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Promoting sustainable lifestyles and practices that are compatible with life in a major fishing port.

02/11/2026

Autumnal sustainability. Our sustainable life is built on two pillars - catching seafood and growing food at home. This gives us a degree of independence from the globalised food systems which pollute the world with greenhouse gases, single use plastic, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It's impossible to do this perfectly on your own, so our hope has always been to encourage sustainable living in the community around us. Lots of people living sustainably in ways that are suited to their preferences, interests and needs can make a real difference.

Autumn is the season for Squid and Prawns, both of which I can obtain fairly easily and quickly from Newlyn Pier, so these are seasonal sources of food that we make the most of between September and December, which is usually the peak time for these species. Part of the reason for our emphasis on seafood is because we live in a historic fishing port which has been present since the 1400s, so we want our environmental efforts to be in cultural continuity with our home, rather than an irrelevant, alien blob on the landscape.

Meanwhile in the garden, I have been sowing Broad Beans and planting out Cabbages which will both grow over Winter and give us a source of food next Spring, before we plant out the Summer vegetables like Tomatoes and Pumpkins. I have also been "harvesting" my Chicken manure to feed the beds that I grew food in this Summer, in order to replace the nutrients that were extracted by the plants. Growing food directly in fresh manure is unsafe, but by the time I plant in this bed next year, everything will be decomposed and safe to grow in.

Matt.

01/11/2026

I noticed this warning on the Pesticide Action Network UK page about fungicides in the peels of Citrus fruits recently, which has caused me to cast my mind back to all the Marmalade which I've made over the last couple of years. I made some of this Marmalade from deliveries to the community larder at Newlyn Centenary Methodist Church as part of our efforts to combat food waste, but it didn't occur to me at the time that the peels might not be suitable for consumption. This is certainly sobering stuff and a demonstration of how important it is to try and move away from poisoned food by growing at home and in the community as much as possible.

Appropriately, "Pesticide Action Network" spells "PAN" who was the Greek God of the wild and of nature. Although he was a relatively minor character in the Greek pantheon, he is embedded into the consciousness of British folk by his appearance in a chapter called "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" from Kenneth Graham's "The Wind in the Willows". This scene is pictured below, showing "Mr Rat" and "Mr Mole" encountering Pan during a journey along the river which plays a central role in the book, which some say is based on the Lerryn River, which feeds into the River Fowey.

Matt.

31/10/2026

Cleaning up and cooking some Mussels a couple of days ago after purging them in clean seawater overnight. We took these Mussels from a place that is recommended to be clean by somebody in the know and they have been cooked in boiling water. We'll now freeze these Mussels down into bags to add into meals, which will mean that they will be cooked a second time. Shellfish is never 100% safe, but this is as safe as it gets. We'll probably make Paella, Pizza and an Omelette with these Mussels and perhaps use them in a fish soup or Bouillabaisse if we have the right ingredients.

Provided that you take a reasonably low number of Mussels from any one bed at any one time, they are a very sustainable source of animal protein, because they don't use up any feed or water like traditional livestock. We eat Mussels and other shellfish a few times a year to supplement our normal catches of "regular" fish as part of our efforts to live sustainably as a household, which has meant that our consumption of supermarket meat is pretty low, following the principles of the Mediterranean diet.

Matt.

29/10/2026

Paul Parish Church is sometimes called "St Pol de Leon", which is also the name of a market town and Cathedral in Brittany, France. I was interested to learn recently that St Pol de Leon is a major location for French Globe Artichoke production, because I will be growing these plants at home next year as part of our back garden permaculture project. We enjoy the principle of cultural continuity, especially in terms of the Celtic Fringe, and meaningful coincidences, so this will add an extra layer of enjoyment to growing this exotic vegetable for the first time at home.

Paul Church is said to have been founded by the Welsh Saint Paul Aurelian, who was a 6th Century Bishop. He is said to have established a monastery at an old castle in St Pol de Leon in France, hence the link between the place names. He may have been the same person as St Paulinus of Wales.

Our view is that cultural continuity and historical literacy are important stabilizing factors in a world that is increasingly unstable, both environmentally and geopolitically. This is a basic conservative principle which helps people, family and communities to feel rooted in a shared story and the intimacy of a deeply familiar place (in this case our trio of villages), in a wider world that is increasingly unfamiliar, hostile and bizarre, and which reminds me constantly of one of my favourite literary quotes:

"Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,” said the Rat, “and that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or to me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all.” - The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

I include below an image of a Globe Artichoke field by SICA Saint Pol de Léon.

Matt.

28/10/2026

Great Britain and "Little Britain" - Brittany. The links between Cornish culture and Breton culture are the basis of my interest in French cooking, such as Onion soup and the various fish soups. Because food is the primary topic of our group (reducing food waste, growing food at home, sourcing local seafood etc), the colourful culinary culture of France is a useful source of inspiration for us and it links in well with local historical events such as the displacement of the Huguenots and the arrival of European refugees in Newlyn at the start of the Second World War, as well as the more mundane arrival of French fishermen landing at Newlyn Harbour throughout the years.

Matt.

26/10/2026

A few years ago we had a private allotment which was sold from under us. At the time, our back garden wasn't suitable for growing, so we undertook a little "kitchen yarden" project in the small yard outside our back door as a replacement, which gave us 8 by 13 feet of growing space. This is pretty small as far as food growing is concerned, and it was very cramped, but we crammed in several big containers, attached a motley collection of planters to the walls and made the best of what we had. In the end, this was an amazing learning experience in terms of ultra small space food production. I haven't really done much with the yard this year because I've used up a lot of time renovating our back garden, but the "kitchen yarden" will be returning in the Spring...

Matt.

25/10/2026

At home, I've been preparing for next year's Garlic Harvest. I'll be growing Garlic in the bed where I grew Sweetcorn and Butternut Squash this year, so I've spread out all of the remaining foliage from those plants and roughly chopped them up on the surface of the bed in order to return those nutrients to the soil that they came from, which will then be taken up by my Garlic cloves as they grow into bulbs.

This process is known as "chop and drop" and it offers an advantage over the ordinary spreading of pre-made compost, namely that the un-decomposed material will need to be broken down by soil "fauna" such as worms, slugs and bacteria. Compost that has been made in a compost bin has already been processed and does not attract soil life to a garden bed in the same way, although it generally is full of worms. The idea here is to encourage the presence of soil life "on site" so that worms aerate the soil, slugs are available for passing birds to eat and soil bacteria is thriving by breaking down the green waste one stage further again, making the nutrients more easily and quickly available to plants. The other advantage is that this green material will suppress w**ds, unlike premade compost, which is a great medium for w**d seeds to germinate in!

While all this is happening, my Garlic seed cloves will be developing roots and shoots in a seed tray. I saved two bulbs from my homegrown Garlic harvest this year to replant this Autumn, in the hope that they will be adapted to my soil and therefore will grow even bigger this year. You can sow Garlic cloves directly into the soil, but I'm expecting wet and windy weather all Winter because of the incoming El Nino, so I want my seedling Garlic plants to have a good root system so that they don't rot in the wet ground and so that they have a strong anchor during windy weather. If there's a storm, I will probably have to protect the seedlings with bottle cloches. Once the green material shown above has decomposed I will lightly incorporate it into the soil with a fork and dig in some horticultural grit to improve drainage and further reduce the risk of rotting, which is always a danger with the Allium family.

Little projects like this may seem silly or futile in the face of environmental breakdown and major ecological problems, but actually the principles of sustainability can de demonstrated within simple tasks like this and these principles can then be extrapolated outwards on a bigger scale to help solve some of the issues that we are facing. This is why permaculture has its 12 principles and 3 core ethics, because it is more than simply gardening organically.

The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (500BC) said:

"Without going outside, you may know the whole world; without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven."

This could be said to mean (although Lao Tzu's writings are famously subjective and mercurial) that principles which are observable on a "micro" or small scale are also present at a "macro" or large scale, so therefore understanding principles on a small scale is useful for applying those same principles to big scale problems. This is a similar idea to what some people call "the principle of subsidiarity", which is based on the premise that all problems should ideally be addressed at the lowest level possible. In the case of environmentalism, the way I live my life as an individual and part of a family is that lowest level, where I try to improve the small part of the world that is in my control and at the same time act in faith that others will join on of their own accord,, without trying my trying to force them. Elsewhere in the "Dao De Jing" Lao Tzu wisely gives us the following advice, which aggressive environmental activists would do well to learn:

"Do not conquer the world with force, for force only causes resistance."

Matt.

24/10/2026

Recent Garfish catches, all of a decent size. I remain very grateful that there's lots of these around to replace the Mackerel in our diet, because they have been very scarce this year for previously discussed ressons. Each fish that I catch also gives me extra Chicken feed in the form of guts, bones and chopped up heads. Chickens are naturally omnivorous, so this is a really useful addition to their standard feed of mixed seeds and layers pellets.

Matt.

23/10/2026

In the top left hand corner is a record of an interesting UFO sighting from Newlyn Harbour, reported in the Belfast News-Letter on Tuesday the 7th of October 1952. West Cornwall is known for being a UFO "hotspot", so I wasn't all that surprised to find a report specifically from Newlyn Harbour.

UFO lore intersects, surprising though it may seem, with the environmental movement, because encounters with alleged alien species (amusingly depicted below by a graffiti artist on the Tolcarne Breakwater) often feature environmental warnings. Additionally, UFOs are commonly reported around nuclear facilities, which is interpreted by some as an intervention against nuclear power and nuclear weapons, due to their destructive potential.

The Ariel School Encounter of 1994, which took place in the Harare province of Zimbabwe, stands out as an exceptionally well documented example of alleged extraterrestrial intervention into environmental matters. This strange incident involved a UFO landing and a close encounter with small aliens that was witnessed by multiple school children who were out on their break. Allegedly, the aliens communicated to the children telepathically, somehow beaming visions of future environmental devastation directly into their minds. Understandably, they were terrified and they ran back in to their disbelieving teachers, who had missed all the excitement inside.

Interestingly, some of the children thought that the aliens were "Tokoloshes" which are a type of evil Goblin in African folklore, which perhaps overlaps a little with the more malevolent Cornish "Piskies" in our native folklore, which are sometimes depicted as having quite a nasty streak. I wonder if there is echo here of William Allingham's poem "The Fairies" which contains the lines:

"Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men..."

This poem was written in 1850, when one might presume that there weren't many environmental problems to worry about, expect perhaps over hunting? The link between Fairy folklore and environmentalism is also well known and at the end of the day, there are "Little Green Men", or least little men of some sort, involved in both types of encounters. One of the students said that Ariel aliens came to encourage them "not to pollute... because we're young we can still prevent it" and he felt that they had been chosen to receive a warning about "something bad" happening to the Earth in the future, due to their young age and potential to act.

There is a link here to the interview with the children of Ariel school. Regardless of what may or may not have happened there, it is obvious that their experience was very transformative and I cannot find it in my heart to disbelieve them, gullible fool though I may be: https://youtu.be/KsTzb3eK9CQ?is=BicWKj2h7AKq_JQ1

There is another interview here with witness Paul Trim who expands a little more on the environmental warnings: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq2AjAxjkYk

I include below a picture of some Patty Pan Squashes which I grew a few years ago, which are sometimes affectionately called "UFO Squashes" because of their shape.

Matt.

Dark Cornwall
The cornish ghost whispers paranormal UK and haunted museum
West Cornwall Paranormal
Fairy Whispering
Fairy Whispering Podcast

22/10/2026

The Mousehole Food Fair will feature the interesting addition of an astrologer on October the 29th. There's a couple of really interesting snippets in our local, Cornish folklore about horticultural practices and the cycle of the moon which I have included here. Some readers may be aware that the famous gardener Charles Dowding practices something called "Moon Sowing" with his seeds. This isn't something which is accepted by the scientific community, but it is an interesting "folk" tradition, rather like astrology.

Moon Sowing: https://charlesdowding.co.uk/blogs/homeacres/moon-sowing

Matt.

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