A firm brush and the fibres soon start to separate
Here is a top tip I wrote which appears in the latest edition of Permaculture Magazine, out now.
“One of the key frustrations about the end of the summer months is stringy runner beans. You nurture them, weed them, give them a frame to climb up, yet by the end of the season, many of them are tough, fibrous, and inedible. Last summer, I sat with a large trug of large, stringy runners, thinking of a use for them other than the compost heap. The solution came to me after reading John Paul Flintoff’s ‘Through the Eye of a Needle‘. I have discovered a way of extracting those fibres that prove so hard to digest, in a way that they are actually useful. Here’s how.
Here is another great short film by the nu-project folks, this time documenting the recent Seedy Saturday event that took place in Totnes, a fantastic event. Enjoy!
I was disappointed to read Mark Lynas’s piece in New Statesman, “Why We Greens Keep Getting It Wrong”. The piece builds on Lynas’s previous much publicised conversion to nuclear power, arguing that if we are to apply the scientific rigour that underpins climate science to all other areas of life, in the same way that nuclear power is supported by the science, so is GM. While I strongly disagree with him on both, I want here to challenge Lynas’s conversion to GM, and the belief that if we are serious about climate change, we have no option other than to embrace GM.
We’ve got so many wonderfully diverse and inspiring activities to show you this month…ideas for getting people involved and having fun! And they’re here for the sharing…
In the UK, TT Luton is organising a series of Grow Your Own events to relocalise food production and consumption, with discussions and a quiz to encourage people to grow their own fruit and vegetables, while Southend-on-Sea in Transition organised a day’s introduction to Permaculture with more events lined up that you’re invited to get involved with. TT Leek is getting hold of allotments and orchards so they can plant more trees and increase production of native British apple varieties, while TT Nailsea is sharing its gardening skills with other local people to increase self-sufficiency in food production, strengthen local resilience and encourage people to think more about their carbon footprints.
Those good folks at the nu-project are going great guns, acting as ‘embedded film-makers’ in Totnes… I just wish we had had them around from the very start, what an amazing record it would have been… anyway, here is their latest, a short film about the nut tree plantings that have been taking place in Totnes this winter….
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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