THE VEGAN
NEWS
THE VEGAN
NEWS
SUMMER 2008
- Recipes
- Vegan Product Review
- In the Veganic Garden - Gardening News + Garden Diary
- Growing for Health - The Beets
- In the Wildlife Garden - Cottage Garden Plants
- Web Sites
- Book Review(s)
Summer Recipe(s)
Source: Raw Soups, Salads and Smoothies by Frédéric Patenaude
Ingredients
Method
- 1 large tomato, diced
- Juice of 1/2 an orange
- 4 cups of spinach
- 2 green onions
- 1 avocado
- 1/2" fresh ginger
Serves: 1
- Blend the tomato and orange juice together.
- Progressively add the spinach and the other ingredients. Blend, adding some water if necessary. Makes a nice green soup!
Note: There is also a nice Spinach Salad recipe in the Summer 2002 issue. I use young perpetual spinach leaves when I make this salad.
Summer Product Reviews
Fruits by St. James's Cranberry Tea Bags
This tea has a heavenly, almost cherry-like aroma and a nice fruity flavour and is packaged in a most unusual triangular-shaped, see-through teabag! This caffeine-free tea is made from hibiscus, lemon and orange peels, rosehips and apple and cranberry pieces. Each box contains 15 tea bags. Price £1.59. Look out for this tea in Sainsbury's, or in your local health food store. Highly recommended.
Fair Trade Divine Cocoa
Here's another tasty drink for you to try out! This fairly-traded, sun-dried, cocoa powder is produced in the tropical rain forest by a co-operative of farmers in Ghana. It contains only 100% Fair Trade cocoa powder and is delicious made with soya milk, although I sometimes make it using just cocoa powder and boiling water. A 125g tub costs £1.49. Look out for it in the larger branches of Oxfam.
Borodinsky Organic Rye with Coriander
This rather nice, Russian-inspired, wheat-and-yeast-free loaf of bread is produced by the Village Bakery in Cumbria. It is a sourdough type of rye bread with added coriander seeds, molasses and barley malt and has an almost cake-like texture. It's excellent for making sandwiches and is very nice toasted too. A plain version is also available, but the added coriander seeds give it such a nice flavour. The Village Bakery uses renewable energy to run their ovens and I also rather like the compostable, non-genetically modified starch Mater-bi® wrapper. A 400g loaf costs around £1.60. Look out for this product in your local health food store. Note: This product is marketed as Vegetarian, probably because the Village Bakery uses egg and dairy milk ingredients on their premises and consequently, it's possible that this product could contain minute traces of these non-vegan ingredients.Top of Page
Gardening News
Summer Sowing and Planting ScheduleHere, I would just like to mention a few interesting new gardening products and seeds I've discovered in my catalogues. First of all I would like to draw your attention to the new variety of Tomato plant called Red Robin, which is now being sold by the Organic Gardening Catalogue. These miniature tomato plants are only 30 cm high and are able to set fruit in fairly low light conditions, so they could be useful for growing indoors in the winter months, perhaps in conjunction with the Aerogarden (see below). The order code is TORR and they cost £1.73 for 15 seeds. You can either order online or by calling: 0845 130 1304. The Organic Gardening Catalogue is also offering a new Fruit Cage Kit for £93.50. This kit includes build-a-balls, aluminum tubes, pegs and netting. It can also be used to protect brassicas. Although rather expensive, it could perhaps be useful if you don't feel up to constructing your own fruit cage from scratch.
For more information on what to plant throughout June, July and August please see the GARDENING DIARY.
Thompson & Morgan are now offering a new type of butterhead lettuce called Yugoslavian Red, which produces very attractive heads from summer to autumn. This eye-catching, red-tinged lettuce would look equally attractive in the kitchen garden and in the flower border. Price £1.19. You can order online, or by phoning: 01473 695225. Mini-green Improved is another new lettuce, available from T & M. This compact, tennis-ball sized, iceberg type of lettuce makes a great 'meal for one' and is ideal for growing in raised beds or in containers on the patio.
Also ideal for growing in containers on the patio is Courgette Black Forest - a climbing courgette that can be grown up a trellis or netting. I'm going to try it out this year and have sown two seeds, both of which have now germinated and are ready for planting out.
Finally, I would like to mention the non-electric, indoor growing system called the Easy 2 Grow Kit, which is available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue for £28.50. This watering and feeding system can be used to grow peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. It's made from recycled plastic and can be extended to feed and water up to 6 plants.
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In the Wildlife Garden
Many wildflowers and commonly grown garden plants are beneficial to animals and can be used to attract wildlife into your garden. Some of the plants, trees and shrubs that are suitable for this purpose have been covered in previous issues and are listed in The Wildflower Index. Plants suitable for growing in a cottage garden are now marked with the letters CTGR in this index.
Cottage Garden Plants
In this section I am going to cover some of the plants that would traditionally be planted in a cottage garden. I intend to focus on the cottage garden plants that are particularly valuable to wildlife.
Hollyhock (Althaea rosea)
These tall, stately plants have been grown in cottage gardens since the 16th century. They should be planted at the back of a border and require a rich, free-draining soil. They grow best in a sheltered, sunny position such as against a wall or fence and should be supported by stakes when necessary. They are available in a wide range of colours, but not all varieties are attractive to butterflies. Try using Annual Single Choice Mixed (83D) from Chiltern Seeds to attract butterflies. (Tel: 01229 581137.) Bees will also visit the flowers.
Delphinium (Larkspur) (Delphinium spp.)
Another classic cottage garden plant. Like hollyhocks, delphiniums should grow well in a sunny, sheltered border in a rich fertile soil. They have spikes of blue, white, or purple flowers, which are attractive to bees and possibly to butterflies. The plant's leaves are eaten by golden plusia moth caterpillars. Delphiniums also require staking.
Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia spp.)
Grown in cottage gardens since about 1707, these tall plants produce a brilliant display of spiky blooms in autumn and are best grown in a sunny position in a mixed border. The blooms are of many colours including red, yellow, cream, pink and salmon and the foliage is grass-like and rather untidy in appearance. Red Hot Poker flowers are sometimes visited by butterflies. Try K. hybrida or K. hybrida 'Fairyland' mixed (Chiltern Seeds, Tel: 01229 581137) for attracting butterflies.Sunflower (Helianthus decapetalus)
Sunflowers are very attractive plants to grow and are usually a real favourite with children. Tall varieties require staking on windy, exposed sites and are best planted at the back of a sunny, sheltered border, perhaps against a fence. Dwarf varieties are now available, some of which are suitable for growing in containers (e.g. Big Smile, available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue). Seeds should be planted annually and could be started off in plant pots on a sunny windowsill indoors. These large, yellow daisy-like flowers, with variously coloured centres, are very attractive to bees and hoverflies and will turn their heads to follow the sun. The seeds are loved by many birds including finches, nuthatches, collared doves, blue tits, waxwings, long-tailed tits and crows and are also eaten by grey squirrels.
The Vegan Society (UK)
Web sites
An excellent source of information for new vegans, or for anyone who is thinking of going vegan. You can also shop or become a member online.
Beans and Herbs Co UK
This company specialises in bean and herb seeds. It offers many types of rare, heirloom varieties of beans, (both climbers & dwarf varieties), plus a wide range of organic vegetable seeds, herbs, green manures and sprouting seeds. All of the seeds are untreated, not genetically modified and are suitable for growing in a temperate climate. However, orders need to be posted and an order form can be printed out from the web site.
Asian Cook
This Asian cookery site offers a selection of mainly Chinese, Indian and Thai dishes. It includes some non-vegetarian recipes. Follow the link to be taken directly to the Indian vegetarian section, which includes some tasty vegan recipes for dishes such as aloo gobi, pakora, vegetable curry, chickpea masala and a dahl.
Vegan Family House
This web site is run by a vegan family who live in the North East of Scotland. It aims to supply support and information to other vegans. There's a blog and you can subscribe for email updates. There's also a recipe collection, bookstore and a shop offering assorted items such as bags, mugs and T shirts.
Summer Book Review(s)
Your Organic Allotment by Ian Spence and Pauline Pears (Gaia books, 2007)
Fresh air, plenty of exercise, companionship, plus loads of ultra-fresh, unpackaged, seasonal, tasty, nutritious, cheaply-produced, organically-grown fruit and vegetables. And these are just some of the advantages of having you own allotment!
This attractively set out and comprehensive book clearly explains how to run your allotment plot sustainably using organic growing methods. However, I feel that much of the information provided in this book would also be useful to those who prefer to use vegan organic growing methods. Relevant topics include: clearing the ground; allotment planning; soil improvement techniques; composting; tools; crop rotation; green manures; mulching; how to attract benefical wildlife and advice on pruning fruit trees and bushes.
The second part of the book provides detailed instructions on how to grow a wide variety of crops. There's a whole page for each plant, plus an attractive photo and also some indication of how easy or difficult the plant is to grow. This section covers fruit, salad crops and herbs, as well as the many scrumptious vegetables you can grow. Finally, if you do hit problems with pests and diseases there's a useful trouble-shooting guide at the back of the book. Here, I found a most interesting piece of advice regarding placing comfrey leaves around plants to help to control slugs. Something that I must try out!
Price £12.99. ISBN: 978-1-85675-278-7. Available from Amazon UK for £12.60.
Allotment Gardening: An Organic Guide for Beginners by Susan Berger (Green Books Ltd, 2006)
Find out how to effectively deal with the challenge of taking on an allotment for the first time! This book covers most of the topics already mentioned in the previous book review, but also includes some basic advice on harvesting and storing produce and on seed saving. There's also a useful calendar to help you to work out what you should be doing each month.
The second part of the book consists of an A-Z of the vegetables, fruit, herbs and the flowers that you can grow on your plot. As well as giving clear cultivation instructions for each plant, there's also a simple recipe to help you to use up your produce. Most of these recipes are suitable for vegans, or are easily adapted. The final chapter of this book is once again a troubleshooting guide to pests and diseases. This book has a less glossy image than the previous book, but the information it contains seems just as useful. Printed on 100% recycled paper.
Price £9.95. ISBN: 1-903998-54-9. It's also available from Amazon UK for £6.97.
Indeed with food prices now starting to soar, there couldn't be a better time to acquire an allotment!Reading one (or both!) of these books should provide you with the knowledge and the inspiration you need to get started. As the Vegan Organic Trust says there's 'No Smiles in Food Miles'.
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