We did skip a few bits of wood and if we’d planned this for more than 15 minutes could certainly have skipped all the wood. As it happened though we spent £6.90 on the wood.

Wood £6.90
Trays 7 x £1.75 = £12.25
Cable £1.80 (4 m)
Plug £0.64
Lamp holders 4 x £0.98 = £3.92
Switch £1.72
Bulbs £1.97 (4 x 60W)
Screws ~60 = 0.40

Also a little bit of wood glue and some foil and duct tape (say 50 pence).
The cardboard is of no cost and the fan (120 mm, 12 v) came from an old computer case (these can be bought for £3 from good computer shops).

Total cost = £29.90

Call it £30.50 or £34 once we’ve added the 8th and 9th racks there’s room for. The shop only had seven in stock.

The materials for the dehydrator.

The cats were very helpful...

The basic idea is a simple wooden frame, with lights at the bottom to provide the heat and a fan to provide the air flow. All the joints were drilled, counter sunk, glued and screwed to produce a pretty robust frame.

Drilling - no power tools used here!

Each corner post has little ledges for the racks to rest on.

The four 60 W bulbs are in two parallel sets, each with its own switch. This gives us two heat levels of 240 W and 120 W.

Four 60 W bulbs provide 240 W of heat (and a small amount of waste light).

The sides are covered with thick cardboard. The 120 mm fan is fitted into the middle of the cardboard base, separating the bulbs from the heating area. It’s a DC fan, running off an old transformer I had kicking around.

All assembled with the 120 mm fan in the base.

And here we are in action!

First run!

In its current configuration the drying area is seven trays of 0.094 m2 totalling 0.66 m2. The capacity is 9 trays so a total of 0.85 m2, over twice the capacity of the cheapest commercial version. At least £10 of the final cost of £34 could be easily avoided by getting the wood and cable from a skip. The switch, bulb fittings, and plug could also probably be skipped with a little more effort. The trays were the most expensive part, they do look nice but similar function could have been achieved far cheaper by using a square metre of fine wire mesh from a garden centre. The apples do seem to be sticking to the metal a bit, so maybe plastic trays would work better? Or maybe we need to use a little bit of oil/butter on them next time.

Here’s the result:

The first batch!

It took around eight hours, used close to 2 kWh which is around £0.25 of electricity. Next up the solar adapter for sunny days! Whilst some did stick to the trays, these were the thinner ones; they were too thin! The best results are from the thicker slices, 4 mm seems around right.

The temperature with all four bulbs on was a stable 35 C, which looking at commercial dehydrators seems on the cool side. Be interesting to know how much airflow they have though. Now to try some courgettes!

Everything is growing really fast this month. After a relatively cool and wet July in Bristol (16.9C compared to the 30 year average of 18.3C along with 18% more rain) August seems to be a little warmer. Here’s the crop from the 13th August:

These are the first of our carrots along with lots of squash, courgettes, blackberries and chard.

Of course we can’t hope to eat this much squash, though we’ve had a good go! Most of this load was given away at a BBQ last week. The variates here are Parador courgettes along with Sunburst, Sunshine and Turks Turban squash. We also have some Crown Prince, Harrier, Confection and Harlequin on the plot which should all keep fairly well, along with a prolific pumpkin. The carrots are Jaune Obtuse de Doubs’ Yellow Carrot, a non-hybrid from Real Seeds. These carrots were planted on 26th March. The squash plants are mostly growing in front of the sweetcorn:

Sweetcorn and Squash

Our monstrous sweetcorn! Dave’s a handy 6 foot rule so these 55 sweetcorn plants are around 9 foot. Looking at other allotment plots and commercial fields our corn is exceptionally tall, however, it seems to have fewer cobs forming than we’ve seen on other plants. The seed was another non-hybrid, called Golden Bantam Improved.

The leeks are continuing to bulk up

We're letting this one grow!

We sowed more carrots on 10th July. These should be ready by the end of October, thanks Amanda and Dave for weeding!

Yellow carrots planted 10th July

Here's our haul from 2nd August 2011

A few photos from earlier. This is the first half of the plot, as it looked on 17th July:

Chard, leeks, rhubarb and squash in front of the sweetcorn

We're eating the turnips much smaller than this... but it's fun to let one grow!

The kittens are curious and enthusiastic creatures, not often helpful though!

A round up of recent progress on the allotment.

These photos are from 9th of July:

These leeks had a slow start. The rabbits ate them almost down to the groud a couple of months ago. Amazingly they seem to have come back pretty well.

The squash are growing fast now, looks like we'll have a lot! These are called Sunburst and have a wonderful scalloped edge.

The kale's done really well. More than we can eat! And in the background the rapidlly growing sweetcorn.

A few days later, 23rd of July and we’ve got a good harvest:

The potatoes are the first earlies, Foremost. That's the crop from three plants. We've also lifted the second garlic patch, this was planted in January and seems pretty similar to the stuff that went in in November. Also a good crop of courgettes, turnips, chard, onions and blackberries.

Sweetcorn are looking lush now, lots of foliage but not much sign of corn yet!

The chard has been a great success. We have yellow, red and a more conventional leaf beat, very similar to spinach.

We've planted sweetpeas and sunflowers against the fence for a bit of colour.

The beans have been a nightmare, bad weather, rabbits and voles have had most of them. We have some dwarf runners that are finally doing what they're meant to do now.

After a record-breakingly dry spring, we’ve finally had some wet weather and the plants have really appreciated it. The rhubarb, which had been looking increasingly unhappy despite regular watering, is now thriving:

Rhubarb, these started as four small donations from our allotment neighbour.

The remaining onions (some were nibbled by hungry rabbits) are starting to swell:

Onions, this is our 2nd bed of onions. They went in after the super cold December and have done better than the first lot.

And the sweetcorn are looking great!

Sweetcorn, current count is 55 plants from the 60 kernels. Not bad!

Our squash have come from various sources. Some we grew ourself from seeds, some we got as little plants, others from friends and family:

Our largest squash, the donated pumpkin from Will & Kaz.

We have 23 various squash/pumpkin/courgette plants in total.

The beetroot and parsnips are coming along well. We may have underestimated the germination rate of the parsnips and overestimated our likely consumption of them…. Anyone out there who would like some parsnips in a couple of months’ time??

In the foreground, the eldest beetroot, behind them younger. In the background parsnips and potatoes.

After netting the chard to prevent the rabbits getting at it, it has grown up quickly. Tasting some directly from the plant, I can see why the rabbits liked it so much. The ordinary green ones taste best, but the yellow and red look exciting:

Rainbow (at least red, green and yellow anyway) chard.

The kale has been growing fast since it finally started raining a couple of weeks ago.

The garlic that we put in in autumn had completely died, so we were forced to harvest them all, although it’s a bit early. Maybe they were tricked by the dry spring into thinking that summer had been and gone. Turnips that we had almost given up on have also done remarkably well, so we thinned them out and ate some in white sauce with the chard.

First real harvest this year. Chard, turnip and garlic.

Time to stop buying vegetables!

So, how did it go?

Well, we started badly by being away from home the week before and having a power cut on Sunday, so were rather distracted from our preparation which meant that we had to do our shopping on Monday morning, at Tesco. We have taken some flak for going to Tesco (more on that later) but we were unsure at that point whether we would manage the challenge, so prioritised quantity per penny and made full use of the Tesco Value range:

Shopping

Total spent £8.90. The garlic (23p) and 1 onion (14p) were purchased separately and the homemade jam we worked out at 11p per 100g. We were pleased to have some money left over for oil and seasonings etc, which we priced pro rata, and we allowed ourselves produce from the allotment at a total of 37p for the week (£37 per year, 5% of area, 1/5 of annual produce – a debatable calculation but I think reasonable). Catch of the day was the celeriac, reduced to just 20p.

Monday breakfast: 90g oats and 18g jam, 7.5p

Then we made some bread (500g flour, 7g yeast and 5g salt, total 30p), of which we had a couple of slices each for lunch with 1/4 tin of tuna (11p) and a couple of biscuits (0.62p each):

Bread

Dinner (51p) included a sixth of a vegetable stew (1/2 celeriac, 500g carrots, 100g onion, 3 cloves garlic, 20g oil, 1/4 celery pack, 1 tin beans, 2 cartons passata, total £1.39), which we made on Monday and which provided Tuesday’s lunch and dinner as well. Rice portion 6p each. For dessert we had some rhubarb from the allotment. Also from the allotment was a delicious starter of asparagus, which was eaten before it could be photographed…

Monday

Tuesday breakfast: We had budgeted for 100g oats each per day for breakfast, but this did turn out a bit too much and we ended with some left over!

Lunch was leftovers for Chris (30p), and two tuna sandwiches for Erica (20p).

For dinner we started on the potatoes: we used 1.5kg (54p) for chips with a little oil (4p). Half of the chips were saved for tomorrow’s lunch and half served up with the remains of yesterday’s bean stew (45p) and 225g of the green beans (17.5p). Rhubarb followed. Divide that by two for the cost per person and here it is:

Tuesday

Wednesday lunch was chips and bean stew and a couple of jam sandwiches (30p) for Chris, which adequately fuelled his day of volunteering with a bicycle maintenance scheme. Erica finished the tin of tuna with the bread (and perhaps a couple of sneaky chips from the fridge) (20p).

Wednesday dinner was dal (500g yellow split peas, most of the rest of the garlic, 5g cumin seeds, 30g oil, <1g chilli, 1/2 onion, 1/2 celery pack, 2 carrots, total £1.21) with rice (6p each) and more green beans (12p). We started eating before remembering to take a picture:

Wednesday

Thursday lunch and dinner were both more dal and rice, with green beans at dinner again:

Thursday

On Friday morning we realised we had slightly miscalculated and should have cooked the previous night, so had to do it in the morning to avoid having to buy bread for lunch. We made another bean stew (135g onion, last of garlic, 25g oil, 1/4 celery pack, other 1/2 celeriac, other tin kidney beans, 3 carrots, 1 carton passata, total £1.06) and baked 11 potatoes. We each had 3 potatoes and some stew for lunch and Chris made some more bread (30p see above). Dinner was the rest of the stew and potatoes:

Friday

So we ended up staying just within the budget, but having a fair amount of food to spare. We didn’t use any of the plain flour (52p) or the tinned spaghetti (14p), and we had quite a lot of potatoes and carrots left over from the big packs, as well as some oats and green beans. In nutritional terms we did just fine on calories but probably were a bit over-reliant on carbs – and we also realised afterwards that there was almost no fat in anything we had except for the oil for frying, so it might have been sensible to use the slack for something like a bit of milk.

We were surprised to find the budget quite so easy to live on, and felt the main challenge was planning carefully. It was a bit strange to see some people posting on the LBTL Facebook page saying that they were going hungry or had only a carrot for dinner – I think these people relied a bit too much on over-processed “cheap” food which actually turns out not to be so cheap when you realise how little nutritional value it has. And those who insisted on having the non-negotiable meat and dairy products in their diet also seemed to trade off very heavily on calories, despite picking the most revolting sausages available(!) and the factory farmed eggs.

Returning to our own trade-offs, however…. as has been said above, yes we did go to Tesco and yes we did buy the non-organic exploited unethical veg while we were there. We thought this would be necessary but in retrospect we believe we were enough within budget that it would have been possible, but only just, to buy organic versions of some of these.

Whilst this has been an interesting exercise we feel an important point has been missed by many. The low price paid for food in the west (aka Tesco Value) is a form of exploitation and at least partly responsible for much of the world’s poverty. For example, the average U.S. consumer spent 9.8 percent of disposable personal income (income available after taxes) on all food in 2007, a figure that has fallen from 14% in the 1970s (ref). In the UK it’s around 15%, half what it was 50 years ago (ref). For those who are able, paying a fair price for food is part of ensuring that we can continue to support our farmers through the tough times ahead as agricultural inputs (based on fossil fuels) inevitably increase in price. Choosing organic and local, low-fuel-input foods is obviously an even better way of mitigating this problem by helping farmers move to more sustainable agricultural practices, securing a more affordable food supply in the long term. For our food future Tesco Value is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Our next challenge will be to repeat the exercise, but restricting ourselves to organically grown and fairly traded produce. Fairly traded here doesn’t mean just “Fair Trade” branded but includes western countries with good labour laws. At the moment, these are often more expensive, so it will certainly be more of a challenge but one more relevant to the future.

We haven’t pestered anyone for donations, but if you’d like to help the charities who organised this campaign you can do so here.

Shopping Bill

Additions:

37p allotment produce (asparagus and rhubarb)
7p for 100g of sugar for stewing rhubarb
23p garlic
14p other onion
45p tin tuna
14p for 105g oil
0p for the last of some dried chilli from the garden from last year (<1g)
22p for 200g homemade jam
4p for 5g cumin seeds
11p for 14g yeast
0p for 10g salt
—-
£1.78

Subtractions:

14p tin spaghetti unopened
52p plain flour unopened
—-
68p

Total spent £9.99 (!)
Leftovers (approx): 2kg potatoes, 800g carrots, 500g bread flour, 200g green beans, 150g oats, and a few biscuits! (about £1.50) making our actual daily average around 85 pence.

It’s been a while since the last update, with the improving weather a lot’s been going on at the allotment. On the 18th February we started chitting the potatoes. Four weeks later, there had been some progress:

Four weeks chitting, 18th Feb to 20th March

The ‘before’ image is here: 18th Feb.

Of our five variates, Foremost (1st Early), Roseval (2nd Early), Sarpo Shona (Early Maincrop) and Kerrs Pink (Late Maincrop) have chitted nicely, ready to plant. Pink Fir Apple (Late Maincrop), however, hasn’t done much. There are some shoots but not ready for planting yet. We’ll give it another couple of weeks.

Chitted potatoes, 20th March 2011

Here they are going in; the earlies are spaced 30 cm apart in rows around 40 cm apart and the rest spaced 40 cm apart.

Potatoes going in, 20th March 2011

Potatoes going in, 20th March 2011

We’ve also been improving the rabbit proofing, adding chicken wire to the gate, fixing a bit of fence, blocking up holes… it’s not obvious where they can get in now.

This weekend (26th March) we’ve been busy planting, and weeding. The thistles have the potential to be a problem. The meadow before we started digging was full of thistles and their remaining roots are spawning babies everywhere!

We added some more parsnips and cabbage, a few weeks after the first sowing. Sown the first time this year are: carrots, turnips, beetroot, bunching onions and leeks. We also dug a new bed along the fence and sowed a mixed pack of wild flower seeds.

Seed beds

No more photos of muddy fields today! Last weekend we went to the Somerset Potato Day, in Pylle. It was an amazing event, around a hundred different varieties of potato, sold by the tuber. Rather like a muddy pick ‘n’ mix! It was also extremely busy. The choice was somewhat bewildering so we decided to limit ourselves to ten tubers of just five different varieties, making sure we got a spread from 1st early to late maincrop. Here’s what we ended up with:

Foremost 1st Early
Waxy flesh. When first added to the national list in 1954 it was Suttons Foremost and an instant hit with gardeners who liked its excellent flavour and resistance to disintegration when boiling. Good common scab resistance. Short to oval in shape with white skin and waxy white flesh.
Use: Salad, Bake, Boil, Roast.

Roseval 2nd Early
Salad, smooth, deep red skinned with yellow flesh salad variety, sometimes with a pink flush. The flesh is waxy with a truly suburb flavour. Excellent for salad use, hot or cold. A very pretty variety, good cooking quality. Popular in France, rare in UK.

Sarpo Shona Early Maincrop
Short growing, weed smothering, slightly oval shaped early maincrop with white skin, creamy flesh and shallow eyes, plus a great resistance to blight.

Pink Fir Apple Late Maincrop
Waxy flesh, good flavour. Just brush off under the tap and steam in its skin, don’t worry if bits break off them, cook them all. It does tend to wander so make sure to dig up all the tubers.
Recommend use: Boil, Salad.

Kerrs Pink Late Maincrop
Floury flesh. Raised in Scotland by James Henry, very vigorous foliage, the age shows in the deep eyes and good flavour. Recommend use: Chip, Mash, Roast.

Seed Potatoes, 18th Feb 2011

Before planning potatoes must be chitted. This is just allowing them to sprout before planting and what we started today. It’s recommended to allow around six weeks for chitting. Each potato has one end a little more rounded or blunt with a few ‘eyes’. We stand them, this blunt end uppermost, in egg boxes or similar, in a cool and light place. Our loft with its skylights seems ideal. Once the shoots are 0.5-1 inches long they are ready to plant. This should be around the last week of March.

1st earlies should be ready after around 10 weeks and the maincrop more like 20. Fingers crossed for mid June!

Seed Potatoes, 18th Feb 2011

Seed Potato Catalogue

Peeling the oranges

1.5 kg of Seville oranges, £1.96
3 kg sugar, £2.01
2 lemons, £0.48
3 litres water

Peel the oranges so they look like the photo below. It’s good to try and get the peel off in long strips, it makes the snipping easier! With scissors snip the peel into the bits you want to see in the marmalade. Halve the oranges and squeeze out all the juice, flesh and pips. Add the juice and flesh to the pan with the peel. Keep the pips separate. Finally pull out all the membranes and add to the pips in a second pan. The pips and membranes can also be tied in a muslin bag and left in the main pan.

Split the water between the two pans, with most going with the peel in a large pan. The pips and membranes in a small pan don’t need so much. Simmer both pans for about 2 hours until the peel has softened and about half the water has evaporated. Don’t skimp on this stage it takes time to soften the peel. Drain the pip and membrane mixture (with all its pectin) through a sieve into the main pan. At this point we split the mixture equally between to pans, adding a table spoon of treacle to one for a darker colour. Finally add the sugar and boil rapidly for around 15 minutes. Test for set on a cold plate, when it wrinkles we’re done. It’s important to leave the mixture to cool for another 15 minutes or so before potting or the peel will rise to the surface.

We prepare the jars by washing thoroughly in hot soapy water, rinsing then placing in the oven at around 120C for 20 minutes.

Juicing

Simmer for a couple of hours to soften peel

Add treacle for a darker colour

Final 15-30 minutes with the sugar

Clean jars

The end result!

We finished up with about 4 kg of marmalade in 12.5 jars. The total cost of ingredients was £4.45, so around 36 pence a jar!

Returning to the allotment in January after the seriously cold December we discovered evidence of trespass. Rabbits, we presume, had been at the garlic and remaining carrot tops. The carrots had been chewed to the ground, however, the garlic had only been nibbled. Each plant had lost its top couple of inches. Maybe the garlic isn’t really to the rabbit’s taste and gets stronger further down the plant?

Nibbled garlic, 8th January 2011.

Nibbled carrots, 8th January 2011.

Note the Leporidae evidence in the bottom left. We decided to harvest all the remaining carrots, before the rabbits decided to dig them up! We ended up with ~2.5 kg once topped and washed. The whole bed probably produced around 6 kg in total. What is one to do with 2.5 kg of fresh carrots?

Preparing 2.5 kg of carrots.

Carrots and coriander soup of course!

Carrot and coriander soup.

Our first proper harvest from the allotment today. We planted the carrots on 1st August, 13 weeks to the day here’s some of what we have:

Carrots 31st October 2010

The garlic was planted on the 10th October, here it is three weeks on:

Garlic, three weeks old. 31st October 2010

The red onions we planted three weeks ago are just breaking the surface, not as impressive as the garlic yet. Erica meticulously prepared this bed for a second batch of onions which went in today. There were lots of worms!

Preparing the onion bed, 31st October 2010

I dug another two 3m x 1m beds. The turf going into the compost. Here’s the compost heap with its turf walls:

Compost heap, 31st October 2010