JULY/AUGUST 1998

The Vegan News is written and edited by P M Lloyd. Please e-mail your contributions to the editor at: pauline@bury-rd.demon.co.uk or fill in the form provided. Please note that the Vegan News will not be published again until September.

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• Advertisements
• Recipes
• Don't Miss! This Month's Article - Too Hot in the Kitchen?
• Readers' Contributions
• Vegan Product Review
• In The Veganic Garden - The Wildflower Meadow
• Your Comments!
• Vegan Organisation Review
• Vegan Websites
• Book Review
• The Wildlife Database

• 7 oz (200 g) durum wheat, egg-free pasta shapes such as wholewheat fusilli.
  
• 2 oz (55 g) each of frozen sweetcorn and peas, or 4 oz (110 g) frozen mixed vegetables.
  
• 3 tbs Plamil egg-free mayonnaise with garlic (or a similar vegan salad dressing).
  
• Cooked, cold beans (optional) e.g. pinto, kidney, black eye beans etc.
  
• 2 chopped spring onions.
  
• Smokey Snaps (optional).
  

Method

1. Cook the pasta shapes in boiling water as directed on the packet. (Usually for about 10-12 minutes.) Drain.

2. Cook the frozen vegetables in boiling water until tender. Drain.

3. Allow the pasta and vegetables to cool. Mix the cooked pasta, left-over cooked beans (if using) and the vegetables together in a bowl. The mixture can be stored in the fridge overnight if you want to eat the salad the next day.

4. Just before serving, mix in the spring onions, vegan mayonnaise and sprinkle the Smokey Snaps over the top.

The Lentil salad in last summer's issue also makes a nice lunch on a hot day - it's especially nice stuffed inside pitta breads.

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Plamil White Sun Desserts

Plamil have now brought out three mouth watering desserts which can be eaten as an non-dairy alternative to yogurt. Available in strawberry, black cherry and peach and passion flavours, these desserts do not contain any genetically engineered ingredients and are free from artificial flavourings, colourings and preservatives. They don't need to be refrigerated either and so they are ideal for picnics and packed lunches. Made from a blend of water, pea protein, apple juice and fruit, they are enriched with vegetable fibre and make a pleasant change from the usual soya desserts. Look out for them in your health shop.

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1. The Veganic Garden in July/August

   I decided to skip the list of routine garden jobs this month and concentrate on writing about the wildflower meadow, something that I particularly wanted to tell you about in this issue, so that you will have plenty of time to order your seeds and prepare the ground if you decide to create your own meadow this autumn. However, anybody who feels that they need more information on routine garden work should visit the Summer 1997 Issue where they will find a more complete list of the jobs which need to be done in the garden this summer. Most of the really 'hard' gardening jobs should have already been completed by now. Throughout July and August you will need to keep everything well watered. Apart from that... well just sit back and watch everything grow! Incidentally, have any of you noticed that since I mentioned the possibility of a drought this summer, it hasn't stopped raining? Never mind, if it keeps on, then you won't have to do much watering either! In July you should make sowings of perpetual spinach and parsley and plant out any indoor-raised kale, sprouting broccoli and winter cabbage plants such as January King or Holland Late Winter. Florence fennel can also be sown in July. Although this plant grows best in a warm climate, it will grow successfully in the UK, provided it is planted in a warm and sunny position. Florence fennel - not to be confused with the herb fennel - produces a white bulb with a delicate aniseed flavour which can either be grated and eaten raw in salads or can be braised and eaten as a vegetable. I mention it here because as well as being very tasty, it's a very useful plant to grow in the veganic garden as its flowers can attract around 200 different pest eating insects. You can purchase Florence fennel seeds from the Organic Gardening Catalogue.

2. In the Wildlife Garden - The Flowery Meadow

   Do you want to encourage wildlife into your garden? Do you hate mowing the lawn each week? Well a flowery meadow may be just what you are looking for! Read on.

   It has been estimated that 97% of natural, wildflower meadows have disappeared in the last 40 years. However, we can all help to counteract this habitat destruction by creating a small flowery meadow, or grassland area in our gardens. What could be a more attractive sight than lush green grass, bursting with attractive flowers and visited by grassland butterflies and moths? And as an added bonus you won't need to get the lawn mower out so much either, so a wildflower meadow is ideal for the lazy gardener!

   Siting Your Meadow

   • Although it is possible to buy special meadow mixtures which can be used in shady areas e.g. under orchard trees, flowery meadows are usually best sited in full sun as most insects prefer to feed and breed in a meadow which is located in a warm, sunny and sheltered position.

   • Choose a site where the soil fertility is low: if the soil is too fertile the grass will grow well but you will not get a lot of flowers. And NEVER use fertilisers on your meadow area. Incidentally, if you think that your soil may be too fertile, then you can lower fertility either by removing the top soil or by planting a nitrogen-hungry crop on the land for a year before creating your meadow. Don't waste the crop though as it can be composted and used to increase the fertility in other areas of the garden.

   • The easiest way to create a flowery meadow (ideal if you are short of time or feeling really lazy!) is to select an area of your existing lawn and to cut the grass in this area less frequently, with the lawn mower raised. Eventually flowers will start to appear in this area of longer grass, but you can speed up the process, if you wish, by adding in your own pot-grown flowering plants in the autumn. (See list of suitable plants below.) Flowery meadows are on the whole best set off against a stronger edge, so if you can, make your meadow run up to a hedge or woodland area or to the edge of a pond or wetland area. A hedge, on one side, will also provide shelter.

     One Man Went To Mow!

     If you are feeling more ambitious and would like to make a flowery meadow from scratch, then the ground should be prepared as if you are making a lawn and the surface of the soil should be firmed by rolling lightly or by treading. The best time to sow a meadow is in the autumn and an early September to mid October sowing will give the plants a chance to become well established before the cold weather sets in. (You can also sow in the spring, from the end of March to early May, but this is not as good as many seeds need to be exposed to a period of cold weather in order to germinate successfully.) Sow the grass seed first, if the seeds are sold separately. Rake the soil before sowing the flower seeds and tread or roll the soil surface lightly after sowing all of the seeds. Sow seeds evenly at the recommended rate - usually in the ratio of three parts grass seed to one part flower seed. And when the seeds have germinated and the sward is over 10 cm high, (about 6-8 weeks after sowing) cut the sward down to between 5-10 cm using a rotary mower, being very careful to remove all the cuttings in order to keep the fertility low. The flowering plants will establish better if the meadow is cut regularly during the first year. Avoid using weed killers and remove any weeds such as creeping thistles or docks by hand.

     Types of Meadow:

     The three most popular types of meadows are:
     1. The Spring-Flowering Meadow
        A spring meadow shouldn't be cut before the end of June. It can then be cut down to a height of 5-8 cm and recut every time it reaches 8-10 cm. Alternatively it can be left uncut until late September and just mown the once.

     2. The Summer Meadow
        A summer meadow does not need mowing before middle/late September, although you can keep it cut down to 8cm until June if you wish.

     3. The Butterfly Meadow
        Grassland butterflies like to breed and feed in grasses of different heights, so you should make sure that a mixture of long, medium and short turf is available in a butterfly meadow. The common blue, dingy skipper, meadow brown and gatekeeper are some of the butterflies which you are likely to see in a butterfly meadow. Bird's-foot-trefoil is a particularly useful wildflower meadow plant which is very attractive to butterflies.

     What to Plant?

     The following plants are suitable for use in a spring meadow:
     Bird's-foot-trefoil, bugle, the buttercups - Ranunculus bulbosus and R. acris, red clover, cowslip, ox-eye daisy, dandelion, ragged robin, lesser trefoil, kidney vetch, bluebell and snowdrop.

     In summer meadows use:
     Agrimony, lady's bedstraw, bird's-foot-trefoil, the buttercup - Ranunculus acris, red clover, meadow crane's bill, common knapweed, greater knapweed, hawkbit (rough and autumn), kidney and tufted vetch, yarrow.

     And the following grasses can all be used in a meadow:
     Brown bent, fine bent, downy oat-grass, meadow barley, meadow foxtail, rough and smooth meadow grass, quaking grass and yellow oat-grass.

     You will find a more extensive list of suitable meadow grasses and meadow plants in 'Creating A Wildlife Garden', by Bob and Liz Gibbons.

     Mail Order Seeds:

     The Organic Gardening Catalogue offers quite a few suitable seed mixtures, including a flowering lawn mix of low growing wild flowers for £2.42. These seeds should be mixed with a suitable grass seed in order to create a grass and flower area. They also do an undertrees grass mixture and various wildflower and grass mixtures for different soil types. (See p 29 of their 1998 catalogue.) John Chambers' Wild Flower Seeds also offer an excellent range of wild meadow mixtures including: a butterfly meadow mixture, mixtures that are suitable for different soil types, a songbird meadow mixture and a flowering lawn mixture. Ready-grown meadow plants e.g. bird's-foot -trefoil (an important butterfly plant), lady's bedstraw and kidney vetch, are also available. (You will find the addresses of these suppliers in the Address File.)

     Further Reading:

     • Creating a Wildlife Garden by Bob and Liz Gibbons. (Hamlyn) p 112-127.
       
     • Butterfly Gardening by Matthew Oates.
       
     • Meadows by John Feltwell. (Alan Sutton). Available from John Chambers.
       The John Chambers Catalogue offers quite a few other good butterfly and wildlife gardening books.
       
     • Wild About the Garden by Jackie Bennett. (Boxtree) Chapter 2 - Meadow.

Erik Marcus. USA.
Thanks for posting such a favorable review of my book 'Vegan' on your Vegan News website. It's a terrific site, and I'm sure it's helping lots of people make the transition to veganism.

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• Dr Hadwen Trust
• Vegan Society of New South Wales
• Centre for Alternative Technology
• Vegan Society (UK)
• VIVA
• Animal Aid
• Hillside Animal Sanctuary
• Ethical Wares
• Vegfam
• Plants for a Future
• Movement for Compassionate Living (MCL)
• VOHAN

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The Vegan Society (UK)

The World Guide to Vegetarianism.

Lumen Foods

Soy Protein: Your Key to Better Health

The Mining Company

Vegane Homepage Deutsch

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This book can be purchased from VIVA! Books. (Address.)

If you want to change to a vegetarian or vegan diet, but aren't quite sure how to go about it, then you will find 'Become a Vegetarian in Five Easy Steps', a helpful book to read. This book divides the process of dietary change into five straightforward, easy-to-follow steps. You start by analysing the foods in your present diet, catagorize them to find out which ones are vegan/vegetarian already, then go out and and search for appropriate food substitutes for all of the non-vegan/vegetarian foods on your list. By step four you will be trying out new recipes and adding new vegetarian foods into your diet and eventually you will end up with a list of up to two dozen vegetarian (or vegan) foods which you are happy to eat on a regular basis. Towards the end of this book Christine Beard also examines some of the common 'vegetarian' pitfalls: including how to deal with special occasions; eating out and travelling and at the back of the book there is a very good resource list.

Although, this book is published in the America, there is no reason why it shouldn't be used just as easily by people living elsewhere. This book can be ordered directly from the McBooks Press website.

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