Planting and sowing has been haywire this year,  The dry early season start  was not so bad, but meant hand watering outdoor seedlings in March.  May on the other hand has been wet and windy, so much so that I delayed sowing  many items, and my dwarf peach tree has only just gone outside, possibly too late for fruit this year.

As always it has been a  mixed lot of results so far. The salsify and shallots are looking excellent. Both have recently been weeded.  The peas I sowed in pots and transplanted out are looking OK, but the direct sowed maincrop Rondo are a total loss - I suspect the mice are happy though.   The spring wheat is not obliging, but the oats are making headway now.

We've been cutting asparagus for a couple of weeks, and just started pulling rhubarb.  The strawberries have plenty of flowers on them and we could be eating them in around 6 weeks time.  The overwintered broad beans look healthy and have flowers but there is little sign of pods forming.  Usualy we start picking in the third week of May, but that seems unliklely this year.

I have aquired a 'free' second hand greenhouse approximately 5 m by 2m in bits. I am awaiting spare parts and  a lull in the work schedule before putting it up.  As you can see below we have also put up another crop protection thing, just in time for planting out brassicas.

   
It's arrived                                In the carport to keep dry        Checking the parts
     
A plot I prepared earlier        Helen stakes the edges          The stakes are in

 
Jobs for the whole family                                          The first arch is up

 
The finshed  item 12 m long, covered in mesh to keep out pests and reduce wind a bit.  Unlike the rigid design of polytunnels, this is very flexible.  There are no permanent fixings, so it can be dismantled and moved without much difficutly.

   
A slow worm                          Pumpkins to plant out              Alpine strawberry
    

last years salsify for seed      main crop potatoes                  asparagus for dinner, again.

I get a lot of meeting events and posts on Facebook.  This one may be of interest to some who read this journal.  I have no idea which peson of group are behind it.

12 MAY GLOBAL SPRING IS THE DAY WHEN WE ALL TAKE OUR FREEDOM TO EXPRESS THE NEED FOR THE CHANGE THE DIFFERENCE IN JERSEY IS THAT WE DO NOT FIGHT FOR THE SAME GOALS AS IN OTHER COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD WE FIGHT FOR SOLIDARITY WITH OHER COUNTRIES FIRST OF ALL, BECAUSE WE KNOW HOW MUCH HARMFULL IS THE ISLAND SYSTEM FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD WE DISAGREE WITH THE DICTATORSHIP IN POLITICS AND ECONOMICS LAWS IN THE ISLAND WE DO NOT WANT TO ACCEPT ANY MORE THAT THE WORLD IS SUFFERING BECAUSE JERSEY'S LAWS AND GREED AGAINST ECONOMIC DICTATORSHIP, OFFSHORE TAX HAVEN, FINANCE/GREED OCCUPATION OF THE ISLAND AGAINST POLITICAL DICTATORSHIP AGAINST FOOD AND ENERGETIC CONTROL PRO NEW CONSCIOUSNESS ACCORDING ENVIRONMENTAL NEEDS PRO NEW CONSCIOUSNESS ACCORDING ALL HUMAN BEEN NEEDS PRO A PEACEFUL AND FREE REVOLUTION SPEAK UP FREE JERSEY is a network of people, who is tired of living in a system governed by the enslavement of our minds and control of our capacity as agents of the reality we live. On the island of Jersey, since the Second World War and Nazi occupation, lives a second occupation, THE GREED. This has also produced the "legality" of the political dictatorship, Lack of Freedom of Expression generalized and commonly accepted, and FEAR, real and effective, among those who do not intend to accept. How? Making the life impossible to this people, who look for the truth for the best future of the Island and are pointed as traitors. Jersey is a tax haven legalized and controlled by the Financial Net of the City of London, whose financial system has a direct impact on the life in poverty of thousands of people around the world and the precarious nature of many of the inhabitants of the island itself, which can not afford the cost of living here or are daily afraid surrounded by the censorship and the hypocrisy. The Island is full of people who represents the worst side of the RICHNESS by: High Inequality (among inhabitants and among rest of inhabitants of the World), exorbitant and irresponsible consumerism, precarious workers/slaves, political control, media control and hypocrisy.That's why is so important to be really aware what a TAX HAVEN causes. We are against POVERTY, we fight for freedom, we want to understand how works all this "magic bubble of the offshore financial system", we want to have the right to say in public "NO, WE DON'T AGREE!", we want to learn which consequences have the financial activities of the Island in the rest of the World, we want to think together a better future for the next generations, we want to end GREED, we want to start TRUTH! Whatever we are, our beliefs, our qualifications, our age, we have in common one thing: We know that the way to change the reality is first to really understand the situation and be truly AWARE. ONLY THE TRUTH, the CONSCIOUSNESS will give us FREEDOM. We probably have in common the development of our knowledge in different spheres: raising up our consciousness about Environmental Sustainability (from our own daily decisions related with Consumption -Food, Energy, Recycling...- to the global decisions like property of the resources and the used of them); Solidarity and concern about Poverty; consciousness about social issues as Education,Health, Housing and Work Rights; Real Democracy and the problem on Politic; Economy, different economic systems in place and ALTERNATIVES, and the fight against the worst governmental businesses as the WAR & TERROR, DICTATORSHIPS, NATURAL RESOURCES, ENERGY DEPENDENCY, FOOD DEPENDENCY...; and as well, our PERSONAL SPIRITUALLY DEVELOPMENT (our INNER TRUTH). Probably everything starts from the last one (our inner truth), and we have the RIGHT to be strong on that, to can afford the rest. EVERYTHING ABOVE IS INTERCONNECTED. We don't fight just for ourselves, our comfort, we want to start the change from ourselves (being very critical with our own life and our daily decisions) and extend the capacity we lucky have to fight for all these people who can not do it in the Rest of the World. WE ARE ALL ONE, EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED. In this network we want to be listened, to speak without fear, to learn, to share, to understand, to exchange. We don't pretend to be experts in anything more than in THE SEARCH OF THE TRUTH, LOVE FOR OTHER HUMAN BEEN AND THE EARTH WHERE WE LIVE , COMPASSION AND LOVE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION COMING. In the end, all this debate can help us to make the next generation understands the World from a different, advanced , improved point (s) of view which will help us on the EVOLUTION. This network is not leaded by anyone, is leaded by all of us. We refuse any way of "fight" which involves violence, VERBAL or PHYSICAL, so it includes this website and the comments, which should help to build, not to destroy. We expect RESPECT among the participants. We should be smart using this website and all we know we are afraid to take part on this, so think to who you suggest the web, who will want to join it to build something together, not boycott it or to destroy it. WE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSIONS ON ALL LEVELS, TAKING ALL RISKS, so if you are afraid of hostility with your employers, neighbors...there is an easy solution, create a SPECIFIC ACCOUNT for that, or go ahead facing it, as you want:) THERE IS A HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE, ALL DEPENDS OF US WE WERE SLEEPING, NOW WE WAKE UP

I do so love finding these parallels between seemingly  distinct and unrelated concepts.




Information, if viewed from the point of view of food, is never a production issue. … It's a consumption issue, and we have to start thinking about how we create diets [and] exercise.”

As an alternative:

Further to my recent blog piece http://st-ouennais.livejournal.com/153816.html, the Soil Association has issued a press release:

Why we need a solar-powered farming system

20 April 2012

‘Too much nitrogen harms the environment and the economy’

A new Soil Association report, to be launched next week [Wed 25 April] at a House of Commons agro-ecology event [1], calls for farming to become less dependent on manufactured nitrogen fertiliser, and makes the case for a transformation of our current farming system to one that obtains nitrogen from nitrogen-fixing legumes. New evidence suggests that systems using this type of nitrogen behave differently in terms of nitrogen retention and loss, and a move away from manufactured nitrogen would also help mitigate the climate change impact of farming and guard against the increasing cost of artificial nitrogen.

‘Too much nitrogen harms the environment and the economy’ was the key message from the recent European Nitrogen Assessment which reported a study by 200 scientists investigating the unprecedented changes humans have made to the global nitrogen cycle over the last century.

Through industrial processes, burning fossil fuels and growing crops, the supply of reactive nitrogen  into the environment has doubled in the last 100 years. The biggest source of this reactive nitrogen is from the industrial manufacture of fertiliser for farming. This energy intensive process produces high levels of nitrous oxide  and uses natural gas, a non-renewable fossil fuel, which will get more expensive as supplies get scarce. This will put an upward pressure on fertiliser and food prices and poses a long-term threat to our food security.

The report - Just say N₂O: From manufactured fertiliser to biologically-fixed nitrogen -  reviews the extent to which organic systems can meet the double challenge of reducing nitrogen losses and building stores of soil organic nitrogen in order to reduce dependency on manufactured nitrogen. The use of manufactured nitrogen is not allowed in organic systems, so inputs of nitrogen come from nitrogen fixed by legumes, often clover leys as part of a crop rotation that also controls pest and diseases.

Scientific evidence shows that the lower nitrogen inputs in organic farming can lead to lower N₂O emissions compared to non-organic farms although more research is needed in a number of key areas. We are calling on the Government to look at the issue of reducing our dependency on manufactured nitrogen, and increasing efficiency of nitrogen use, as a matter of urgency.

Emma Hockridge, head of policy at the Soil Association, said:
“We have a worrying dependence on manufactured fertiliser for our food supply. Making the most efficient use of limited nitrogen inputs will, by necessity, become a key driver for future proofing our farming systems. Current policy and proposed technological-fixes to deal with the problems caused by manufactured nitrogen are either woefully inadequate, or unlikely to deliver within the time-frame needed. Although not perfect, organic farming systems offer viable solutions to the problem of over dependence on manufactured nitrogen.”

Climate change, oil, and farmers all get in the act.




spotted via http://tomgruchy.blogspot.com/2012/04/battle-of-jersey-pirate-version.html