stringfellow’s thread

So, it seems its that time of year when gardening starts to look like a good idea (why? Cos I have absolutely no money, mostly. Also, its fun

Me, Ellen and Chris have decided to get involved and sort out the mess that is the vegetable patch - sadly a mess of weeds since last year’s failure.

So the plan:
Sunday, Ellen and I are going to the garden centre in Mumbles (while Chris is ‘revising’ :-P) to fetch some bits - namely seeds, but probably some sort of slug-devastator… nematode worms perhaps? I don’t want to use chemicals. Also, Sue (landlady) has said we can borrow a garden fork, so clearing / digging will be done.

One idea we had was to dig a trench around the outside of the soil patch and fill it all the way round with sand. Apparently slugs don’t like that. Not sure how bad it would be for the garden… or soil?

We are also going to construct a small ‘poly tunnel’, using some polyethene dust sheet from B&Q - pretty cheap - £4!

Hopefully these precautions will mean this year’s efforts are a bit more productive than last year’s. Fully expecting cat-shit to deal with, but thats extra nutrients, right?!

Plan:
- Clear up garden on Sunday (any help welcome!)
- Dig trench around outside.
- Grow seedling beans in jars and other veg in plug pots.
- Get sand from beach (illegal… i think… :-/)
- Erect (ha!) poly-tunnel
- PLANT STUFF!!
- wait….
- EAT STUFF!!

This post was brought to you by the Welti-blog-competition foundation.
-S

I’ve been doing some thinking about ’synthetic’ meat…

I think that those of us who consider ourselves conservationists or environmentalists should be working out where we stand on this issue, and if in favour, seeding the idea positively in other people’s minds - this is going to be important in the future when populations have reached stupid levels (unless bird flu really hits).

Pros:

• Shorter trophic pathway from raw nutrients to meat
• No harm to animals
• Can take on extra (or increased) nutrients that real meat may not normally have
• Less *emissions* (or, easily capturable emissions)!!!
• Can feed the masses
• Reduce land needed for grazing (and therefore increase for wildlife, or, yes, houses)

Cons:

• Texture and flavour are a hurdle.
• Efficiency is questionable (it would be more efficient to eat the nutrients - but then thats not really the point)
• …? (have I missed any?)

Some interesting links:
http://www.new-harvest.org/
Nice tech summary (published):
http://www.new-harvest.org/img/files/edelman_et_al_2005.pdf

more of that:
http://www.new-harvest.org/resources.htm

PETA are nuts in my humble opinion but this is good:
http://www.peta.org/pdfs/In_Vitro_Contest_Rules.pdf

New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926731.700-what-is-your-dinner-doing-to-the-climate.html
(esp. page 3)

and

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2673/26731701.jpg

Personally I welcome this tech-fix for meat products, though it should be in conjunction with a reduction in animal meat - otherwise the benefits are all lost (bar extra nutrients).
It is true that we eat far too much meat but it is harder to get the masses to realise this than it is to feed them a substitute - a lot of cheap meat is comparably ’shocking’ to in-vitro meat as it is - think “mechanically recovered” (those words send a shiver down my spine)…

Thoughts?

My first impressions of Nicaragua, after leaving Honduras on Saturday are pretty good. For a country that has faced large amounts of stress from various opposing political parties, of whom most have a large amount of corruption within (but I guess all political parties do..), it is certainly prospering. In some areas at least… The amount of kids begging on roadsides is quite alarming, signalling with their hands for ‘1 dollar’. The problem here is, kids in Internet cafe’s do the same… which doesn’t say a lot for either honesty or what they consider poverty.

It is true however that most of the country is poor. So far I have only been to Leon and Granada, both prospering towns (both involved in the wars of the past too).

Leon is a nice city, but incredibly hot. The surrounding volcanoes (Cerro Negro, Telica…) offer hikes and  extreme volcano boarding (which I unfortunately missed out on due to food poisoning). Speaking of food, there is an amazing little ‘Comedor’ near the big cathedral, barbecuing all sorts of food - chicken, burgers, beanyeggythings, plantain, rice and beans… lots of typical Nicaraguan food. Very very tasty, very very cheap. (I dont think this is where i got poisoned, incidentally). We stayed at a place called Big Foot Adventure which is a wicked little hostel, attached to a cafe that serves to your door, has a little pool, a free pool table, kitchen and is pretty relaxed about everything. YOu can’t book as yet but if you email Darryn (the Aussie owner) he will probably hold a bed for you (there were 8 of us, so he held a whole dorm.). The only problem we found was that its too hot… probably due to time of year - thunder storms every night. Darryn, if you read this - invest in some more fans (we would have stayed longer…).

Opposite is a hostel called Via Via, which seemed equally nice, but we only ate there, and did a quiz run by Quetzaltrekkers. (But lots of the questions are about themselves, which sucks. but its for charity so meh.)

Now in Granada, staying at Hotel Oasis (sistered with Lazy Bones in Leon)… WE shall see what Granada holds….

So, Mike got a bit frustrated with trying to find out whats on in Jersey. He had an idea.

“A website that lists EVERYTHING!”

I took him up on the challenge.

Presenting haveaday.co.uk.

This site aims to map out what there is to do in Jersey on any given day in the future. Providing we know what’s going on, so will you within a few clicks on haveaday. With Mike’s ear close to the ground and his contact with local venues, you can be sure that you will always find something to do on haveaday.co.uk.

You also have the chance to have your say about an event, using our rating system.

If you wish to see what other people are up to, and let others know what you are doing, you can sign up and then check the ‘Community’ tabs to see who’s doing what!

Have a day, have a night, have a film, have a meal. We cater for just about everything.

We also give you an overview of the upcoming weekend so you can plan your Friday and Saturday with ease.

Hopefully this site will fulfill the needs of people looking for event information in Jersey, night life, restaurants, whats on, cinema listings, day time activities. We think the night life section will have a particular appeal to students returning to the island, as we never really had a clue what was going on when we got back on the rock!

Click, register, login, enjoy.