FREERANGE FIGHTBACK----?
Here in the UK North Midlands it's been a cracking growing season, particulary for flowers, in spite of (or because of - ?) cooler May and June weather, and with timely rains since the April dry spell.
The veg patch here on the eco micro-holding also looks good and has performed well, as have other veg gardens and allotments hereabouts, with some variability but overall it's generally agreed it's been a good season. Right now at mid August, the maincrop onions, planted early as sets ('baby' onions) in the first half of March, which eases the spring work load, have been pulled up and have started their 3-4 week drying period, firstly on trays on open ground then in either of the two glasshouses.
Not a bad onion harvest, enough to last through the year, although some of the sets didn't grow that much - wonder why? The spuds too are being lifted, after they too were planted early under plastic - trying to beat the blight that always seems to come, and to get a reasonable crop, which looks likely.
These too need to be dried off, but only for a day or two if sunny, to dry their skins so that they store ok in the paper sacks (for winter use). Produce currently available for consumption include runner (stick) beans, spuds, courgettes, spring cabbage, calabrese, salads, beetroot, tomatoes and onions, with swedes, winter green veg, celeriac, parsnip, turnips and leeks all busy growing their way hopefully to fruition.
Mea culpa-------
Oops a daisy! Caught standing on the trial raised bed - first learn't that this was a mortal eco-sin by inadvertently doing same at an eco-centre, and being shouted at simultaneously by about eight people - certainly got the message home. The growing medium here on the micro-holding is a gorgeous dark loam soil which probably started life as a lightish brown medium soil, but changed over a couple of hundred years or so as a cottage garden getting liberal lashings of what was ubiquitously called 'night soil'. Wonderful and productive as it is, its one drawback is that it doesn't hold moisture all that well, so the non-compaction raised bed, made from it and compost, has needed a devil of a lot of watering. Probably in fact, well over double that of the conventional growing area, which benefits from some timely compaction (eg. by treading on it to ensure moisture in a seedbed), just as farmers would roll their seedbed after planting corn, again to ensure moisture within the seedbed, without which seeds won't germinate.
With the fertile loam soil and the applications of compost and woodash, crops can be planted fairly closely anyway and yields seem to be generally pretty good and adequate, so the decision here is to stick to conventional allotment-style growing. Soils known as 'heavier ground', which means they have clay content, may well suit the raised bed method, in that compaction may not be so good for them, and not needed in that they are naturally more water retentive.The 'downside' to non raised-bed production with some soil compaction is that the ground then needs some cultivation before planting/sowing can take place. Not too much of a problem here with the easy-working loam soil, just a matter of simply loosening the soil quickly with a garden fork and 'bunging it in'. Such considerations, though, bring home what a basic and key factor soil type can be.
Freerange fightback------?
Cuts in services such as public transport buses, cost increases in essentials such as food, motor fuel and domestic energy, supermarkets being fined the other day for cartel price fixing, blue chip organistaions such as banks developing imprudent, high risk products and mis-selling financial services, politicians fiddling expenses, big utility companies having to back off 'aggresive' cold-calling selling practices, 'top' people getting mega remuneration and pension deals - crikey, the poor little and 'unpowerful' individual that is the freeranger could be forgiven for thinking these are uncaring and 'rip-off' times - the 'great and the -----' over self-thriving at the expense of the lesser well-offs.
Maybe, though, not altogether surprising given the 'freemarket' 'help-yourself' culture, ushered in with Maggie Thatchers immortal one-dimensional words 'there's no such thing as society' (and at face value, plainly wrong). More than ever, maybe, the freeranger individual then needs to counter, to 'fight back' in, of course, self and socially responsible mode, to ensure their own 'survive and thrive' lifestyles. Wonder whether the recent UK looting sprees had a 'wider' element of 'fightback' - ? The 'out-for-self' freemarket culture, by its 'singular' nature containing less social cohesiveness, then by its on-going effects becomes self-fuelling and self-perpetuating - ? (and to which these few 'freerange fight' words might also be, of course in a very small way, contributing).
A university study the results of which were reported in the broadsheets this week (end Aug.), concluded similarly, saying that although poverty and 'moral laxity' played a part, the loss in faith of 'people in power' such as politicians and bankers was a key factor, with people feeling it to be ok to 'help yourself' in a culture perceived from the (non) lead 'from the top', to be a 'helpyourself' culture. Such feelings of 'alienation' would only then, the report suggests, counter-productively be enhanced by a crackdown and putdown of the rioters, inducing a further alianation effect ( the 'self-fuelling' process -?).
How can, though, a 'fightback' be effected in a 'freerange' self and socially responsible manner? Domestic energy supplies and costs, for instance, is obviously a key area in which there's been recent largish price hikes: the average household bill is now predicted to be over £2k per year. As all the fuel for next winter apart from electricity is now in store here on the eco micro-holding, and 'bought and paid for', a reasonably accurate assessment of £900 represents its current annual energy bill. The rooms of the cottage, fondly known as the 'rural hovel', are relatively small, but there are a few of them, two living rooms for instance, with one of them though only heated in the evenings in winter, and then by an open fire which uses mainly small 'waste' (and free) wood.
Into the light----?
A longer-term aim, though, is to be able to reduce the domestic energy bill further, or at least mitigate against price hikes in the future, by means of the solar-power installation that's recently arrived on the roof, now harvesting the sun's 'natural energy'. The 2.76 max killowatt hours installation has, though, cost a few thousand . To finance it, the newer car purchase plan was switched to an older, cheaper car plan, with the balance then 'nicked' from the saved-up 'rainy day' fund ( now to finance 'sunny day' use).
There's an index-linked guaranteed payment of 43.3p per killowatthour of electricity produced by the system, whether it's used on site ('for free') or it goes back into the grid (for which there's what seems to be a bit of a paltry 3.1p/killowatthour payment). Overall, on current prices, the return on the investment works out between 8 and 12%, depending on who's figures you use, which is obviously a lot better currently than building society investment rates, and, energy prices in the future may not exactly go down.
There are a couple of downsides. The system shuts down when there's a power cut, so denying use of own solar-generated power in such an 'emergency', which is a pity, and there's no short-term power storage facility to use, for instance, power generated in the day, in the evening, which would facilitate better home use of the solar power generated, and bigger savings on the electric bill. Hopefully such a facility may not be too long in coming.
Another 'big' freeranger advantage is of course gaining the ability to 'fight back' against a perceived 'pressurising' system, and to gain a bit of 'fuel security', as well as nurturing the independent 'freerange' spirit. The system has averaged, in the three weeks it's been 'up and running', a production of around 9 kilowatthours per day, ranging from 4 to 14 - actual sunlight being the main variable factor. The domestic energy needs can then be managed to make good use of this 'free' energy, reducing the bill then to the energy suppliers. For instance, rechargeable items such as phones, electric sweepers etc, can be charged 'for free' in the day, the 3 kw immersion can be replaced by a 1kw version, giving scope for 'free' summer water heating, low-energy halogen heaters can be used within the solar power limits and 3kw energy-guzzling electric kettles, for instance can be replaced by versions using 1kw or less (the one in use here currently uses .6kw, for instance). Solar electric production is obviously less for the winter months -possibly half of that for summertime, Here, though, for instance, as the woodburner heats the water in winter, needs are then less.
Only a couple of things really left to say - 'non illegitimum carborundam', or as Churchill apparently said every night before bed, 'b-----r 'em all!'
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