Posts Tagged gardening
Review: Reverse Garbage
Yankee Elv and I went to Reverse Garbage today to kick-start our Christmas shopping. As always, the place inspired me, so I came home and wrote a review.
Reverse Garbage is awesome
Check it (the review) out!
Add comment December 13, 2009
Spotlight: Composting
So it’s taken me a good long while, but I finally have our compost bin up and running! I used this post on You Grow Girl to guide me, but I didn’t add quite as much to the bin as I want to keep using it as I go along, not fill it up right away.
You could buy a special composter, but I decided to use a big, old, concrete laundry tub as my compost bin. It has three sections, so it will be easy to turn the compost from one section to another as required. I put a bit of gutter guard we had lying around over the drain holes to stop them getting clogged.
The compost bin is an old concrete laundry tub.
First I put in a layer of ripped newspaper (darned free papers they keep dropping off in spite of our No Junk Mail sign).
First, a layer of paper...
Then I put in a layer of browns – mostly dead leaves, sticks, dead camelias and crusty old passionfruits and grapefruits that have been rotting on the ground. I can add to this with old pasta, pet hair, paper and other dead bits and pieces from the garden.
Then, a layer of browns...
Next came a layer of greens – weeds, passionfruit leaves and frangipanis. I’ll be adding to this with grass cuttings I don’t use to mulch the garden, tea bags and food scraps.
Next, a layer of greens...
Finally, I wet the compost. It’s supposed to be as wet as a wrung-out sponge, so I think I overdid it a little bit.
Finally I wet the compost!
Luckily the tubs have drain holes from when they acted as sinks, so the compost won’t stay too wet. I added ice-cream containers underneath to catch any drips (with bricks in the containers to weigh them down).
Too much water - luckily there are drainage holes!
Yankee Elv got me a big piece of wood from Reverse Garbage to work as a lid, and I’ve used bricks to weigh it down so no animals get in. I can’t imagine they would anyway – the bin is in the fenced area under the house so nothing bigger than a possum could get in there.
Yankee Elv got me a lid, and we already had the bricks.
Now I can divert the majority of our kitchen rubbish into the compost bin! I’m very pleased about it, especially when you consider articles like this one indicate that people in the US waste 28% of their food (I imagine Australian stats are similar). I hope I don’t waste that much, but whatever I do waste will at least no longer be going to landfill. Have a look at this video if you wanna learn more.
I’ll be using these two posts to guide me on what I can add to the bin:
- Things you can compost that you didn’t think you could, from You Grow Girl
- 163 things you can compost, from PlanTea.
In several months, I should have some compost to put in my garden (or give to Mum as a gift, just in time for mother’s day). Now all I have to do is control myself enough to not go fiddle with it everyday just to see how it’s doing!
3 comments December 10, 2009
Spotlight: Transition Towns
Hands up anyone who’s heard of a transition town. Anyone? No-one? Nah, me either, until the other day when I was freaking out about Peak Oil. I came across thsee articles on Treehugger about transition towns generally and in Australia.
What’s this? I thought. Gotta find out some more about this shiz.
So I did some looking around and here’s what I found.
Transition towns started in the UK (things always start in Europe!). They’re groups of people within specific towns that are focussed on transition to a permaculture-based way of life after peak oil. These folks recognise that with energy descent (the downward slope of the peak oil bell curve) life is going to change, pretty dramatically, for all the reasons I outlined the other day. So instead of freaking out about it, they’re doing something about it, from growing organic food and saving the seeds for the next season to beekeeping to local living to environmentally appropriate water management. The basic tenets are outlined here on the Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre site. Alternatively, have a look at this flash animation.
Passionfruit vine on the side fence - really local food! (I took this pic in early spring and it's now summer, so this vine is waaay bigger now.)
A big bonus for me is that Queensland, and South East Queensland in particular, are well represented as far as transition towns go. There is a Brisbane hub that I’m definitely looking into further. It doesn’t seem as organised as the Sunshine Coast hub, but it’s clearly more local. I like that while they’re not waiting for the council to drive initiatives, they’re also hoping to eventually work with the council to go even further with the transition.
I’m simultaneously excited and nervous about contacting people in real life. I’ll keep you all updated.
Add comment December 6, 2009
Spotlight: Apocalypse Soon
I read this article called ‘Why Wait Till 2012? 8 Quasi-Serious Ways to Ward Off the Apocalypse Now‘ on Planet Green the other day, and it really got me thinking. It’s about, essentially, the end of the world, due to peak oil, peak coal, peak dirt, war and climate change.
Are we facing the apocalypse? More to the point, is the apocalypse inevitable? This might sound pessimistic, but is all this fighting for climate change going to make much difference? Even though we might stop massive tracts of land from being swamped by the ocean, and huge numbers of people from being displaced or killed, people will still starve or freeze/overheat and subsequently die due to the aftermath of peak oil/peak coal. Read more about the impact of peak oil – it’s very sobering.
I don’t think it really clicked to me, before I read these articles, just how dependent on oil we are. I figured that as long as I mostly ate local, used green electricty and didn’t drive much, it wouldn’t affect me dramatically. It seems though, that even local food production will falter and electricity generally will become scarce. From a purely personal perspective, my current location probably does put me in a good position. I don’t heat or cool my house, so temperature fluctuations aren’t going to kill me. Even if the sea rises, it won’t cover Brisbane (according to the Sea Level Rise Explorer, we are about 4m above seal level, so safe in the near future). I do live in a location with a reasonable number of local food producers and in a climate where I can grow a significant proportion of my own food. I have plans within the next five to ten years to move to a more sustainable way of life (hard to do in a rental house), that will ensure my family is more self-sufficient. Heck, just the fact that I have an awareness of the issue puts me a step ahead. I’m less likely to panic when the time comes.
Will we have to harvest at home like this in the future?
Even so, I’ve been asking myself so many questions.
- Is looking five to ten years ahead too long to wait to go really sustainable? (Will the economy and life as we know it collapse before then?) If so, how am I supposed to do it earlier than that if my finances won’t allow it?
- What are we going to do for water? How will the dams run without coal-based electricity?
- How will the food stretch to all the people we have to feed? Even though we are in a good location, we’re going to struggle to feed the millions of people living in South East Queensland in a local and sustainable way, without access to oil or coal.
- Will I have to start eating meat again? I know how to fish, even if I don’t like to do it. Keeping backyard chickens for eggs is easy enough.
- How will we manage from an electrical perspective? Even if I have green power now, most people don’t and there’s not enough for everyone (we don’t have the facilities). Will energy providers and governments work fast to get green energy up and running for all? How will they do that without oil and coal? The solar panels and wind turbines have to be produced and transported somehow.
- What will happen to the internet? Everyone’s computers will become obsolete and there will be no replacements. Giant server farms won’t be sustainable due to the lack of energy to power them. People will have less time to contribute to the internet anyway cos we’ll all be out trying to grow food. How will we learn how to survive without the internet? Does the local community already have that knowledge, if we can band together to share it? How will we organise this knowledge sharing? How will we know who knows what?
- What about money? Will I be employed? Will Yankee Elv be employed? My job is dependent on energy and telecommunications. If I am employed, how will I have time to do the things I need to to survive (like grow food and travel places on food/bike)?
- Will hospitals still run? Will medicines be available? Some people in my family are dependent on medication. Will sperm banks still exist? I don’t know how they could with no energy to keep things frozen. How will Yankee Elv and I have more children if we want them? (The old-fashioned way really doesn’t appeal to me!)
- If we’re struggling to find enough food to feed ourselves, how will we feed our pets? Will they have to hunt for themselves? How will this affect the local indigenous animal populations?
- Will schools continue to exist as we know them? Will kids still get to go to university, or will the be expected to drop out and work to help keep their families alive?
- Will we ever see our families again without oil to fuel the transport? Mine live close enough that I could travel there under my own steam (although it would take a while), but Yankee Elv’s family are on a whole ‘nother continent.
- Will there be overcrowding as we take in refugees, or will there be no refugees after all because they will die from starvation? Maybe the refugees won’t be able to get to Australia because there will be no international transport anymore.
- Will the world powers be upended? Current first world countries could become third world countries who can’t sustain themselves. Third world countries (already full of subsistence farmers who already live without oil/coal) would become first world countries, experts in how to survive. How will that work for Australia though? How will we be able to communicate with other countries if electricity and telecommunications go bust? We’re a giant island in the middle of nowhere. Will world travel still exist?
- Will there be wars? How significantly will crime increase? Are we going to end up in a Mad Max/Waterworld style society?
- How will we all cope?
Part of me thinks I’m completely insane for considering these things – they seem so far-fetched, like they’re some weird kind of alternate reality. Having read more about peak oil though, I’m starting to get the impression that these things are more and more likely. I wonder if I’m spending too much effort thinking about climate change and not enough on survival, on learning skills now so I know how to live later. At the same time, I think the things we can do to combat climate change and the after-effects of peak oil are very similar. I do think I’m going to start focusing more on:
- Learning how to make my own clothes and other non-disposable cloth items (hankies, blankets, napkins etc)
- Growing my own food
- Preserving food
- Cooking with unusual items that can be grown locally – things like quinoa and tropical fruits
- Foraging for wild and/or native food
- Capturing water to use to water plants
- Creating compost to fertilise plants
- Investigating homemade pet food.
As much as I’d love to live in a strawbale house with a rainwater tank, solar panels and an orchard, complete with vege patch, chickens for eggs and some pet sheep for wool (they’d be ever so grateful for a shear in summer – we already shave the dog in summer to keep him cool), it’s simply not achievable right now. I think Yankee Elv and I need to look into making it achievable sooner than I originally planned though. If peak oil and climate change get worse very rapidly, what I consider financially stable now may not apply in the future. Land grabs may occur, banks mightn’t lend money anymore, and there may be no more rainwater tanks or solar panels to be had. I also think I need to try to find some kind of community, something outside of the internet, where I can connect with skilled people to learn things that may be necessary to survival. For example, maybe I can help out if someone is constructing a strawbale house so I know how to do it, even if I can’t afford to do it myself yet. There are some Transition Towns located not too far from me – I’d be interested in seeing how I can get involved.
Finally, when I start getting into that disbelieving place where I feel like I’m on a sensationalist trip, reading this article kinda put it all into perspective. Maybe it’s not apocolypse now, but it very likely will be soon*.
*OMG I can’t believe I just said that, but OMG I think it’s true. Shit.
Add comment December 2, 2009
Reduce: Tool Replacement. Grr.
Ok, I’m a bit ticked off.
We have a push mower – my parents gave it to Yankee Elv and I as a Christmas present in 2007. We were really happy to have it. Our yard is quite small, so it was great to have an eco-friendly (no fuel required!) way of keeping it in shape. It’s very achievable to mow it by hand and it’s a good work-out. I prefer it – I’m always paranoid that pebbles will fly from under a regular mower and hit me in the leg.
Ozito push mower, with blades no-one will sharpen or replace.
Anyway, the blades on the push mower are dull. We have been trying for more than 6 months to find someone to sharpen or replace the blades and no-one will do it. Bunnings used to (that’s where my parents bought it originally), but apparently it’s too cost-prohibitive for them to continue anymore. Everyone else has the same excuse. We’ve called mower places, hardware stores and tool shops. We even reached out on Freecycle and had someone agree to do it for us, but then he backed out. I emailed the mower company and got no reply. I’m very frustrated!
The mower is not usable, and we can’t continue whipper snipping the lawn, small though it may be. The day before yesterday, Yankee Elv went to Bunnings – one of those shops that won’t sharpen my current mower’s blades! – and bought a new mower. The fact that she needed to do that really pisses me off!! We got an electric mower, so at least we can use green power rather than gasoline… but that’s really not the point. The push mower we have is just fine.
It annoys me that people feel it’s not worth keeping up a perfectly good product because of their impact on their bank account. What about the impact on the environment? It’s not like the damned mower is recyclable even.
Grr.
Add comment November 21, 2009
Update Again
I haven’t posted since the big dust storm, which seems ages ago now. We’ve had a couple more since then, but nothing like that first big one.
I’m sorry I’ve neglected the blog, but it’s just been a bit crazy crazy. Here’s an update on the latest goings-on.
Diva Princess broke two of her toes and has been stuck inside for a month with a bandage on her foot that she insists on trying to rip off. She looks so pathetic with the cone around her head that I try not to make her wear it unless she’s getting really crazy with the bandage pulling. She’s also had an ECG to check on a mild heart murmur we just found out she has.
Diva Princess is highly disgruntled that she is stuck inside with a bandage on her foot.
There are new white Tim Tams. Yankee Elv is obsessed. There have been a lot of Tim Tams in our house. Yankee Elv’s mom is obsessed too, except she lives in America, so it’s hard for her to have lots of Tim Tams in her house. Fortunately for her, they’re staring to sell them in the US soon. There’s lots of excitement about that, on both sides of the Pacific. I feel bad that the Tim Tams come in a plastic tray, in a plastic packet. They need to make eco Tim Tams that come in cardboard and paper. Plastic or not, I still eat them. Bad hippy. Bad.
Dog/cat/turtle-sitting is over. A great time was had by all. We introduced the dogs to a new dog park, which is full of very friendly people and is split into a section for big dogs and another section for little dogs. Loodle was not very sociable with the dogs but wanted everyone to pat him. Everyone loved him. Pseudo-Marley was simultaneously scared of the big dogs and desperate to play tag with them. Everyone loved him too. I like how they supply all the dogs with biodegradable poo pick-up bags.
I got a long-awaited promotion, Mr Teeny-bop has become a Drama-king (lots of school plays) and Yankee Elv has gone back to school.
I walked to the supermarket last weekend (for exercise and to reduce car trips – I took my green shopping bags too). Loodle can’t walk that far with us anymore, but Mr Teeny-bop came on his scooter. It was nice to walk along with him. We’re keeping our eye on a mango tree in a park along the way. In a couple of months we may be able to score some free mangoes. Yum!
Mangoes!
Loodle is getting into shaving season. He’s a North American dog all the way and doesn’t handle the heat, so we have to shear him like a sheep (although he ends up looking like a pink piggy when we’re finished). Shaving will occur this weekend. The first shave of the season is always very laborious, but not as bad as the weekly bath. The arthritis in Loodle’s hips is getting so bad he needs to sit down for his bath now. 
Yankee Elv and I celebrated (quietly to ourselves) a year of using menstrual cups and cloth pantyliners instead of disposable ’sanitary products’. Going for reusuable menstrual items is one of the best decisions I ever made and I don’t just not regret it, I celebrate it – every month, every time I walk past tampons in the shop, every time I see an ad about pads and every time some poor girl tiptoes up to me at work and whispers “I don’t suppose you have an extra tampon in your bag, do you?” (I actually do keep a few tampons in case of emergencies so they are always lucky.)
Diva has figured out how to open the screen door and Loodle has figured out how to open the gates. I love having smart pets but this kind of extreme Houdini-style behaviour is a bit much. We’ve had to institute some counter-measures. Now our gates rival Fort Knox and the screen doors are always locked. That doesn’t stop Diva climbing them, and with summer coming we can’t close the wooden door all the time. Any suggestions?
Yankee Elv went blonde (partially). Anyone know what the ecological impact of bleach is?
I keep forgetting to water the herbs and veges regularly, so while they are not dead, they are not flourishing as they should be. The Spanish onions down the side of the house are growing best – they are out in the sunshine (but not too much sunshine) and the rain. I have had a tarp down beside the driveway for a couple of months to kill off the grass and hope to create a proper vege garden over the next couple of weekends. I think between exposure to the rain and my haphazard watering, they should fare better.
I got my empty witch hazel bottle refilled at the local organic shop. The cost was nearly three times what I pay for a whole brand new bottle in the supermarket. I don’t think I can justify spending that money to save buying a recyclable plastic bottle, which makes me really sad.
Yankee Elv has been helping me avoid buying lunch at work by cooking up big batches of food and freezing it. It’s like I have a restaurant inside my freezer that I get to go to every morning. I love that I’m saving money, eating super tasty food and not getting a bunch of disposable containers and cutlery each day.
Many, many grapefruit.
We got rid of about 80% of our grapefruits from the fallen branch via Freecycle, which I love! There is no way those hundreds of grapefruits were going anywhere otherwise. There are still hundreds more on the tree – the possums and bats are stocked for the summer. The passionfruits and pawpaws will be out before we know it too (if the morning glory doesn’t choke them), and then they’ll have dietary choice. I hope this choice encourages them not to eat anything out of my vege garden-to-be though. My colleague tells some lovely stories about possums eating her herbs and capsicums and her mad spraying with garlic and chili water (first the plants in an attempt to stave off the eating, and then the possums in retribution).
Cheeky possums eat everything, including bread, grapefruits, passionfruit, pawpaws and people's herb and vegetable gardens. They especially like the flavour of chili and garlic.
We’re planning another local holiday – south this time, just after Christmas. It should be good! No tents for a change. I need a break from holey air mattresses and tarps. I really hate putting up tarps.
So that’s what’s been going. Life has been interfering with my eco-life, which kinda sucks. Why are there so many things I wanna do, that I can’t do, cos I don’t have time, energy or money? (Mostly the first two.) Has anyone managed to find a balance? I could really use some advice.
Add comment October 23, 2009
Recycle: Polystyrene
I bet you thought you couldn’t recycle polystyrene. I know I thought that!
You can recycle this kind of polystyrene, but not the little 'packing peanuts' or the kind used for food packaging (I think).
Today in my Freecycle Cafe daily digest email, though, I got the following message:
———————
Just thought I’d let people know that it is apparently possible to recycle polystyrene in Brisbane. The details are at link A and link B but basically you can take polystyrene produce boxes for free recycling at the address listed in Acacia Ridge. They apparently charge for recycling other packaging types of polystyrene and I’m not sure of the details.
As I often see these boxes advertised on freecycle I thought I’d let people know what to do with them if they don’t get any takers. You can also post it to:
REPSA
PO Box 211
Richmond Vic 3121
if you’re feeling super green that day!
happy recycling!
———————–
(Someone also mentioned that you can use the polystyrene boxes to grow herbs and veges in, which my mum already does.)
Super awesome, huh? The Brisbane EPS recycling place is in Acacia Ridge, so that’s definitely local. Thanks Freecycle Cafe lady!
Add comment August 29, 2009
Meanwhile: Bug-free Gardening
What am I going to do about the bugs in my container garden?
They are these weird little flying critters that look a bit like fruit flies. I think they are the same ones that killed my herbs last time I tried to grow them. They hang around, looking innocuous and blending their little black bodies into the soil. Then they suck all the moisture out of the plants… like those creepy prehistoric bugs sucked the moisture out of people on The X Files! And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Or is there? Does anyone know how to get rid of these bugs? My basil is just a tiny bud, and my parsley and oregano aren’t even up yet!
Tiny baby basil.
And they’re lurking around my shallots (spring onions).
Little shallots, all in a row.
Strangely, they’re not bothering my onions and spinach.
No bugs by the spinach.
Maybe it’s because they’re out the back and the herbs and shallots are on the front verandah. The herbs were out the front last time too, but I made sure to scrub the pots and use different soil and I grew from seed rather than buy seedlings… and still there are the bugs!
I don’t really have room to plant companion plants (I already have nasturtiums, in a hanging basket), but I will find room if that’s the wayto fix it.
Nasturtium seedling.
Anyone, ideas?
1 comment August 26, 2009
Meanwhile… Daffodil Day
Yankee Elv is sick at the moment. Yesterday when I stopped off at the shops to get her some icy poles and ginger ale, since she can’t keep anything else down, I saw some fresh daffodils for sale. I bought some to cheer her up, and she really liked them. They’re in a vase in our bedroom right now, so she can see and smell them (they have a really strong, lovely smell).
Daffodils for Yankee Elv
Daffodils aren’t usually just sitting around in the supermarket, it’s just that Daffodil Day is coming up next Friday, so merchandise is everywhere. I don’t like to buy random stuff that I probably won’t use again (like badges or teddy bears), even if it is for a good cause. I’d rather just donate. However, the flowers won’t hang around in landfill for all time and there was a very good reason for purchasing them – to make Yankee Elv feel better!
It did get me thinking, on the bus home though. Where are the daffodils grown? Are they grown sustainably? And, big picture – are cut flowers bad for the environment?
I know that the flower industry in the US and South East Asia is really bad – lots of chemicals that leach into the ground and affect the workers, illegal workers who are taken advantage of, sometimes slavery is involved… but I thought that it couldn’t be that bad in Australia. I can’t find much on the importation of flowers to Australia (although Australia does make up about 1% of the world market in the cut flower industry, mostly exporting Australian and South African natives). Apparently we do import roses (and snow peas) from Zimbabwe, which is pretty bad considering we’re thus giving tacit support to Mugabe’s reign. I think the for the most part, Australia must grow it’s own flowers – apparently about 90% of flowers grown here are sold on the domestic market. If we imported more, then I think there would be some record on the net.
However, to be sure, I’ve emailed the Queensland Cancer Council, asking where the fresh daffodils sold for Daffodil Day are grown. I’m definitely going to be interested in the answer…
3 comments August 22, 2009
Spotlight: Window Farming
Check out these pics! They’re photos of window farms in NYC.
Britta and Rebecca with the first window farm, May 2009. Photo by Julia Makarova.
Window farming came about because some folks (Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray) didn’t want to wait around for a new style of urban planning that would bring farms to the city. They decided to join forces with whoever else wanted to be involved and come up with their own DIY version. Thus, Window Farms.
Gabriel Willow's Window Farm, July 2009. Photo by Gabriel Willow.
I really like how cool it looks, that you can grow heaps in a small space, and that so many of the things you use are simple, cheap and/or ‘rubbish’.
The first window farm, Brooklyn, May 2009.
They’ve even had a feature window farm at an art gallery, Eyebeam.
Detail of big window farm at Eyebeam, July 2009. Photo by Sydney Shen.
We have perfect windows at work for this, but I don’t know if work is quite ready for it. The company does rent potted plants, but edible plants is probably a foreign notion. I might start small – a pot of spinach maybe. I have plenty of seedlings! I can put it on the window sill – I scored a window seat when we moved offices. That bit of sunshine makes it so much easier to get through the day. If I worked in NYC, I think I could arrange for the Window Farm girls to commission a window farm for work, but coming to Australia might be a bit much.
Detail of big window farm at Eyebeam, July 2009. Photo by Sydney Shen.
It looks so cool though…
Detail of big window farm at Eyebeam, July 2009. Photo by Sydney Shen.
Check out this video to learn more:
2 comments August 20, 2009
