Hedvig’s permaculture diploma

It’s been two weeks now since the broad beans have arrived in our veg box, and two weeks I’ve been dreaming about some sort of broad bean paste… that sounds very unimaginative, but unfortunately my two weeks have been very broad-bean-less.  I had a few quickly boiled and rolled in butter.  But not the recipe that I have been longing for.  Not the sumptuous seduction of fine olive oil, combined with the tongue curling tartness of lemons.  So as the days pass, more ingredients get added to my paste… maybe broad bean and courgette paste… and more dishes… beetroot tahini paste, or grilled halloumi and courgettes.

This weekend has been a real weekend.  Two days off.  In a row.  Such a rarity for me these days.  No plans, no demands and very few people around.  Of course it soon got littered with unexpected calls from wannabe flatmates.   Saturday spend the morning waking up listening to bits of podcast and falling asleep again.  Managed to pull myself out of bed for water melon and one of the aforementioned flatmates and meandered to the market.  We did the usual ambulation, this time introducing it and our favourite stalls to two Finns that were staying over.  I got a berry juice and a Portuguese custard tart.

That sustained me to get on my bike and speed along Kingsland Road down to Old Street, Clerkenwell, Holborn, Kingsway and over the bridge to Naveena’s.  She was preparing a Keralan beef stew with handfuls of curry leaves, ginger, and various other spices thrown in.  Once that was on the boil we went up to the roof terrace, armed with a tray full of lunch time goodies.  We slowed sauteed in the sun and lazily munched our way to contentment.

We decided to head out to the Southbank to look for presents and the gift of inspiration, and so I lounged on the sofa while Naveena got ready.  I got stuck into Mai Pham’s New Flavours of the Vietnamese Table.  Finally the inspiration I needed seemed to be captured in a book.  The regional differences, the historical influences.  Our perusal of the bookshop threw up no better books, so I went home with New Flavours in my bag and good intentions.

I came home and went to the Turkish shop and found green olives pregnantly stuffed with garlic cloves.  The clove adds a crunch you can’t expect from an olive, unless you go through to the stone and your teeth are decomposing.  I picked up a bunch of parsley and coriander.  As a veg box buyer and grower, I have a profound sense of appreciation at such abundance, and hate to see the beautifully fragrant leaves disintegrate before my eyes into liquid compost.

But time has come and gone.  Sunday was meant to be a birthday picnic in the park and I imagined my broad bean paste making an appearance there.  It ended up being lounged in bed sorting out newspapers, reading recipe books, listening to podcasts, having long-distance phone calls, watching old movies and I’ve managed to skip more meals than I have eaten this weekend.  And the ones I have longed for still remain just that. There’s always tomorrow.

So the assessment stage continued a bit more today using the zone and sector tool.

The zoning method comprises on concentric cirlces, with the frequency of use decreasing from the centre to the outer rings.  The sectors are based on different factors.  So for my assessment, I’ve created four sectors: Get Growing, Permaculture, other work and family.  For each sector, I’ve looked at income generation and the frequency of income generation in that sector.  It makes more sense when you see it, and unfortunately I left my camera at my brother’s house last week.  But I’m going over there tomorrow, so I will get some snaps up asap.

The process was interesting as it got me thinking about the seasonal nature of the gardening work and how to manage that.  I thought about applying for some part time work that would be provide work through out all the year.  Or looking for other work during the non-growing season.  During last week I heard about a growing job, and I’ve started to work on the application today, so will see what happens with that.

I also sat down and read Holmgren’s short version of the principles while sitting out in the sun, great to re-read it with my different projects in mind.   It is strangely comforting to read, to feel like things fit into a framework that I believe in.  I then had a chat with a friend about different forms of income generation and re-skilling.  Felt very Transition Towns.  Such essential stuff.  To be part of a community of self-employed people trying to make sense of the world.

Don’t feel like it makes sense to do the action learning questions tonight before having done the design element of the project.  So I’ll post them up when I have got a bit further with that.   Good to be moving on this and also keeping going with the cosmetics and herbs project.  They do feel connected.

So the developments continue.  I’ve tried out a new essential oils mix for my deodorant and that seems to work better (ylang ylang, orange and bergamot).

Today I tried a different cosmetics thing.  I made a strong chamomile tea, let it cool, filled up a spray and put it in my hair while working out in the garden, to see if it would work as a dye.  Did try it once years ago and it didn’t do much, so thought I would be more persistent this time.

Might be making some balms this weekend.  Thinking about tinctures.

Plus thinking about combining the growing side of things.  Brought a lot of herbs down we’ve grown from the glasshouse so now have hyssop, chamomile, borage, basil, sage, parsley, comfrey, thyme, rosemary, fennel, coriander and probably more growing outside.

The herbs that I picked previously are all now in containers, and I spent the night before the soltice collecting and drying more herbs.  So trying to build up the stores for the winter ahead.  I’ve got a good amount of sage so that will help with sore throats.

Irene leaves soon so thinking about how to pull together some of the info.  I’m also leaving the house so thinking about design in a different way.  Lots still going on.

check this out

Oh, I know, it sounds like a lot of fun.  In order not to procrastinate too much, I did cushioned today’s activity with a fair amount of work in the garden.  But the assessing did get done, and some interesting findings did come out of it.

I knew that my life wasn’t financially sustainable because I don’t earn enough.  Equally I knew that for this year I was prepared to go into my savings in order to get through the first year of running the organisation.  What was more surprising is that it is more possible to get things to be sustainable and it wouldn’t require too much, which would be awesome.

I have also decided that I am going to move out of London and to Brighton, which I’m really excited about.   So I started surveying interesting organisation and going through websites to see if there are any jobs around for the non-growing season.  I got the info I need from HMCR to figure out my tax… so the fun never ceases.

What went well?  Straight forward analysis, going on to assess job opportunities.

What didn’t go so well?   The internet was cutting out today, so couldn’t continue research into organisation.

Vision?   Contentedly settled into Brighton, earning more money to be able to get ‘Get Growing’ growing.  Research teaching positions in Brighton, continue research for organisations and jobs.  Develop business plan and scenarios.

Next steps? Emails about other work for this summer, think through and assess what want from work,

Oh yes, after a bit of procrastination, the new project is underway.  A really different project, from working with my flat mates, this is quite a personal one.  I am taking a good hard look at the my personal finances.  Can you understand why my usual enthusiasm for my permaculture stuff was dampened a bit?

But after a week’s break up in Yorkshire, I came back ready to have a go.  Also, Sara and I spent some time figuring how much we can get from Get Growing over the growing season and this month was more than I expected.

Permaculture is about designing a system for sustainable living.  Although there is a lot more I can do to become more environmentally sustainable, at this moment in time my financial sustainability brings my environmental stuff in jeopardy.  So why not apply the principles, theories and techniques to personal finances.  As a recent self-employed person and setting up and running my own organisation, there is a huge need for it all to be sustainable.

Today I started the surveying.  I looked through my bank statements and surveyed my income and expenditure.  I have done all of 2009 so far.  It was quite relieving doing the work.  To face facts.  And deal with numbers.  Being dyslexic and numbers having a tendency to jump around quite a lot, this daunting task for anyone is just a tad more daunting.

With this clear understanding and having kept my timesheets up to date, I was ready to take the next step.  Months back I had got a tax credits form, filled it out, but hadn’t filled in number of hours because wasn’t sure what it was going to be.  I went on to complete the form and more importantly went to the post office and sent it off.  As if that wasn’t enough, I came back and tackled the online tax self assessment that is due in January.  That process is now underway and I’m waiting for the codes etc.

During the process of surveying became clear: which months were going to be tighter, where potential cuts could be made.  I also started factoring in other ways of increasing my income.

I planned to explore the principles of ‘apply self-regulation and accept feedback’  and ‘use and value diversity.  Even within the first session, I feel confident that will happen.

To conclude with the action learning questions:

What is going well?  Feel relieved to have started, got good results from the surveying that will have lasting impacts.  Feel more much in control.

What is not going so well?  Have to wait to get codes for the online assessment, lots of uncertainly makes planning and surveying difficult.

Vision? Using zone and sector tool for the surveying and designing.  To come with a plan how to become more financially sustainable, especially given the seasonal nature of my work.  Figure out ethical investment.

Next steps? Use zone and sector tool for surveying, and then move onto the assessment.

So, last time we left off at the surveying and assessing stage.  Since then I have continued with the assessing and researching for the products that I could make.

I had a good chat with Sarah about different products, and how easy they are to make.  Ire and I also explored different aspects of essential oils, which was another part of the assessment.  In the Neal’s Yard book that we were looking at it includes a psychological profile for each oil.  So we went through the different oils and noted down who sprang to mind when reading it.  This was an interesting exercise.  The dual purpose of it was 1) a way to get more familiar with the oils and use people we know as a way to make sense of it 2) figure out which oils would be good for various products we want to make for different people.

I have spent some time out in the garden trying to see plants in different ways.  I planted the calendula that I found in tea dregs. It is growing, both the Neal’s Yard and the Organic Catalogue.  Pretty slowly, but ‘use small and slow solutions’ is one of the design principles of permaculture, so it’s all good.  I just showed Sarah one of our sage plants that is looking particularly fine, and she hadn’t discovered it, some we’ll be drying more of that to get us through the winter.  I have been taking lots of cuttings for peppermint so that we have plenty.  We have used peppermint to make a body scrub, so hopefully this year it will be from home-grown stuff.  I also took a cutting from Marianne’s comfrey, that was growing profusely at her house.  Sarah was really excited about it and we spent some time reading about it while in the garden.  It is taking well, so lots more to get excited about.

This leads me on to the other aspect of the project: making stuff.  I started with something simple, home-made deodorant.  Here is the recipe I used:

½ tsp rock crystal

10 drops juniper

10 drops frankincense

3 drops lemongrass

2 drops bergamot

Put the rock crystal into deodorant container, add essential fills.  Fill to the top with water and shake. 

The blend of smells seemed to work in itself, but I wasn’t sure about it for me.  How about a future blend of:

Bergamot

Orange

Lavender

Geranium

Thus the learning cycle continues, and I’m looking forward to the next batch.  There is talk of trying to make different things, and there is still a lot of work to be done in the growing and making cleaning products.