get to keep any money I find. 

Granted it’s never that much, but the odd fifty cent piece pays for an ice cream every now and then. I also have the same policy when getting the washing out of the machine. Any stray coins in the drain hole are mine. 

It’s also a great feeling to unearth something from the depths of the sofa and the same feeling applies to when you find a hidden treasure in the garden. There are stories of people finding gold coins, wedding rings attached to carrots and maybe an ancient standing stone that was covered over by accident when the house was built. My sister in law found a buried WW2 bomb shelter in her garden which was a bit of a surprise.

Of course most of us don’t really find anything other than an old rusty garden trowel, which in a way might be a good thing. If I think about what I’ve buried in gardens in the past then these items are best left untouched. I’ve lost count of the number of pets that have gone into the ground. There was a survey done by Primrose not too long ago and found 44% of people have buried cats and dogs, birds, rabbits and fish take up 26% and a worrying 27% of people surveyed said the things the bury in the garden are ‘Undisclosed’ 

Other things people bury range from a piano frame, letters to their future selves, broken baths, bananas to ward off verruca’s to an old hard drive and even the ‘husbands dinner’

I’ve laid a few other things to rest over the years other than the family pets. When I was pre-teen I had a bit of a thing for burying Action Men in the garden. It’s no doubt an indication of my adolescent state of mind as I tended to torture them first with fire and then seal them up in plastic. Die cast cars and plastic soldiers got the same treatment and are no doubt still in their resting places. I’m sure there’s a Netflix series in there somewhere. 

As I got a bit older (not much) I then resorted to burying packs of Number 10 cigarettes in our local park on the way home from school so my mother wouldn’t find them on me when I got home for my tea. I’d dig them up again in the morning on the way to the bus stop and take up the back seat of the double decker puffing away like crazy until getting to school then repeating the same thing on the way home.

Only 4% of people asked in the survey buried time capsules for their children and grandchildren. It’s probably the equivalent of bookmarking something on the computer now but putting together time capsules used to be very exciting events. I remember the fuss and fanfare when Blue Peter buried their tin of historical items back in 1971. John Noakes Valerie Singleton and Peter Pervis put in photos of themselves along with some tapes and decimal coins. It was dug up recently and nothing had survived the damp and microbes. 

There have been a couple buried since and hopefully they learned to seal the containers with more than Sellotape. The middle box contained such treasures as hairs from Goldie the Blue Peter Labrador, a record of the programme's theme tune arranged by Mike Oldfield and video footage of the moving of Petra's statue who was the shows first pet dog from 1962 (to 1977). 

The last capsule buried in 1998 is called the Millennium Time Capsule. As well as containing Blue Peter items including a badge and history of the programme, the capsule also contains a set of Teletubby dolls, an insulin pen and a France '98 football. The time capsule will be opened in 2050. If you can’t wait that long until it’s unveiled I’m sure you’ll find some images to look at on your phone.

There are stories of people finding complete cars, loaded guns; hand grenades even planes in their garden but as the Blue Peter capsules show, most things are reclaimed pretty quickly when buried into the earth, unless it’s plastic that just gets smaller and smaller until it enters the food chain.

Everything you dig up in the garden will have a story behind it. If you find an old scorched Action Man with its elasticated limbs dislodged wrapped in plastic, spare a thought for the angst of childhood.