THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Landscaper Essex
Landscaper Essex? Here are photos from a project Modern Mint have been working on over the last few years – do contact us if …
Unusual Vegetable Garden
Yesterday Modern Mint were sent these photos of an unusual vegetable garden, from a reader of the blog in Oxford. We wanted to share these pictures with you as we think the idea is absolutely wonderful…! This is what she had to say… “We harvested the first courgettes last week and the first tomatoes can be seen on the vine! First handful of beans were harvested yesterday! This is so so great – and we got everything for free, scavenging in skips and on the roadside! Hope your well and keep up the great site and the super blog. Really enjoy …
Scything
We at Modern Mint had a lesson in scything the other day when visiting Waltham Place. Here are 9 things we learnt… 1) It is normal to scythe without your shoes on (it is near impossible to cut your own foot, though very easy to cut your hand when cleaning or sharpening the blade…!) 2) English scythes have curves, Austrian scythes less so, and Eastern European scythes are straight. There are also lightweight scythes from the USA made of aluminium. These seemed to divide opinion between love and hate. 3) You know you are scything well when you hear a swuuushh… …
Pesticide Free City
What do Paris, Seattle, Tokyo, Toronto and Portland all have in common? They are pesticide free cities. This is an amazing idea, one supported by River of Flowers in the UK. Basically, it wants people to stop deliberately putting poisons and toxins into our environment. To see what happens when you stop using pesticides, take a look at the Opera House roof in Paris where Jean Paucton, a prop man now in his 70’s, began keeping bees. In the pesticide free city of Paris he received twice the yield of honey than he did from his hives in the countryside. Perhaps it …