With Christmas just around the corner, the discerning foodie will already be planning from where to source the best festive produce. This year they need look no further than Localfoodshop, where more than 200 producers have nearly 4000 products to choose from. Have a look at http://www.bigbarn.co.uk/ and let yourself be dazzled by the amount of local producers at your fingertips.
Grow your own food in your apartment year round
In February 2009, through a residency at Eyebeam, Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray began to build and test the first Window Farms prototype. Growing food inside NY apartments is a challenge, but within reach. The foundational knowledge base is emerging through working with agricultural, architectural and other specialists, collecting sensor data, and reinterpreting hydroponics research conducted by NASA scientists and marijuana farmers.
We have been researching and developing hydroponic designs that are inexpensive and made from relatively inexpensive materials. The working prototype is a drip system made from recycled water bottles, holding 25 plants. Beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, arugula, basil, lettuce and kale are thriving.
Looking around my allotment complex you can see daily people walking up and down with wood to make their own raised beds. The end result can be very successful. Not all of us have time or expertese to make this in one's own backgardens. Now Recycle Works has come up with a very aestetically pleasing, very flexible Raised Garden Plots . For those of you that have a little bit more space this might be just the thing to start your own mini allotment in your own garden or back yard and compost at the same time!Wooden Raised Beds
These easy to assemble garden plots comprises 8 pointed posts - ready for knocking into the ground and eight sides boards.Special Offer! For a limted period of time, this product is available with a 10% discount.To purchase with the discount, please visit the Special Offers section. Watch a video review of our raised beds courtesy of http://www.gardencentretv.co.uk/ Price £53.34
I am a participant at the Hive business incubator at Nottingham Trent University is working towards setting up a locally sourced (reduced food miles) and environmentally friendly supermarket, hopefully in Nottingham. As part of the market research, there is a web survey which includes a chance to win £25. With the growing green community in Nottingham, this project may be of interest.
As many responses as possible are needed,. so please complete the survey and then forward it on to friends, family and colleagues. There is a £25 prize for one lucky respondent in a prize draw when the survey closes, so please do take part! It's a straightforward questionnaire taking around 5 minutes to complete.
Here's the link:
Kind regards
Helen Pack
helenpack@hotmail.com
Abundance is a project to harvest the seasonal glut of local fruit like apples, pear and plums. Each year hundreds of fruit trees go unpicked either because people don’t notice them, may not be physically able to harvest them or there are just too many fruits at one time. Abundance is a team of volunteers who have been helping harvest city fruit and redistributing the surplus to the community on a non-profit basis - to community cafes, nurseries, Surestarts and individuals. Abundance has been distributing free fresh fruit around the streets of central Sheffield and Meadowhall Shopping Centre from the custom designed mobile fruit unit. We have also juiced tonnes of fruit and made jams, pickles and preserves. Abundance contines through the seasonal cycle with planting and pruning workshops. Click here for info and pics on Abundance 07/08.
contact: abundance@growsheffield.com
If you have a fruit tree and want help with harvesting please contact us – you will get the first share. If you are interested in becoming an urban harvester or want to help with picking, distribution or processing please get in touch. Volunteers have the pleasure of eating fresh, ripe fruit from the tree, finding out more about urban food growing and working alongside enthusiastic people of all ages. Volunteers need to have some free time between August and the end of October. Please also contact us if you would like to receive fresh fruit for your group or neighbourhood.
Abundance 07/08 was made possible with funding from Arts Council (Yorkshire) and South Yorkshire Community Foundation.
Get a taste of some country life this summer with our ultimate guide to picking your own
A is for Air miles. Picking your own fruit is a great way of cutting down on air-freighted food. In fact, the only fruit miles you’ll clock up are the ones you make to the farm.
taken from the BBC green website
Well now is your chance to find out!
Join us for a week of eating only local organic food, free from plastic packaging to highlight to government that they need to act now to reform our food system
Between Saturday 6 and Sunday 21 September, during Organic Food Fortnight and when food is at its most abundant in the UK, we ask you, for one week, to only eat food from a selection of the following sources:
a. Organically grown: UK food without plastic packaging if it is organically grown on British soil, it qualifies, but obviously the more local the better. Plastic packaging is out.
b. Foraged food: food growing wild and abundantly all over the UK free rich pickings!
c. Self-grown food: any food you, your friends or family ha ve grown.
Advice and support on sourcing food will be given throughout, and all participants will be encouraged to keep a diary of their experiences over the week on our website, not only to share experiences, ideas and advice, but to highlight to policy makers how difficult it is to do something which should be easy to live off food from your own soil.
Take action!
1) Sign up to take this action at http://www.pledgebank.com/eatthechange or http://apps.facebook.com/pledgebank/eatthechange
2) Ask your friends and family to support you by also signing up!
3) Let your community, local shops, press and decision-makers know what you're doing
4) Nearer the time check out our website for advice and tips on what to eat and where to find it (we'll email the website address to you)
5) Share your experiences on our website in solidarity with others and to let decision-makers know how hard it is for us to eat sustainably in the absence of policy change.
For more information, email saoirse@justfortheloveofit.org
This is recycling on a massive scale and answers the question “What do you do with old 747s?”
An entrepreneur in Korea has recycled a Boeing 747 jet liner into a restaurant!! Located in Mokpo City, It holds 150 tables and provides an unusual eating experience. The daily specials menu is located on the front of one of the wing jet engines so that you can work out what you might order while making your way up the stairs.
From the photos this doesn’t look like one of the most classy renovations (it could do with a lick of paint), but it is certainly an interesting use for these massive redundant structures.
[Via Newlaunches.com ]
On the day the UK Government tells Britons to stop wasting food, we thought you might like to know about a very practical solution for the home.
Count On It™ is a small circular date label which you stick on your food packaging (or containers) when you put them in your fridge or freezer.
We throw away over 4 million tonnes of food a year (about £420 per family)so anything which might help reduce this has got to help the environment and our pockets.
Count On It™ labels use a ‘scratch-off’ system which means you don’t need to hunt for a pen. Just scratch off the month, then the date (which show up in florescent pink), pop them onto your food and you will always know when you stored the item. They come in a small, recyclable, box which you can keep in your fridge and cost £1.99 (plus P&P) for 25 labels. If they help you not throw away a couple of food items, because you can't remember how old they are, these little labels will pay for themselves quickly.
Their advantages include:
It is not very often that we have the chance to have a BBQ as the weather is so changeable. But when we do, it is a wonderful event. Unfortunately very often it means being less than green, whereas it could easily be different so you can enjoy your food in harmony with nature.
The EarthBox is simply the easiest gardening system ever developed. It automatically grows bumper crops of vegetables, flowers, and herbs - anywhere you want - without any work or gardening experience!
No gardening experience required
As easy as "Just Adding Water"
Guaranteed higher yields
Self-watering, self-feeding
Grows anywhere where there is sunlight
100% natural and Earth-friendly
No weeding http://www.earthbox.co.uk/
We are expection Eric from the Earth box at Saturday's Summer Gathering, so if you would like to get your hands on one soon, pop by in Bridgford Park between 10-2pm
The online retailer is Harrod Horticultural, www.harrodhorticultural.co.uk, their telephone number is 0845 402 5300.
Cook only one night a week.
You want to prepare exciting, nutritious meals throughout the week, but busy schedules often mean the same ho-hum recipes. Wouldn't it be nice to have a fresh, home-cooked supper delivered a few nights a week? A cooking co-op could be the answer, and it's easier to set up than you might think.
The idea is pretty simple, you cook a big meal once a week to share with your co-op and, depending on the number of people in your group, you get two or three in return. That means you save trips to the supermarket and really only mess up the kitchen once. For the rest of the week take advantage of leftovers or prepare simpler meals.
The co-op meals usually consist of a soup, main dish, vegetable, and starch. In addition to saving money, a co-op allows a family to consistently eat a wider variety of foods and time spent in the kitchen drops dramatically."
Handy tips on starting a co-op,Getting Started:
Food Preparation:
We have featured recyclable tableware previously on the EcoList, but are always looking out for new items and found these. Edible tableware by Rice-Design.
Created by Japanese designer Nobuhiko Arikawa for the Orto Cafe in Japan the pieces are made from hardtack, a biscuit dough made from flour, water and salt which was traditionally used as dry emergency rations at sea.
No news of them being commercially available but nice to know that someone helping to reduce the plastic plate pile!
More details from www.dezeen.com
[Via: Hippy Shopper ]
Off to the supermarket today? While you are there buy an extra bag of groceries and when you get home put it straight in the bin!
It sounds an impressive waste of money and resources but, sadly, this is what we do as a nation! It seems we throw away a third of the food we buy and most of it is still usable. During a week when most of us buy more food than at any other time in the year, we would like to remind you of the reduction of waste. This timely snippet of information just helps to highlight the problem.
A new website has been launched to offer help and advice. "Love Food Hate Waste" is packed full of information, facts, case studies from real people and a mouth watering selection of recipes to help you cook without waste.
Bookmark http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/
Another simple and easy to use site which sells cutlery and tableware made from natural starch and fibres.
These are made from plastarch material (PSM) and are heat resistant up to 105 c. They also appear to be very robust.
What is brilliant about them is that they are made from annually renewable resources and are 100% biodegradable. Have a look round Vegwar’s site for plates, napkins, bowls and a host of other biodegradable products. They also have a very useful directory of eco and green suppliers and sites. Well worth a visit.
http://www.vegware.co.uk/
If you would like to find out more about biodynamic food and farming methods come along to some of the organised events.
Sat 6th Oct - Borough Food Market, London SE1
11am - The Official Launch of the fortnight will be by the renowned chef Michel Roux who runs the highly acclaimed Michelin three star restaurant "Le Gavroche" in Mayfair. Michel Roux says "I serve biodynamic meat to my customers and eat it myself all the time, the taste and texture is like nothing I've tasted before".
Biodynamic foods will be available for sale or to sample on the day from the following Demeter Producers -
- Cheese and meat from Old Plaw Hatch, E Sussex
- Vegetables from Fern Verrow, Herefordshire
- Juice and apples from Tablehurst Orchard, East Sussex
- Bread from Artisan Bread, KentTastings: Hampstead Tea, Artisan Bread, Pageant Wines
- on our info stand in the heart of the market plus biodynamic skin care samples from Martina Gerbhadrt Rolling programme of talks and presentations on aspects of biodynamic food production at No 1 Cathedral St
- close to the Market: Speakers confirmed :
12.45 Ian Bell of Heritage Prime, Dorset
13.15 Monty Waldin author of Biodynamic Wines
13.45 Wendy Cook author of 'The Biodynamic Food and Cookbook'
14.15 Anastasia Druitt from the Biodynamic Land Fund
14.45 Kiran Tawadey of Hampstead Tea, London
15.15 Ingrid Greenfield from Artisan Bread, Kent
15.45 Panel and closing of the day
Throughout the Fortnight a series of local events will be taking place - see our website at http://www.biodynamic.org.uk/ for a full list of what is happening in your area.
The Biodynamic Food Fortnight will conclude at the Mind, Body and Spirit Festival in Manchester where top Indian chef Cyrus Todiwala (Cafe Spice Namaste) and Chris King a top chef from Le Gavroche kitchens will be operating cookery demonstrations with biodynamic fruits, herbs and vegetables compared by Denise Bell Biodynamic Farmer.
Biodynamic Food Fortnight is Sponsored by: Elysium, Heritage Prime & Demeter Germany
It seems that more than half of Britain’s children have no idea where British food originates – 57% can’t tell you where haggis is from! Around 54% do not know that pasties are from Cornwall and a whopping 80% did not know that hotpot originates from Lancashire.
These are the results of research carried out for British Food Fortnight by EdComs in July this year. Alexia Robinson, from British Food Fortnight commented: "We desperately need to re-engage children with the pleasures of eating quality, fresh, seasonal and regionally distinct produce. The consequences of this lack of awareness among our children could be monumental, from obesity to falling sales for great British products."
[Via the Guardian]
There is a wealth of outlets in and around Nottinghamshire where you can buy local produce, some of which is grown to organic standards. These include farm shops, butchers, local markets, tea shops and farmers markets. Many of these outlets are listed in a publication, Notts Nosh, which is a directory of over 50 establishments selling locally produced food or drink, based in and around the county.To order your copy, tel: 0115 977 4222.
