Recycle for Wildlife

Just wanted to share this request I received today for us all to donate our old mobile phones to FFI who can get a £5 donation for each phone received to put towards their wildlife conservation work..

"Did you know your old mobile phone could help FFI to save gorillas and other endangered wildlife around the world?

FFI is today launching a campaign calling for individuals, companies and schools to send us their old mobile phones. It is designed to coincide with Recycle Week, the official UK campaign to encourage people to recycle more.

For every phone received, FFI will receive about £5. It's a great way to support our vital conservation work without spending a penny."




Full information on where to send your old phone at the
Fauna and Flora International website.

Green Metropolis

Apologies for my absence over the last week or two and for not being able to respond to comments as usual .. I'm hoping to be back to something approaching usual service soon!

Meanwhile, I thought others out there might be interested in Green Metropolis, which is a site I just started using for recycling my vast collection of paperbacks. Basically, you list your available paperbacks as available and if someone wants to buy one then they pay Green Metropolis £3.75. Of this, £3 goes to the seller (who then posts the book on to the customer) and a donation is made to the Woodland Trust. Sellers have the option of donating any money they make to the Trust as well, which is what I intend to do. Its a great way to buy paperbacks, too, because a new one is £6.99 or £7.99 in the shops so you can get a used one in excellent condition for half the price and save some trees!



I've been listing my first batch of books this week and found the site very easy to use - quick and helpful and efficient - you just type in an ISBN and the database does everything else for you. So if it sounds like it might be of interest, I'd recommend popping on over and having a look.

Green Fair

A wonderful thing - I've just been to the Better Haringey Green Fair which was held just over the road from our house this afternoon.

It was so nice to see the green space outside Tottenham town hall being used for such a great purpose - it used to be behind railings, overgrown, full of litter and only frequented by vagrants and winos. But a year or two back the council put money and effort into sorting it out, opening it up and adding broad paved access paths and lovely old-fashioned street lights to make it safer. It is used a lot now and looks great.

But I digress! Back to the Green Fair ... lots of stalls with local campaigning, wildlife and recycling groups. I chatted to some lovely people, including the local Friends of the Earth group who had a bloke dressed up as an orang-u-tan to launch their campaign about Bio-Fuels: the EU is proposing a directive requiring 10% of petrol and diesel be made from biofuels by 2020, but using land for palm oil is causing food shortages and accelerating rain-forest destruction .. find out more here and contact your MEP about blocking the proposal.

It was great to visit the stalls and I signed petitions and MP letters on a number of issues and picked up lots of leaflets.

Thought I'd share some of the info and links, in case anybody's interested?

I got a wonderful 'STOP! Don't bin it, recycle it!' sticker which I'm going to stick on the lid of our kitchen bin to remind everyone to think twice about whether something can be recycled. This was from Recycle for London whose website tells you where to find your nearest recycling facilities and has lots of info on more ways to recycle kitchen and garden household waste.

At the BBC Breathing Places stand I was given a free CD 'tune into the dawn chorus: audio guide' which has the songs of different birds on it plus a quiz at the end.. brilliant! I can only recognise one or two, and would really like to learn some more so that I can listen out for them. We have a pretty good dawn chorus here, despite being in a built up city area. There's a little booklet to go with it which has pictures of all the birds and advice on encouraging birds into your space. You can hear and see some of them here and also download a beautiful kingfisher screensaver. Apparently, once a year in May there is an International Dawn Chorus Day.. shame we just missed this year's one, but definitely something to get involved with in 2009! Some more bird links you might like are British Trust for Ornithology and the RSPB.

I was also given a 'tree party' pocket guide - which has tree-planting tips plus spotting tips for common local trees. You can download your own copy here and, if you have kids, you might be interested in the Tree For All initiative, too?

Well, I hope you found something to interest you somewhere in all that! I'll add the links to the side bar in my continuing quest to develop Earth and Tree as a sort of resource centre for information on all these earth friendly types of thing.

Carrot and Geranium Salve

Yesterday I made a new batch of Carrot and Geranium Salve, which is cooling, soothing and nutritive for any dry and chapped skin. The ingredients are totally natural, healing and wholesome (as opposed to the synthetic components in commercial preparations which include byproducts of the petrochemical industry), you can make it easily at home and it keeps indefinitely. So I love it! I use mine as a lip balm, which I apply morning and night. I can also recommend it for when you have a cold, and the skin on your nose becomes red and sore and chapped through constantly using tissues: put some salve on at night before you go to sleep and be amazed how it heals!

The basic carrot salve recipe comes from a wonderful book 'Herbal Remedies: A practical beginner's guide to making effective remedies in the kitchen' by Christopher Hedley and Non Shaw which is full of very simple but effective remedies which you can make from vegetables, herbs and spices readily to hand with no fancy equipment or utensils needed. It really got me into having a go at home-made remedies.

The original recipe gives the proportion of 1 part beeswax to 5 parts oil, although I use much more beeswax than this to give a more solid ointment more appropriate to a lip balm. Beeswax is so nutritive and healing on its own, that the higher the content the better, I find. I am lucky enough to have been given an ample free supply by a bee-keeping friend, but you can buy beeswax granules fairly readily. You don't need to use any particular fine or expensive oil for this recipe. Regular sunflower oil is perfect, though I start a new bottle of organic oil for making the salve.

The quantity specified depends on the size of your carrots, but makes rather a lot so you might want to halve it. Yesterday's batch made about a pint which fills enough jars to give several away to friends and relatives while still supplying enough for general use for the next few years. You need to collect and clean/ sterilise lots of little glass jars. I like to save little jam and marmalade pots, but I also reuse containers, some plastic, which had other creams or beauty products in.

As well as thickening the recipe with extra beeswax, I have also changed it by adding a drop or two of essential oil at the end of the process. You really don't need any more than this to impart a pleasant fragrance to the salve (which on its own doesn't really smell of anything). Geranium seems to suit very nicely, and actually has its own skin soothing properties which makes it an ideal choice.

General hints and tips are:

1. If you're anything like me, you WILL get drops of oil everywhere so have a kitchen roll to hand, and run a sink full of hot soapy water before you start!

2. Its not dangerous or difficult to do, but you will be heating oil.. so don't allow yourself to be distracted (this is not a recipe to do with children running under your feet or a phone that needs answering nearby)

3. You always need more jars than you think you will!


Carrot and Geranium Salve

Take two plumptious fresh organic carrots



Wash and grate them, then put them in a large frying pan and just cover them with sunflower oil. Fry gently until the oil turns orange and the carrot is soft.



Remove from the heat and, when cooled slightly, strain into a pyrex jug.



This is your infused oil. To thicken this into an ointment, place the jug into a pan of gently boiling water. The water level should be lower than the level of the oil in the jug. Keep it simmering very gently on a low heat, while adding chunks of beeswax to the oil. Stir occasionally with a wooden spatula to encourage the beeswax to melt and disperse.



To test the consistency, pour a little of the mixture into one (the smallest) of your clean jars and allow to cool.



Return the jug to the pan and add more beeswax if you would like a thicker (more solid) ointment. Once the mixture is ready, remove from the heat and allow to stand and cool slightly. When it is only warm rather than hot, add one or two drops of geranium essential oil and mix in well before pouring into the remaining clean jars.



You will notice that as the ointment sets it forms a little dimple in the centre. This is supposed to happen and isn't a problem. If you want a more perfect finish, most books say you can keep a little mixture back to reheat and use to top up the jars (I have never felt the need!)

Stop Global Warming

I just visited this website and found a list of tips for reducing carbon emissions. The list is long, but I have picked out things that are do-able for me and my lifestyle (or are, in fact, things I'm already doing).

I have always felt fairly powerless to make significant changes, as I live in rented accomodation so cannot do the major things our house needs like double-glazing or draught-proofing etc. But I was amazed by how many of the things on the list didn't apply to me in a POSITIVE way.. for example, the fact that I don't use a car or a dishwasher. And we don't have central heating. So it turns out I'm doing better than I thought, after all, which is heartening!

One day I'll hopefully live in an eco-house with solar panels, but until then, here are my little contributions..

Use Recycled Paper
Make sure your printer paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper. Save 5 lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of paper.

This is something I've been working on recently .. I have found an affordable supplier and from now on all Hedgewitch information sheets and newsletters will be printed on 100% recycled paper.

Buy Products Locally
Buy locally and reduce the amount of energy required to drive your products to your store.

This is a tough one in the city, but I am planning a visit to that local farmers' market I found so that hopefully I can buy less food from Tescos. I already get my fruit and veg in a box, which is delivered by van, but I know they source things as locally as they can within the UK.

Buy Minimally Packaged Goods
Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10%. Save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide and $1,000 per year.

My fruit and veg box comes in a cardboard box which you return for re-use the following week. I re-use the corrugated card dividers to pack the ceramic pieces in Hedgewitch parcels and I re-use the string for tying up plants in the garden.

Am generally horrified how much packaging everything comes in! I recycle all the card sleeves and re-use the plastic trays for plant saucers and incubators. But finding places to buy less packaged products is something I really want to work on.

Reduce Garbage
Buy products with less packaging and recycle paper, plastic and glass. Save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.

You know, since I've stepped up my recycling/re-using/composting, we've been amazed how little garbage we are putting out now. One black sack a week, rather than one every other day.

Plant a Tree
Trees suck up carbon dioxide and make clean air for us to breathe. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.

Hmmmm.. maybe I could think of giving the gift of planting a tree via The Woodland Trust for special occasions?

Unplug Un-Used Electronics
Even when electronic devices are turned off, they use energy. Save over 1,000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $256 per year.

I could (and must) do this!

Buy Organic Food
The chemicals used in modern agriculture pollute the water supply, and require energy to produce.

I do as much as I can, for health reasons, but this is an added incentive.

Bring Cloth Bags to the Market
Using your own cloth bag instead of plastic or paper bags reduces waste and requires no additional energy.

I was given the most fabulous cloth bag by friends of mine for Christmas.. it is tongue-in-cheek and features 'typical London wildlife' (a one-legged pigeon, a large rat etc!) Its great because it folds up small and weighs nothing, so I just keep it stashed in my handbag for any shopping I pick up while I'm out.

Ditch the Plastic
2.5 million individual plastic water bottles are thrown away every hour in the US. Start using a reusable water bottle and just say no to plastic!

I could DEFINITELY do this, as I do sometimes buy small bottles of water when I'm out. I need to drink more water .. I'm really bad at this. I think I will fill a bottle with tap water each morning (whether I'm home or out) for use during the day. When its hot in the summer, I sometimes fill a water bottle with tap water and add a couple of ice-cubes with lemon balm or pineapple sage leaves in them, which is really refreshing.

Kitchen Greenhouse

This is going back a few weeks, now, New Moon at the beginning of March to be exact..



I spent a happy afternoon at the kitchen table with the radio for company, surrounded by newspaper, compost (not always ON the newspaper, sadly!), milk cartons, seed packets, tin foil cat food trays, cardboard tubes and miscellaneous other extremely handy bits and bobs.. attempting to construct little comfy homes for my seedlings. There was something very cathartic and Blue Peter about it all, I haven't had so much fun in ages..

Elsie the cat was very helpful in attempting to eat, biff or sit upon my carefully organised chaos and has since been most displeased that the sunniest spot in front of the kitchen window (where she sun-worships and watches for passing pigeons to make the Ack-Ack noise at) is now occupied by a number of recycled DIY incubators of dubious construction.

Nevertheless, I got some herb seeds planted in my 'proper' propagator (try saying that quickly!), potted on the February seedlings and generally got very very grubby. Brilliant!



I picked up a tip from somewhere (will try to find it and post the link) recently to use the cardboard cartons that soup or milk comes in for plant pots, as when you want to plant out you can just snip down the sides with scissors and slide the plant out intact. So I did this for a few of the bigger seedlings. I also used the bottom half of plastic milk bottles (with drainage hole punched in the bottom) as plant pots. And I'd been saving the plastic trays from food shopping to use as drip trays to stand things in .. or as lids for incubators, if transparent.

In fact, things might be getting out of hand now because I can't look at anything now without working out how I can re-use the packaging.. its addictive!

---> LINKS:

yoghurt pots as mini greenhouses

make seedling pots from newspaper

make recycled seed pots

Trees for Life

I was visiting the Trees for Life website today - this organisation campaigns to save and increase the Caledonian forests of Scotland.

I found this wonderful quote:

"...today it is the duty of every thinking being to live, and to serve not only his own day and generation, but also generations unborn by helping to restore and maintain the green glory of the forests of the earth." Richard St. Barbe Baker


and ordered these:

envelope re-use labels

I always used to have re-use labels, but though I still re-use envelopes I've been just using blank labels to cover the old addresses. Struck me that by using these, I'd be raising awareness for the charity .. and they are beautiful, too!

Improvising Incubators

Today I have been sorting through my jumble of handy bits and bobs I've been hoarding in preparation for the great seed-sowing later this week.

I've been keeping plastic food trays, tin foil cat food trays, toilet rolls, eggboxes, yoghurt pots and anything else that looks vaguely serviceable!

I'm even contemplating making flower pots out of the bottom halves of 1litre plastic milk containers.. I'm thinking that the top handle part, upside down, might be brilliant as a watering device for courguettes and squashes in grow bags so that the water gets down to the roots (may be getting carried away, here!)

Have spent a happy hour making individual cloches out of drinks bottles, anyway, and looking forward to getting started.

This link has some great ideas:

Making Recycled Seed Pots

----> GET INVOLVED: Tell me your tips!

The Woodland Trust

I donate 10% of the proceeds from the sale of my photo-cards to The Woodland Trust, which does important work protecting ancient woodland and planting trees.

As this cause is something I feel passionately about, I try to find little ways to send money their way - I recycled my old mobile phone in one of their envelopes, so that they got a donation, and I buy their beautiful tree calendar each year.

And I thought that maybe by sharing the link, I could point other like-minded folk in their direction... the website explains lots of things you can do to support The Woodland Trust:

http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/


and is a fantastic resource for everything concerning trees!