2022 Review

It’s been an interesting year with the backlash of covid and all the trials and tribulations surrounding it and the conflicts over restrictions ending up in the High Court and a precedent set which totally undermined everything the sheep were told and obeyed without question and often ended up as prisoners in their home or ended up being unlawfully arrested because some clown in a po-lice uniform tried to incorrectly interpret something.

Here in the village it was business as usual and we sill ran the gardening classes and we still made and delivered over 100 salad bars which were containers built from recycled materials which held the growing medium in which they could grow basic salad crops totally free of chemicals and preservatives to ensure they had at least some fresh foods and recipients were instructed not to plant a whole packet of seeds at once as they may have 50 lettuce come at once. I produced the growing medium from my compost heap and 3 year old cow muck and this was provided and those with salad bars from earlier years got the basics and composted their own spent compost and many built their own compost heaps to recycle their garden waste and produce their own compost.

Many moved on to the cubic metre bag challenge which used the old builders bags to provide 1 square metre of growing space with the intention of moving slowly into spall space growing and to maximise their yields of crops from such spaces, while still being a manageable space for most people to break them into the amount of work a full allotment would take, which is considerable.

Some people have or got some of my land which is transformed into small allotments so older or younger couples can manage them or people with families can also have them and with a little planning can get plenty of fresh crops from them without excessive work or time to fit their lives and often around their children and many had surplus crops which went to a local food bank and were snapped up. Two local food banks also had a plot each and began growing their own and were surprised just how much fresh food they could produce and just how many recipients welcomed a fresh bunch of carrots or a lettuce and radishes or a few beetroot.

With so much fresh produce it needed storing and our preservation classes showed how people could use it for freezing, bottling/canning and drying; and how it could be divided into packs such as stew packs ready for the winter, or how they should correctly store and hand onions for the winter and ensure they had sufficient food to survive if necessary. Other things such as pickling or charcuterie were taught to the more advanced. Many were encouraged to forage for local foods and many took to this and were surprised how many foods were locally available for your time and picking. Fruit picking was key and many people knew about blackberries but were introduced to other fruits readily available for free and many learned how to freeze or bottle them for winter and many had blackberries for Christmas dinner pudding. Many learned how to make fruit juices and other drinks and progressed onto country wines and when the apples were being picked it changed from wine to cider pressed in our hydraulic press which pressed the apples which had been put through a garden shredder to turn it into a pulp.
One man said he had learned so much he could now feed his family with fresh veg from his garden and produce his own wine and cider so they could eat and periodically get p*ssed and have no concerns about the costs. Many have diversified and make items such as sauerkraut which is fermented and pickled cabbage and uses up a surplus of cabbage and is actually good for gut health; or charcuterie which preserves meat well and if you go round and they offer you breakfast and ask how thick you want your bacon slicing.

We have several seed suppliers and we place a massive order as we all club together and one of our seed suppliers said for every £100 worth of seeds we bought, they would provide another £50 worth of salad crop seeds for our salad bar project and if these people got into gardening they may buy their seeds which means free seeds for new salad bar users and the rest were divided up between existing salad bar owners.

Our cookery classes really took off and some became very advanced as they learned how to provide cheap meals from their gardens and how to buy cheap meat which was on offer and cut it into pieces for freezing or charcuterie so it was preserved for when it was needed and it was often the silly things such as making cheese scones or suet dumplings to go with a stew and how one stew pack would last for two or three days if you topped it up and added to it. Many people said it tasted better on the second day as many of the ingredients had cooked down to nearly a liquid apart from the added ingredients. Many learned how to turn tomatoes into tomato ketchup and how to make base sauces for rice or pasta dishes and how they could add additional ingredients to their base sauces and then it was chutneys and jams all made from peoples gardens or wild fruit and people simply didn’t realise just how much they can make, so did.

Many turned to bread and not just the traditional white loaves as many learned how to make other breads such as pitta bread or Nan breads and many different types of breads and one of our simpler breads uses peas crushed in your hand and added to your dough at the kneading stage and they progressed from there..

Many people discovered forgotten crops such as turnips and swede which grow quickly and easily and can be cooked and eaten as is, or added to other things such as mashed potatoes to bulk them up and many love swede added to mashed potatoes, or thinly sliced onions and cheese to give a swede, cheese and onion mash and surprisingly lots of kids love it which was surprising.

We have a bread circle where some local women meet and make bread and again it isn’t just the plain white loaf as they diversify and make what people like and they try different things and on occasions they get it wrong but mistakes are all part of the learning curve as you can either find out where you went wrong and rectify any mistakes or simply not make that bread again. They meet at one house in groups as economy dictates they fire one or two ovens up and cook all the bread in there as it works out a lot cheaper and by rotating houses they share the costs by rotation. In many respects it is simply a way for the women to meet and natter but they can also produce some nice bread for them and their families.

One common denominator in this was the amount of men attending the cookery classes or couples attending showing that the traditional role of women cooking the family meals is changing and that men are adventurous cooks whereas women tend to be bored by cooking everyday and they tend to cook bland and more traditional junk foods. These classes have shown that food need not be a chore to cook and for the same amount of time and effort taken to cook traditional junk food they can cook something healthy, tasty and nutritious and improve their and their families health at the same time.

In much the same was we have our DIY classes and many women have attended them and they encompass many skills from basic repairs to fully fledged projects and as we teach the basic skills and allow people to build their skills and it is amazing how many people cannot correctly fit a plug or screw something together and we teach the basics people want or need. Many women have no idea how to change a spare wheel or even where there is and where their car jack and jacking points are and some of our classes teach these skills as hands on skills and they learn the basics of maintaining a vehicle such as checking and topping up fluids correctly and not putting screen wash into the power steering fluid reservoir or ATF into the brake fluid reservoir.

This time of year many women and men learn how to carry emergency rations for winter and have practical training on what to do if your vehicle becomes stuck and how you can often use things such as Kitty litter under the wheels to get you moving again, or just carrying spare appropriate clothing for if you do get stuck and things like water and snacks so your warm, dry, and fed and watered, Michelin star it isn’t but it may keep you alive.
Many of the women realise they don’t need to keep badgering their husband to fit a new plug or replace a hinge on the outhouse door or even that they don’t need a man to unblock a blocked drain when they have drain rods and the men love this as these jobs get done and they don’t get nagged and earache.

Many of our classes focus on practical things and working with wood is one of them and if you scavenge you can get all sorts of things for free or minimal cost and the amount of pallets we use and recycle is astounding as many women have made their own pallet wood compost heaps and compost their garden waste for their 1 tonne bags for growing crops or making trellis to fit to the walls for running crops such as raspberries. What it does do is bring couples together and they do jobs together and as they both know what they are doing it makes the job easier and often quicker and any kids watch and often get involved so transferring skills across the generations.

Our local Toolstation are often inundated with local women going in and knowing exactly what they want which makes the Manager smile as there have been some amazing projects because men and women have skills and can work together to pull a lot of jobs off which enriches their lives. One woman decided to scrounge some guttering from a local demolition and she got lots of it and set to with her husband and put guttering around all of their outbuildings and ran the down pipes into water butts which they then connected together with push fit connectors and they harvest lots of water. They decided to adopt one of my greenhouse designs which utilised many recycled or free materials and sat and measured the available space and designed it to fit in that space and she picked up lots of pallets and pulled the boards off and rebated the edges so they overlapped and built the outside and clad it with these boards before insulating the inside with recycled Rockwool and cladding the inside to give a solid and insulated bottom. With their savings they bought some new polycarbonate sheets for the roof and used recycled ones for the uprights as the recycled ones were lightly scratched and they coated them with a protection film and now have a fully insulated L shaped greenhouse with plenty of work room on the back of their garage.

They didn’t stop there as they have a brick garage and they took one of my old water heaters formerly used in my poly tunnel and put it in their greenhouse and ran the pipes along one side of their greenhouse and into their garage to the water receiver and she insulated their garage and now have a heated greenhouse and garage.

Working together builds skills and confidence and both men and women now have more confidence that they previously had and more skills to draw on and many have his and hers chainsaws for example or his and hers cordless drills along with the relevant fittings and they can work out projects to properly plan them as well as implement them and produce good results. If they make mistakes; and many do, it is not seen as something to be ashamed of and hide from others as many now embrace mistakes and use them as a useful part of their learning curve and many others will offer good practical advice or offer their solutions and generally muck in.

This attitude has spread well beyond the village now and more and more people are coming and either learning new skills or brushing up on old skills not practised for years and it brings people together to develop new skills and friendships and develop useful contacts among themselves and particularly the cost of living increases have hit many hard and it becomes necessity to learn practical skills. It also bonds people and groups and instead of paying people to do jobs they can now do many themselves and where they need a specific skill they can generally find it within their area and use bartering instead of money.

Skills are always expanded and many have taken the stew pack idea and diversified into things such as stir fry packs and chargrilled vegetable packs and frozen them as this gives them meal options and it utilises much of what they grow so little or nothing goes to waste and when we press apples for apple juice the remaining pulp goes to the next village to the pig farm and they love this and it feeds the pigs.

Its been a good 2022 for many and many people are doing more for themselves and not paying for it.