Blog archive – Sustainable Swaledale

Newsletter archive

News: April 2024 (4/20/2024) - Buttercup meadow image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay This month: Butterfly numbers; Dark skies in Yorkshire Dales: lighting advice; Membership…
News: February 2024 (2/9/2024) - The Metropol Parasol in Seville, Spain – a remarkable example of wooden architecture. Photo by martine87 from Pixabay Here are…
News: January 2024 (1/8/2024) - New tree plugs ready for planting Happy New Year! Here are a few quick updates on what we’re up to.…
News: December 2023 (12/21/2023) - Christmas winter image by Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay AONBs renamed National Landscapes; COP 28: what was agreed?; CPRE…
News: November 2023 (11/23/2023) - Newly laid hedge at Low Houses, Swaledale Award success – North Yorkshire Community Awards 2023 – Caring for the Environment…
News: October 2023 (11/3/2023) - Lichen image by Uta E. from Pixabay Air quality: policies, proposals and concerns; Lichens for beginners; New eco-labels for household…
News: September 2023 (10/6/2023) - Swaledale flower meadow Greenpeace’s Stop the Sewage petition; Hedges masterclass; Lichens for beginners: North Yorks Community Awards: Sustainable Swaledale shortlisting;…
News: August 2023 (8/23/2023) - Dales barn image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay Broadrake Meadow Workshop; Brockholes Nature Reserve trialling grazing cows without fences; Mires…
News: July 2023 (7/30/2023) - Red Admiral butterfly, image by Ralph from Pixabay Big Butterfly Count; Mires Beck Nursery visit; National Park Protectors Awards 2023:…
News: June 2023 (7/6/2023) - Free salad, herbs and veg at the Reeth community beds Black flash reveals swift site: WingIt project in the news;…
News: May 2023 (6/1/2023) - Wildflower meadow, Oxnop, Swaledale. Photo: Adam Bradley Bug splatometer: insect monitoring using your car number plate; Coronation Big Help Out…
News: April 2023 (4/28/2023) - Swallow’s nest on the Two Dales Bakery nest-cam Ancient trees and woodland pasture; Coronation Big Help Out event at Hudson House…
News: March 2023 (3/30/2023) - Photo of beaver by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash Beavers’ dam may stop flooding; Earth Day 2023; Happy Valley; Health benefits…
News: February 2023 (2/16/2023) - Photo of stoat by Dr. Georg Wietschorke from Pixabay Buttertubs Pass camping barn refused planning permission; Grinton Book Exchange; Land…
News: January 2023 (1/13/2023) - Badgers and the Badgers Trust; Dark Skies Event at Grinton; Fairtrade Fortnight; RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch January 2023; Single-use plastic…
News: November 2022 (11/26/2022) - Image by Nico Wall from Pixabay COP27 and climate change: what did get agreed? The 27th annual UN meeting on…
News: October 2022 (11/4/2022) - Bison calf first to be born in the wild in the UK for thousands of years; Consultation on the proposed…
News: September 2022 (10/7/2022) - Food waste and composting; Government environmental policies and protections under review; Hummingbird hawkmoths; Peat compost to be banned for domestic…
News: August 2022 (8/24/2022) - Image by Ralf Schick from Pixabay Beavers helping in the heatwaves; Coast to Coast walk to become a National Trail;…
News: July 2022 (7/29/2022) - Arkengarthdale barns makeover; Hawes to Garsdale recreational route; Helping Richmondshire Heat, Eat and Meet; No wolves and lynx under YDNPA…
News: June 2022 (6/29/2022) - B-Lines; Log a hog (2); National Meadows Day; Moorland fact check; Protecting peatland; Together for Trees Project; Wild flowers and…
News: May 2022 (5/30/2022) - This month: Chair’s message; Log a hog; Nature for everyone petition; Repair it and wear it; Somerset Levels super nature…
News: April 2022 (4/26/2022) - Join the big plastic count 16-22 May; Litter pick update; MoorPeat; Mow free May; Putting aside areas for wildlife is…
News: March 2022 (3/28/2022) - Bumblebee recording; carbon neutral beef produced in the YDNP; Demand wilder national parks; Earth Day 2022; IPCC Sixth Assessment Report:…
News: February 2022 (2/28/2022) - This month: Curlews: record your first sighting of the year; Fairtrade Fortnight 2022; Flood mitigation schemes; Graze anatomy; Homes for…
News: January 2022 (1/18/2022) - Activities planned for 2022; Dark Skies Festival 2022; Queen’s Green Canopy; Richmondshire Climate Action Partnership; Snaizeholme; Together for Trees Project;…
News: November 2021 (11/23/2021) - Bird crime; Climate change calculations for the two dales; COP26 summary; COP26: Richmondshire Climate Action Group Festival; Green Christmas stationery; Heating and insulation grants; Low carbon heat pump grants; Meadows; Planning: Yorkshire Dales barns; Tree planting in the two dales – volunteers sought; Trees: Rufus Woods; Trees and squirrels: Snaizeholme
News: October 2021 (10/22/2021) - Butterflies and moths in decline – what you can do to help; Environment Action Day, Richmond Climate Action Group event;…
News: September 2021 (9/20/2021) - Beavers; COP 26: COP26 – Richmond Climate Action Group events; Dragonflies; Environment Bill progress; Fall into Nature programme by Plantlife;…
News: August 2021 (8/13/2021) - Art and the environment; Climate change: UN IPCC report; Community vegetable beds; Côte du Swale; Flower identification; Hen Harrier Day 2021; Planning consultation: local occupancy and barn conversions; Planning: Leyburn hotel and country store; Recycling; Swifts and swallows; Woodland planting; Woodland tree guard removal.
News: July 2021 (7/16/2021) - Climate change action; Climate change art; COP26 presidency programme; hedgehogs; Incredible Edible raised beds; litter pick; plastics recycling; swifts; tree identification; water consumption
News: June 2021 (6/18/2021) - Climate change through art; Community led action on climate change map and news stories; Incredible Edible beds in Reeth; Lembas wholefood group purchasing scheme; National Meadows Day 2021; Planning: Richmondshire Preferred Options Local Plan 2018-2039; Plantlife’s every flower counts survey; Renaturing Arkengarthdale; Visiting the seaside: the big seaweed watch.
News: May 2021 (5/14/2021) - Air pollution controls on burning wood and coal, buses, hedgehogs, Lembas group purchasing scheme, plants, recycling cat food pouches, swifts and swallows, trees.
News: April 2021 (4/20/2021) - Buses, climate change, dark skies, gardening, Lembas group buying scheme, natural flood management schemes, recycling, right to repair, Richmondshire Energy…
News: March 2021 (3/21/2021) - Climate change, food and gardening, Lembas group buying scheme, planning, trees, wildlife.
News: February 2021 (2/17/2021) - Dark skies festival, gardening, membership, planning, together for trees.
News: January 2021 (1/22/2021) - Happy New Year from Sustainable Swaledale! This month’s newsletter covers climate change, dark skies festival, food and gardening, planning, together…
News: December 2020 (12/22/2020) - News: December 2020: climate change, dark skies, food & gardening, planning and tree planting. Here are a few quick updates on…
News: November 2020 (11/13/2020) - November 2020 newsletter
News: October 2020 (10/10/2020) - October 2020 newsletter
News: September 2020 (8/28/2020) - Our Local Food Map project, updates on Incredible Edibles in Reeth, local recipes and the importance of even tiny patches of wildflowers.
News: August 2020 (7/25/2020) - What we've been up to during 'lockdown' - Incredible Edible in Reeeth; lots of local recipes.
News: April 2020 (4/16/2020) - Share your recipes and save your seedlings…. Here are a few quick updates on what we’re up to…if you’re on…
News: March 2020 (3/9/2020) - Packaging | Call for compost | Tree guards | Water, water everywhere
News: February 2020 (2/4/2020) - We talk about making sustainable food choices and reducing food waste, the latest on our Incredible Edible Project, a Dark…
News: January 2020 (1/13/2020) - Happy New Year! Here’s a quick update on what we’re up to in the next couple of months… Here are…

Blog post archive

June/July in a Swaledale vegetable garden (7/12/2022) - June has excelled itself – warm and sunny for the most part. In fact, until early July, we have had…
May/June in a Swaledale vegetable garden (6/9/2022) - May began chilly and we had some very strong winds. The outside veg stood still and waited and ended up…
April/May in a Swaledale vegetable garden (5/6/2022) - The weather is warming up, the light levels are rising and sowing has quickened pace. The polytunnel beds are being…
March/April in a Swaledale vegetable garden (4/4/2022) - In the third week of March the weather excelled itself with warm calm days, perfect for putting the plastic on…
COP this! (9/24/2021) - Food for thought as COP26 approaches rapidly.
Grape Expectations (7/27/2021) - "Glass of Château Bolton anyone? Or maybe a nice Easby? Prefer red? We get ours from the Welsh Valleys"
Know your herbs at the Reeth Surgery raised beds (7/16/2021) - Reeth Surgery community beds have lots of herbs available for everyone to use, Just a few leaves are great at giving a dish an extra zing and are full of vitamins.
Richmondshire’s Remarkable Rainforests (5/14/2021) - Richmondshire's remarkable rainforests
Are the bluebells flowering earlier this year? (5/7/2021) - Are the bluebells flowering earlier this year?
A beginner’s experience of compleating (3/5/2021) - According to the 'Love food hate waste' website one-third of the food produced globally goes to waste, with an estimated 10 million tonnes of food waste being produced in the UK each year
March in the vegetable garden (3/1/2021) - March has arrived at last. It is particularly welcome as February was very cold and the snow showers seemed endless
Swaledale’s climate twin (2/10/2021) - What will the climate actually be like here in Swaledale in future years?
February in the vegetable garden (1/29/2021) - The weather in February can be very changeable; some days are warm and sunny and other days are still very cold with persistent rain and sleet
Reeth: Swaledale’s civic centre or just another village? (1/17/2021) - Discussion about the YDNPA's latest consultation on the local plan.
January in the vegetable garden (1/2/2021) - January is a very cold month but there are still vegetables to pick and sowing to be done.
The Reith (Reeth?) Lectures 2020 (12/28/2020) - The final Reith lecture this year was entitled 'From Climate Crisis to Real Prosperity’.
The next industrial revolution? (12/3/2020) - In late November there was a brief fanfare to accompany the Government’s release of its ‘ten-point plan for a green…
December in the vegetable garden (11/27/2020) - The daylight hours drop to their lowest this month but there are crops ready for harvest and still a few…
November in the vegetable garden (10/30/2020) - As we head towards the dark, cold and damp year-end, we continue our series of blog posts about how to…
See the good for the trees (10/5/2020) - We all know that planting more trees will deliver significant environmental benefits. We also know that over-enthusiastic tree planting can…
October in the vegetable garden (9/28/2020) - With autumn now fully upon us, we continue our series of monthly blog posts covering what seasonal produce to plant,…
September in the vegetable garden (8/29/2020) - What to do in the vegetable garden in September.
Build a pond – part 2 (8/21/2020) - Update on the building of a new biodiversity pond.
August in the vegetable garden (7/31/2020) - To coincide with our Reeth community plot getting up and running, this is the first of a series of monthly blog posts covering what seasonal produce to plant, and how to maintain your vegetable garden through the year.
Reeth community garden (7/24/2020) - The community veg plot at Reeth has lots of lovely produce ready to pick and eat.
Creating our own wildflower meadow (7/9/2020) - Lessons learnt on trying to establish a wildlife meadow
Traditional Swaledale recipes (6/10/2020) - A collection of traditional local recipes from the 'Yorkshire Federation of Women's Institutes recipe book'.
Locating freely accessible environmental research (6/5/2020) - Ever wanted to follow up research on a topic but been prevented by it being published in journals that you need…
Insect hotels (5/15/2020) - A number of SusSw’s Facebook members have expressed interest in creating insect hotels. I love the idea of doing something…
Build a pond (5/11/2020) - How to build a biodiversity pond in your back garden.
Indelibly Stamped (5/3/2020) - When next year, a small group of scientists decide if we've changed planet Earth forever, should we care who they are and what they decide?
On being a citizen scientist (4/19/2020) - Exploring the merits of citizen science.
Recipes (4/10/2020) - At a time when many households are confined to home we are presented with the opportunity to commit a little…
Richmondshire DC ‘Climate Change Officer’ post (3/27/2020) - Following Richmondshire District Council’s declaration of a ‘climate emergency’ in July 2019, they have now approved funding to recruit a…
Incredible Edible Reeth… getting started (3/13/2020) - Sustainable Swaledale is now setting up a new 'Incredible Edible' plot in Reeth with the aim of harvesting our first produce this year.
Easy ways to reduce your packaging footprint (3/9/2020) - More than three-quarters of us are trying to reduce the amount of packaging we use. We look at simple ways to reduce your plastic packaging ‘footprint’ – things you can do easily, each week, that make a small (but important!) difference.
Water, water, everywhere (3/6/2020) - It has undoubtedly been a grim start to the year, but can this watery onslaught be attributed to climate change? This isn’t a simple question to answer.
On guard! (2/28/2020) - Tree guards are receiving a lot of attention just now. Over-used in the past, they still have a role if used wisely. But what to do about the many redundant ones littering our countryside? Sustainable Swaledale has a plan…
Household technology – reclaim your right to repair! (2/8/2020) - These days, for many of us, technology plays a big part in our lives, whether it’s a phone, watch, fitness…
The Art of Being Ecological (1/31/2020) - A long time ago people were part of nature, but then all that changed. When a spider made a web…
Dark matters (1/12/2020) - This blog post welcomes in the forthcoming Dales ‘dark skies’ festival (14th Feb to 1st March 2020). See here for…
When did we start warming the planet? (1/7/2020) - Ask most people when humans started warming the planet and they are likely to mention the industrial revolution, and pick…
2020 vision (12/15/2019) - One member’s musings on the future of sustainability. Only a fantasist could think that our world will be unchanged in…
Steady… (12/5/2019) - How many apples is one orange? We all know this question doesn’t make sense. Yet a very similar question (and…
Have a very local Christmas (11/22/2019) - Christmas is a special time of year, but there are also many recent traditions associated with the festive period that…
An apple a day… (10/30/2019) - With autumn fully established, apples are falling out of trees up and down the country. I don’t suppose the apples left…
Pollination – does it matter if our pollinators die out? (Spoiler – yes, it does) (10/10/2019) - Let’s talk about sex… Female gametes, male gametes. Now, if you don’t have your own way of getting one to…
September litter pick (10/7/2019) - We ran a litter pick to clear the footpaths along the river Swale in late September. The aim is to…
Sustainable Swaledale at the Reeth show (8/27/2019) - We had a stall at the Reeth show on the August bank holiday to show off a range of sustainability-related…
The health of our oceans (8/20/2019) - By Mike Sparrow Public debate about climate change has increased dramatically over recent months, with media prominence given to young…
Making a difference with your clothing choices (8/4/2019) - In recent years the fashion industry has been subject to greater scrutiny. We are now aware that the price paid…
Climate emergency declared by Richmondshire District Council (7/26/2019) - Thanks to Richmondshire District Councillors for unanimously declaring a Climate Emergency this month and for their promise to research actions…
Living without single-use plastic (7/24/2019) - We consume vast amounts of single-use plastics nowadays, using them for everything from brushing our teeth to packaging our food.…

Recipe archive

Celeriac and blue cheese soup (3/8/2021) - Celeriac is a good seasonal vegetable for spring time
Hedgerow jelly (10/10/2020) - Serve this at Christmas instead of cranberry as it is so much more local... and more delicious! Lovely with meat or even spread on toast.
Green tomato mincemeat (9/2/2020) - A traditional Canadian recipe, perfect for making use of those green tomatoes still in the garden or greenhouse which are never going to ripen once you get into October.
Lemon posset (8/21/2020) - A traditional creamy lemon dessert which can be made in advance, only requires three ingredients and takes about ten minutes to make.
Maids of Honour (7/31/2020) - My grandmother’s aunt Emma (Wilson) ran the bakery in Reeth in the 1940s and 50s. Here is one of our favourites that she made in the shop!
Summer Pudding (7/24/2020) - We knew that summer had arrived in our family when we had the first summer pudding of the year
Chocolate chip cookies (7/9/2020) - The best supermarket-style chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese and onion tart (6/29/2020) - A family favourite... head over to the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes, try their cheeses and choose your favourite to include in this delicious tart.
Swaledale rabbit (6/29/2020) - This bunny-free recipe is a shameless celebration of the wonderful Swaledale Cheese – Wensleydale’s smarter brother.
Yorkshire curd tart (6/13/2020) - A local recipe for Yorkshire Curd Tart, from the archives of the Millennium Exhibition held at Reeth Memorial Hall
Traditional Swaledale recipes (6/10/2020) - A collection of traditional local recipes from the 'Yorkshire Federation of Women's Institutes recipe book'.
Homemade ice cream (5/28/2020) - A simple and reliable homemade ice-cream recipe, delicious on a hot summer's day.
Green Tomato Chutney (5/17/2020) - A very simple-to-make chutney recipe.
Elderflower cordial (5/15/2020) - A summery cordial which can be made with local Swaledale elderflowers.
Sloe gin and truffles (5/15/2020) - A lovely gin and truffles combination that both use local Swaledale sloes.
Blackberry Ketchup (5/9/2020) - A great foragers recipe for making most of that autumn glut of blackberries.
Flapjacks (5/9/2020) - A flour-free flapjack recipe, so handy at this time as flour is hard to find!
Kitzbühel Special (5/8/2020) - This is typical Alpine food - simple, rich, warming and perfect for a winter's evening. All of the ingredients are available from local producers.
Country broccoli (5/8/2020) - This is a hi-veg recipe laced with bacon, for which all of the ingredients grow well in Yorkshire.
Thalia’s Chocolate Cake (4/18/2020) - A lovely dairy-free chocolate cake made with store-cupboard ingredients.
Puff balls (4/17/2020) - Happy days of warm full tummies with this pud, always served with golden syrup and Birds custard.
American Baked Cheesecake (4/17/2020) - Delicious baked cheescake. Best eaten cold, and even better the next day!
Lamb Henry (4/17/2020) - This recipe is believed to be originally from Westmorland, and is now a family favourite for a local sheep farmer.…
Wild Garlic Soup (4/11/2020) - This recipe is from Penny O’Regan, using a few simple ingredients and helping us celebrate the amazing taste of wild…
Nettle soup (4/7/2020) - This recipe for nettle soup is from the River Cottage Cookbook. You can use any wild/spring greens and mix in lettuce, peas etc. Uses rice as a thickener. Tasty and nutritious!