THE VEGAN NEWS
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.
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Recipe of the Month
Ingredients
Method
Recipe Serves 2-3
Dormouse Appeal
March Product ReviewSmokey Snaps
These smokey bacon flavoured crumbs are made from TVP (Texturised Vegetable Protein) and can be eaten straight from the packet for a tasty snack. Entirely meat-free, they are suitable for vegans and are a very good source of fibre, protein and the vitamins B1, B2 and B12. Smokey Snaps can be used to garnish salads and are particularly nice when sprinkled on top of pea soup. Mix them into scrambled tofu, or add them to tofu omelettes or quiches, for extra flavour. My favourite way of eating them, however, is sprinkled on top of an avocado open sandwich. Look for Smokey Snaps in your health food shop. They are produced by Direct Foods and cost about £1.15 for 150g. A delicious way of eating soya!
Pest Control Tips
What's Happening in the Veganic
Garden This Month?Hedgehogs are essentially solitary creatures except when they are courting. They breed from May to September, producing two litters a year, with an average of four babies per litter. The young are reared entirely by the mother and are weaned after about 41 days, leaving the nest to live independently, when they are between 6 and 8 weeks old.
In order to conserve energy, hedgehogs hibernate between October and March/April. They build a domed nest, made of plucked grass and dried leaves which can be built in bramble bushes, hedges, old rabbit burrows, compost heaps, log piles, underneath sheds or even inside a pile of autumn leaves or an unlit bonfire! When hibernating the hedgehog's metabolic rate and respiratory rate slows down so that the hedgehog can look as if it is dead, however, it is curled up and usually responds when touched. During hibernation, the hedgehog lives off its fat reserves and in order to hibernate successfully, it must weigh at least 600 g before going into hibernation. Unfortunately, some hedgehogs, particularly if they are born late in the year, fail to achieve this weight and it is common for them to die whilst hibernating.
In the wild, the average hedgehog lives for about 3-4 years, although hedgehogs are, in fact, capable of living for as long as eight years. Well protected by their coat of prickly spines, death is often caused, not by the hedgehog's natural predators - badgers, foxes, owls and buzzards, but by man-made problems. Hedgehogs, as their name suggests, like to live in hedges and these are rapidly being destroyed as fields are made larger and as more of the countryside is lost to make way for new housing estates and roads. Hedgehogs, nevertheless, are very adaptable and have responded to this destruction of their natural habitat by moving into towns where they are frequently found living in parks, gardens or even on golf courses! In fact they will live wherever there are deciduous trees and bushes. Every year, many hedgehogs are killed by cars and serious injuries can also be inflicted by lawn mowers or strimmers as hedgehogs like to hide in long grass. Other common causes of death include being burned in bonfires or being poisoned by pesticides or other toxic chemicals such as the metaldehyde in slug pellets. Many also get tangled up in garden netting and starve to death.
'The Natural Hedgehog' by Lenni Sykes and Jane Durrant (GAIA) is a good book to read if you want to know more about hedgehogs. Look out for a copy of this book in your public library or purchase a copy from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for £8.99. BHPS also sells several other good hedgehog books and a couple of ready-made hedgehog boxes. They can also supply you with several free and very useful leaflets which tell you all about hedgehogs and their behaviour and a plan for a hedgehog box, if you would prefer to make your own. Dried hedgehog food is also available by mail order, but as it contains meat and other animal products, it is better to purchase bags of peanut granules which are ideal for vegan gardeners to feed to their garden hedgehogs! Ask for a copy of their 'Hogalogue' - a catalogue of all their mail order products. They can be contacted at: BHPS, Knowbury House, Knowbury, Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 3LQ.
Any Queries?I have contacted VOHAN to see if they know of any books on Veganic fruit farming and will email any reply on to you later. In the meantime, I think that you will find the book 'Pruning & Training Fruit Trees', by Warren Somerville, useful, even though it is not written specifically for vegans. It is published by Inkata Press (ISBN 0-7506-8931-5) and is written for the orchardist/fruit farmer. You can obtain a copy of this book from Amazon Books for $36.95. You may also like to read this month's article on growing nuts!
Colin Dunleavy of California, USA.
Needs information on growing St John's Wort commercially. If anyone knows how
profitable it would be, then could they contact him by email at: malicol@aol.com
Vegan Organisation Review
Other Interesting Websites.
March Book Review
The Companion Planting Wallchart. By Michael Littlewood
This laminated wallchart will brighten up your walls. It shows how over 90 plants interact
with each other. It can be obtained from the Organic Gardening Catalogue and
costs £5.95.