Jamie Oliver has had some success transforming the way UK schools feed our children and now he wants to show the US how to feed their children. Jamie’s got his bad points but he’s pretty much a hero in my opinion. OK, so we might see him as being in the pocket of the big supermarkets but his heart is undoubtedly in the right place. If Jamie can persuade people that children can and do like vegetables then he will have done well.

I’m not at all sure how we reached this place where it’s just assumed that children don’t like veg. It seems quite strange to me, I always had more trouble getting them to eat meat! I suppose I was dealing with children who had mostly started off as vegetarian and been weaned onto vegetable solids. My bible was Rose Elliot’s Vegetarian Mother and Baby, I’d read Let’s Have Healthy Children (out of print and not that accurate) and I had a few tricks up my sleeve. Veggies make great weaning finger foods (carrots are obvious but try sticks of celariac or fennel!), mashed avacado is just about a perfect weaning food, and once they are a little bit older salad or pizza faces that they decorate themselves will usually be demolished in double quick time.

Vegetable box

Anyway, listen to what Jamie has to say and then take another look at what came in this week’s vegetable box and see what you can do to make it attractive to your kids. If you are stuck for ideas just leave a comment and I’ll try to come up with something.

The film will be shown around the country and The Soil Association  are looking for volunteers to hand out information and membership leaflets. You can find out the dates and book on the official Food Inc. site

The film is promoting 10 Things You Can Do to Change Our Food System but it’s very US orientated so I thought I’d do us a UK version:

10 Things You Can Do to Change Our Food System

1. Drink fewer sweetened fizzy drinks and cut down sugar in tea & coffee
   
2. Eating in is the new going out
3. Support moves to force fast food outlets to publish calorie and fat content information on menues
4. Get soft drinks machines removed from local schools
5. Meatless Mondays – go without meat for just 1 day a week
6. Buy organic where possible, when not possible go for sustainable local food
7. Protect family farms. Find your local Farmers Market and use it. Buy organic boxes direct from farms.
8. Make a point of knowing where your food comes from. READ THE LABELS!
9. Tell the government that food safety matters to you – join the Soil Association and support their campaigns.
10. Demand job protection for farm workers and food processors, including improved protection when using pesticides and other chemicals, and decent wages.
    

In 2009 we posted 16 blog posts on the Organic boxes blog, and munched our way through about 47 organic boxes ourselves, as well as three half cases of red wine, some bread and eggs.

In 2010 we hope to continue expanding the world of organic vegetable box delivery schemes.

This is what I like to do with the sprouts

Sprouts Recipe

Wash the sprouts and cut off any damaged bits. With these top quality organic sprouts the amount cut away really should be minimal. Maybe a a piece of stalk here or there and one or two outer leaves, but there is no need to cut off every stalk or peel off all the outer dark green leaves. Try to keep as much of the organic goodness as possible.

Add to boiling unsalted water and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave for another 5 minutes, then drain, retaining the liquid for making gravy with.

Place the cooked sprouts in a shallow ovenproof dish then sprinkle roughly crushed walnut halves over the top. Add slices of blue cheese over the walnuts then put it in a hot oven or under the grill until the cheese has melted to a bubbling sauce and some of the walnuts have toasted. The sprouts should still have plenty of crunch and the special slightly bitter flavour with which they are associated is complemented by the rich cheesy nutty combination.

Whether you are having a vegetarian special or a meat based Christmas dinner, the walnut and blue cheese sprouts from the organic boxes will be a serious rival to the main item. If you are vegan however, I don’t think there is any alternative to blue cheese so I’d suggest using some toasted sesame oil and either vegetarian cheese substitute or tofu.

photo credit johnsu01 recipe by Organic Vegetable Boxes.

For more than 30 years John Jeavons has been preaching the benefits of small-scale, sustainable farming. Now, on a farm just outside Willits, Jeavons operates the nonprofit Ecology Action and teaches his methods to gardeners from as far away as Siberia, Africa and Latin America.

It takes about 15,000 to 30,000 square feet of land to feed one person the average U.S. diet,” he says. “I’ve figured out how to get it down to 4,000 square feet. How? I focus on growing soil, not crops.

In 1972, John Jeavons formed Ecology Action and started farming nearly four acres in Palo Alto. Alan Chadwick, pioneer of the French intensive/biodynamic method of farming, came up from Santa Cruz to teach classes. The first edition of “How to Grow More Vegetables” was published two years later. At last, Jeavons was finding answers to the question he’d been asking farmers for years.

He took the best of Chadwick’s intensive farming techniques, including double-digging, composting and closely-spaced planting, and added a few ideas of his own. An organic farm should be a closed system, he reasoned. Off-the-farm inputs like manure, bagged compost, alfalfa meal and liquid kelp all require additional land, water and resources to produce. That, in Jeavon’s view, is hardly sustainable agriculture.

8 steps to grow more vegetables via biointensive gardening

• Double-dug, raised beds.

Loosening the soil to a depth of 24 inches allows roots to penetrate more deeply and creates a raised bed effect. Sounds like hard work? John Jeavons’ video “Dig It” demonstrates an Aikido-style movement that makes double-digging almost effortless.

• Composting. A healthy compost pile is key to replenishing the soil.
• Intensive planting.

“Ignore the spacing instructions that come with your seeds,” Jeavons says “Plant seedlings so close that when they are mature, the leaves touch. This keeps soil moist and prevents weeds from sprouting.

• Companion planting.

Green beans love strawberries, corn provides shade to cucumbers, and fast-maturing radishes grow well in between slower-growing carrots.

• Carbon farming.

Corn, millet and oats, along with other seed and grain crops, make up an important part of the diet and provide plenty of high-carbon additions to the compost pile.

• Calorie farming.

Growing a year’s food supply means focusing on high- calorie, space-efficient foods like potatoes and parsnips.

• Open-pollinated seeds.

Special hybrids aren’t needed in healthy soil, Jeavons says. Using open-pollinated seeds like the ones offered in his Bountiful Gardens Catalog helps preserve genetic diversity.

• Use the whole method.

Jeavons emphasizes that high yields come from using all Grow Biointensive components together.

So there we have a system which enables anybody to grow more vegetables on less land, as long as you do the whole thing .

So I had in my vegetable racks and fridge:

Two sacks of lovely potatoes.

Two enormous cauliflowers

Enough broccoli to sink a battleship

Just the right amount of onions, probably

Half a field of carrots

Lots of lovely lovely leeks

A couple of nice dark green cabbages

I may have forgotten something but if so, I’m sure it was delicious

Now then, Riverford claim about the roots and greens box “The veg has a good shelf life, so if you’re feeling extra thrifty try a fortnightly delivery.”  which is what I effectively had to cope with. I chose to cook one of the cauliflowers first, grated some carrots for a salad and started to munch my way through the broccoli. Potatoes keep for weeks in the dark so I didn’t worry about them too much.  After the end of teh first week I could see an of the two boxes end in sight. The second cauliflower had developed a mouldy patch but only in one isolated segment, the rest was fine. The carrots were in extraordinarily good condition. Supermarket carrots go limp after a couple of days when kept out in a room with variable temperature but these were still crisp and juicy. The leeks lasted well two. No need to peel away several layers of yellow leaves, just trim the ends a little bit.

Canceling Your Organic Box for the Holidays

Most organic box schemes have quite straight forward ways of canceling your box for short periods.

Riverford

• You can cancel up to 4 orders in a row online through ‘my future orders’ on the web site or by contacting your local distributor.

• If you are going away for more than 4 weeks, you can either remove your regular order via the ‘my regular order’ page or contact your local distributor with the dates that you will not need deliveries. Make sure you also remove any one off orders you may have made from the ‘my future orders’ page.

• Please remember that we need two working days notice before your delivery day to amend or cancel orders. You will need to phone or email your local distributor by 5pm, or by 8pm if you go online to make the changes.

Abel and Cole

• Log in and go to My Account.
• Click on the ‘my holidays’ section.
• Enter all the dates when you don’t want a delivery – you might not want one the day before you go away, so you’ll need to include this date.
• To add dates simply click on the calendar that appears.

Farmaround

• Give them a minimum of 2 working days notice
• They will suspend deliveries for any length of time that’s convenient for you.
• You can do this using their ’suspend order form’ on the web site or contact them by phone (If you do the latter, please remember to state the date that you want your last order to arrive and the date that you want to resume your deliveries.)

Eating Organic on Holiday in the UK

Here’s an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to make sure they eat just as healthily on holiday as they do the rest of the year.

Organic Places to Stay UK and Ireland

“This book will be an invaluable travelling companion.” – Craig Sams, Vice Chairman of the Soil Association and Founder of Green & Black’s

“Linda Moss’ wonderfully well researched and informative book will provide you with all the information you need to plan your break.” – Guy Watson Organic Farmer, Founder of Riverford Organic Vegetables

“With more and more people choosing a low carbon footprint holiday, Linda’s book is the must have guide for superb accommodation and tasty nutritious food.” – Peter Shield, Editor of Natural Choices

“A well researched guide that is a good starting point for planning a green holiday or just a weekend away. Every Household should have one.” – Laura Sevier, The Ecologist

It looks invaluable and ideal for popping in the glove compartment for trips and even days out. It doesn’t just cover organic B&Bs and hotels but also lots of places where you can eat organically or buy organic supplies in your chosen area.

You can buy it on Amazon here: Organic Places to Stay UK and Ireland

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad

And what about Vegan sex – is that even legal?

So many more questions are thrown up such as how would these claims apply to those vegetarians who eat the occasional bacon roll and what are the ramifications of consuming dairy produce – could double whipped cream be a dampener after all?

The controversy has been raised: is it better to keep the bunched carrots with the green feathery top foliage intact or cut them off?

I think the greens help to transpose moisture away from the carrot roots so they dry out more quickly but Linda thinks keeping the greens on will mean they last longer. Probably we’ll eat them with a couple of days anyway but it’s important to know what is really the best way to keep these special vegetables in tip top condition for even a short time.

What do you think is best and what do you do with bunched carrots from your organic vegetable boxes?

My organic box comes full of lovely, fresh organic vegetables but often I’m out when it arrives.
The front of my house gets the afternoon sun and this is bad news for my veggies! Even if I had a fairly shady spot on those sultry hot London days we sometimes get I could still have a problem.
Riverford have done some interesting work on the problem and spent a considerable amount of time last year experimenting with solutions. They even got Exeter Uni involved to see what percentage of the year temperatures might be a problem for the shelf life of the various vegetables.

How Do You Keep Your Organic Box Cool?

Riverford have come up with a couple of interesting solutions. They tried all sorts of methods but the two best (short of having a hole in the ground to pop the box in!) were using an ‘eco-cool blanket’ or building a rather charming cold store cupboard/planter.

The Eco Cool Blanket

This is a wonderfully hitech solution. You buy a purpose made cover which keeps your organic boxes up to 5°C cooler and keeps the box dry if the problem is summer rain rather than blazing sunshine.
You pop the blanket inside your previous week’s box which you are returning and your delivery driver covers your new box with it.
The eco-cool blanket is elasticated,fits even the largest box, looks very much like the sort of thing people wrap themselves in at the end of the marathon and costs £4.25

Eco-Cool Food Safe

This is a much more attractive solution but costs quite a lot more. Riverford says:

a wooden safe that encases your veg box in a layer of compost and soil, ensuring that any produce put inside stays up to 10 degrees cooler than if just left on a doorstep.

Not only that but it looks really attractive once it’s filled with plants:

How does it work?
1. The safe has a high thermal capacity and captures the cool of the night to preserve your veg through the day
2. Water evaporating from it gives an extra cooling effect, like putting a damp towel over a barrel of beer
3. When filled with soil and compost and locked, it’s so heavy that no-one can make off with your veg box while you’re out

The Eco-Cool Food Safe comes in 3 sizes, is delivered in a flat pack and costs between £69 and £74.

Low Tech Solutions to Hot Organic Boxes

Much though I like the Eco-Cool Food Safe I’m an old hippy at heart and that food safe looks pretty easy to copy. What I’m thinking is two wine crates for the sides and a wooden shelf for the top. Pop a window box planter (wooden) on top, fill with soil and plants. An old cupboard door could be added and the whole lot painted with a chalky mix of emulsion and water to give a shabby chic white or maybe a chippy pale blue. (This might just be my Shabby Chic obsession talking!) Stand it against a wall, ideally  somewhere that gets a bit of shade and your organic boxes are going to stay nice and cool on the hottest day (or dry when it does the other thing!)

It would be a little taller than the smallest bought one but that should make it easier to get your organic boxes out again.