Category: Count down

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 Action 80: Autumn is a good time to enjoy spicy cakes such as gingerbread and Parkin. Parkin is a traditional cake made in Yorkshire and Lancashire using oatmeal and treacle. Also known as tharf cake or, in Derbyshire, as Thor cake – the latter is more a biscuit than a cake.  Here is a vegan recipe for Parkin: if you are not a fan of treacle, use extra syrup instead. https://littleveganspice.co.uk/home/veganparkinrecipe

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 Action 79: Autumn is a good time to sow wild flower seeds. The Climate Coalition in the run up to COP 26 has set the challenge of planting a billion seeds. https://together.org.uk/2021/09/13/billionseedchallenge/

If you have a patch of bare earth, dig it over before scattering a thin layer of seeds. If the seeds are too close together they may not grow so well. Water and then leave to slowly grow during the winter months. It may help to cover with netting or a cat’s cradle of string to stop cats and foxes digging up your seeds. 

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 Action 77: Plant cuttings. It is not conventional but I take cuttings of plants in the autumn: rosemary, sage, and penstemon. I find a soft side shoot and pull it away from the main stalk so that it has a ‘heel’ – ie a bit of the harder stalk comes away with it. I then remove  any leaves from the bottom half of the shoot and place it in a bottle of clean water. I keep the water topped up/ and or change it if it looks green. After a couple of weeks, roots will begin to form. When there are several long roots, I pot the new plant up and over winter it indoors ready to plant out next spring. 

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Action 76: Have ago at making your own cider vinegar. Start with a large class jar – the best is demi  john. As you use apples, put the cores into the jar. Add a little water and a sugar lump and leave the jar open so that natural yeasts can start the fermentation process. As you add more apple cores, add more water. I aim for about half to two thirds water to apple mixture. Add more sugar: I add two or three sugar lumps (teaspoons of sugar are just as good but potentially messier) for every cup of water (approx 200ml). Once a bit of froth is developing on top of the apple mixture, I then insert wine valve. If  you don’t have one, then cover the jar with a loose lid or muslin cloth to keep out any fruit flies. 

Once the jar is 3/4 full leave for two or three weeks. Then strain the liquid into a clean jar and cover with muslin. Leave so that more natural yeast can start the souring process. A ‘crust’ may form on top or fine strands of mucus. This is beginnings of the vinegar agent or ‘mother’. This make take several weeks: do t despair. Eventually it will form a glutinous disk that sinks to the bottom of the jar. 

Test your vinegar – if it tastes good, bottle it. Save the mother, keeping it submerged in some of the vinegar you have made. Next time you can add the mother to your new batch of fermented apple juice and the vinegar transformation will be quicker.

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Action 75: Split established perennial plants to create new plants. Plants  such as golden rod, Japanese anemones, daisies, cranesbill, echinops  and the like, expand their root base each year and spread out. In the autumn you can uproot them and then pull or cut them in half and replant each part as a new plant – or share them with neighbours. Whilst the autumn weather is still mild, they will happily re-establish themselves. 

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Action 73: World Habitat Day – this year the UN Habitat’s theme  is  Accelerating urban action for a carbon-free world.  Cities are responsible for some 70 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions with transport, buildings, energy, and waste management accounting for the bulk of urban greenhouse gas emissions. The future of our planet depends on national, regional and local governments and organisations, communities, academic institutions, the private sector and all relevant stakeholders working together to create sustainable, carbon-neutral, inclusive cities and towns.

 Check out your local authority’s climate action plan – does it seem up to the challenge?

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