Green Veggies

Well, the Aus election has not yet produced a result. But it did produce its first Green party representative, and double the number of Green senate seats. Let's see what the planet is looking like in three years or so when the next election comes along.

What did I do today to reduce, reduce, reduce?

I put out the hard rubbish. For those not in Aus who don't understand, we have 'clean ups' where you can throw out big stuff that you wouldn't or couldn't throw in the bin. Furniture, whitegoods, TVs sterios. We tend to put in a bit of stuff that you think is perfectly ok but you just don't need anymore. Pots, pans, vases...whatever. Its a national pastime. People drive round to see what they can see, see if they can pick it up, sell it, re-use it. I've put our stuff out a bit early this week, even though the council tell me this is an OFFENCE, so folk can pickup anything if they want it.

So that has reduced the level of unwanted stuff in my house, but has not really reduced my consumption. It is helping me to think differently though. I like the clear space and that is an incentive for me not to buy more stuff to fill the space. I also need to work on getting people to stop buying me stuff I don't want.

I fixed up the wheelbarrow. Punctured tyre, but needed to hack through a rusted bolt to remove the wheel. Will need to buy a new bolt. But I reparied rather than throwing it out with the rest of the hard rubbish. I also fixed up the irrigation system, using parts I had bought a while back, plus some clever cannibalisation of old parts.

I planted some old (2 year old) seeds and can now use the irrigation system to water them. What usually happens is I plant seeds and they sprout, illustrating the magic coding of DNA & new life in those gnarled, dried old seeds...and then I don't water them and they die. So hopefully the irrigation will help me reduce wasting my time. Not sure how viable 2 year old seeds are. The seeds are veggies. I've always liked growing veggies. It seems a basic skill we should all have. I don't have this skill, but I am going to try a bit harder this year. I've put in eggplant & watermelon in pots to see if I can get some seedlings going. I've put carrot, cos lettuce and spring onion in rows.

I don't have a lot of land to play with. It's not a small property but most of it is taken up by house, lawn and concrete. So not sure how big my food growing enterprise can get.

How, you might ask, is growing food in my own property reducing consumption. Well, I don't need to travel to buy it, it doesn't have packaging, it doesn't have the overhead of being distributed from farm to shop so less fuel used. Imagine if everyone in the street grew their own veggies. We could trade lemons for squash, and carrots for scallions. Awesome. As it is we hardly speak to our neighbours.

Oh, and I fixed up the compost bin. It's been doing nothing for ages, and I even (for the first time in years) stopped collecting compostable material in the kitchen. How low have I sunk?!? Oh well. In the midst of the pile there was some humus-like, earthy material which I was quite pleased with. The rest I have put back in the compost bin, in its repositioned site. I even went down to my own hard rubbish to rescue on old broken, plastic pipe. I cut it to size, drilled holes in it, and placed it in the middle of the pile. I think it will help aerate the compost pile.