my garden in 2009

That’s actually a rather complex question. A garden is a place where we meet nature face to face, where we try to grow things and so does nature. Nature has had a lot of practice at this, and for us to impose our will may take some considerable effort. Alternatively, we could give nature a helping hand, working with it, instead of against it. That way, we can have a beautiful garden which is good for the environment, and which may even take less effort to maintain than we would otherwise expend.

We maintain our gardens with lawn-mowers, hedge-trimmers, fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. Machinery requires energy (electricity or petrol) to run, and the chemicals we use have to be refined, bottled, and shipped to us. Herbicides and pesticides are obviously not environmentally friendly, they’re designed to kill things after all. Many of them are also harmful to humans, so careless use can have serious consequences for you or your neighbours.

We might think that fertilisers can’t be bad for the environment, after all, they’re supposed to make things grow. But many fertilisers rely on minerals mined somewhere in the world being processed and transported during their manufacture, much like many of the things we buy these days. Fertilisers that wash off the land and into rivers and lakes can upset those ecosystems by causing excess growth of algae, which can in turn kill fish and other aquatic animals. So even fertilisers come with an environmental cost.

cricket on beetroot

One easy way to keep weeds under control is with a plastic ground-sheet. This is a sheet that covers the ground, you cut holes in it to plant the things you want. The sheet prevents weeds from growing, and your plants have no competition. You may have seen them at the side of motorways, where they are often used. If your plants are low and spreading, they will soon hide the sheet from view. Otherwise, you can cover the sheet with bark or gravel to hide it.

Another good way to control weeds is with mulch. Mulching means putting garden waste onto the surface of the soil. There it forms a dense mat as it decays, which helps protect the soil from drying out and makes it hard for weeds to grow. Grass-cuttings are ideal for mulch, but you can also use autumn leaves, straw, vegetable peelings from the kitchen, or anything that will pack down densely over time. Mulching also feeds the soil, as the mulch decays and releases its nutrients, just like it would in a compost heap. If you use enough mulch on your garden, you may never need to add fertiliser to your plants, the mulch will provide everything they need. That’s easier (and less smelly) than managing a real compost heap!

Alternatively, if you choose your plants carefully you can get the same effect from the plants themselves. There are many low-growing, fast-spreading plants that are very effective at preventing weeds from getting established. If you have only a small area to cover, hardy alpines will do the job nicely. Your local garden centre can help you choose some that are good for your situation. Once they have covered the ground they need very little maintenance. Plants which are taller than the cover-plants will not be affected, so you can have your roses growing quite happily surrounded by living weed-control.

You can also use plants such as clover and alfalfa, which serve double-duty as green manures. This means that they actually enrich the soil as they grow, so you will need less fertiliser to encourage your plants. Either grow them all year round, or just scatter the seeds on the ground towards the end of summer and let them grow through the winter, then dig them in in spring when you prepare to plant for the coming summer.

orange butterfly

Actually, that’s one reason why pesticides are a bad idea. They kill all species of insect, not just the ones you want them to. But the ones we want to kill will bounce back first, and multiply rapidly. That’s because they have no competition for their food (i.e. your plants) and nothing to keep them in check.

Birds are very easy to attract, just keep putting out food for them. They will still take the insects from your plants, especially in the breeding season, because they feed them to their young. Raising chicks is hard work for the parents, so if they can get a quick snack from your bird feeders and then find a juicy fat caterpillar for their young all in one place, they will appreciate it. We’re not the only ones to appreciate one-stop shopping. If you put up some nest boxes too, you can have resident pest-control working for you, all day long.

Frogs and hedgehogs will eat slugs, and they and lizards eat insects, so they can also be very beneficial to your garden. You don’t need a pond to attract frogs, they will be happy with any permanently damp and overgrown area. A shaded spot covered in weeds might well do the job. They can travel quite a distance too, so you may find them even if the nearest pond or stream is some way away. You can attract lizards and hedgehogs by creating spaces where they can hide from predators, such as piles of stones or branches, or leaving part of your garden overgrown. If you leave such shelters available in the winter, they may hibernate there, so they are ready to go to work for you as soon as the spring sun stirs everything into life. Hedgehogs will come regularly if you put out food to attract them, so why not spread some peanuts around your lettuce instead of slug-pellets?

sunflower

verbascum thapsus

You can also choose plants that are less susceptible to pests in the first place. Maybe a honeysuckle will go nicely on that wall instead of a climbing rose, which is likely to suffer from aphids. Need tall flowers for the back of the garden? How about collecting seed from Common Mullein (Verbascum Thapsus) and planting that. They look just as good as any expensive hybrid you’ll find in the garden centre, and being a native species, they’re probably more tolerant to pests.

great tit and goldfinch on sunflower

If you really want to go green with your garden, and can invest some effort to do so, growing your own vegetables is a great idea. By growing your own you can really cut down your carbon footprint by reducing your ‘food miles‘. That means that, instead of someone in the next country growing the stuff, packing it in plastic, and driving it to your local supermarket, you just get it from the garden, and all that plastic and fuel is not needed.

So, making our garden environmentally friendly is not difficult, it only takes a little planning and foresight. Our own environmental footprint, and the quality of wildlife in and around our garden, can vary a lot depending on the approach that we take. You might even save yourself time, money, and effort, and end up with a more satisfying garden as a result.

field of flowers

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1. Gardening over for the year…?
2. Gardening update
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4. Avatar: What do you see?
5. The gardening season has begun

The biggest event this month will undoubtedly be Earth Hour. It takes place at 8:30 pm local-time on Saturday 27th, wherever you are in the world. Participating is simple, sign up on the website (so they can know how many people take part) and then, when the time comes, just turn off your lights for an hour. The idea is not to save electricity, one hour of lighting won’t make that much difference to anything. No, the idea is to show your support for solid action in favour of tackling climate change. There’s more information on the Earth Hour FAQ, if you’re interested.

Last year, hundreds of millions of people worldwide took part. Towns, cities, and major landmarks across the globe darkened to show their support for action to tackle climate-change. The fact that world leaders let us down in Copenhagen in December only makes it all the more important that we send the message loud and clear once more. So go on, sign up, switch off, and do something different in the dark for an hour!

If you’re in Canada, there’s another event that might interest you. March 11th has been declared Bottled Water Free Day.

This has been organised by the Canadian Federation of Students, the Sierra Youth Coalition and the Polaris Institute. Their aim is simple, they want to encourage people to pledge to stop drinking bottled water.

If you’d like to know more, take a look at the video, or click on the logo above to go to the Bottled Water Free Day site.

preparing pesticide - courtesy of MGDRF.org

Week without pesticides

There are ever-growing numbers of organic farmers out there, so healthier food is becoming more and more available, which is a good thing. For that matter, you can grow your own vegetables organically with little effort, so it’s quite possible to get off the pesticides. It would be great if more farmers took the organic route!

Semaine sans pesticides is a growing event, with participation from all over the world, though most of the events are in France. Why not check out their map and see if there’s something of interest near you. You can turn up and show your support, or simply find out more about the pesticides on your plate.

On a smaller scale, if you’re in Ferney-Voltaire on Monday 29th, drop in to the Cafe du Soleil (14 Grand Rue) at 8pm. The association Eco-pratique will be meeting to discuss reducing electricity consumption, swapping personal experience and ideas. If you’re in the area, drop in and join the fun!

(Possibly) related posts:

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2. Gardening over for the year…?
3. World Oceans Day, June 8th
4. How many Physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
5. Meanwhile, in the garden…

plant tubs, covered for the winter

Today I ‘officially’ closed the garden by covering the big plant tubs with their water-trays, to avoid having the winter rains leech out all the nutrients before the next growing season. I’d never really paid much attention to how soil in pots gets depleted of its nutrients before, but that was brought home to me this year. The white tub that I have had for many years grew tiny sunflowers compared to those with new soil, which were three or four times bigger. Shame on me, I should have known better.

I don’t want to use chemical fertilisers, I don’t want to replace the soil in the pots, and I don’t think I can realistically put a compost heap on my terrace, so I’m trying something different. I’m digging small, deep holes in the soil, and burying vegetable peelings in them. Hopefully, over winter, they will rot down enough to feed the soil without also rotting next years plants. Maybe it will work, maybe not, we’ll see!

Our garden has been quite productive, and we’ve enjoyed the produce from it. A recent study claims that organic food is no healthier than normal food, but that study completely ignored the use of pesticides in conventional agriculture. I’ve read enough to convince me that pesticide-free veggies are a good thing. Of course, there are other benefits to growing your own vegetables, such as reducing food-miles.

Food-miles are a measure of the amount of fuel needed to transport food from the farm to your plate. That fuel all contributes to climate-change by emitting greenhouse-gasses, so getting your food locally means less global warming. You can’t get more local than your own garden, so growing your own food is good for the planet too!

On a larger scale, organic farming is also beneficial in the fight against climate change in other ways. Organic farming feeds the soil, not the plant, and doing so means that the soil will absorb and hold more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than chemical-intensive methods. The Carbon Farmers of America have taken this one step further, deliberately adopting farming techniques to optimise carbon sequestration, and making farms more productive in the process. The story of the farms of “Yobarnie” and “Nevallan”, in Australia, is quite an eye-opening account of how well such techniques work.

So your organic garden may be good for the climate, as well as providing good food. I could have squeezed a few more vegetables out of our garden this year, but I’m glad I left some space for sunflowers instead. Apart from being pretty in their own right, they’ve been feeding the bees all summer, and now feed the birds, long after nearly everything else out there has finished. If you look closely at the photo below you’ll see there are 6 goldfinches, quite a sight!

goldfinches galore

great tit and goldfinch on sunflower

Other birds have benefited from both the goldfinches and the great tits dropping seeds on the ground. Black Redstarts and sparrows often forage around the pots while the other birds are doing their stuff. Sparrows may be plain compared to other birds, but they’re still fun to watch. Here’s 3 of them looking on while a fourth is dipping into the bowl of water we put out for them. You can’t easily tell, but he was taking a bath at the time.

sparrow bathtime

Finally, although the garden outdoors is finished for the year, we’re still growing something! Dweezeljazz has got the bug now, and is growing fresh shoots of all sorts for our salads. They’re very easy to grow, using a neat little gadget from Satoriz, and make a welcome addition to our meals. Thank you, Dweezeljazz.

salad shoots

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rain

pot-grown beetroot

beetroot and chard leaves

lettuce and chard overflowing their pots

plucked seedlings

I also had an attack of powdery mildew on the beetroot leaves. Looking around, it seems that one way to deal with that is to spray the plants with milk! Incidentally, if you go looking for the article referenced on that page, the link they give is incorrect. The original paper was in the journal of Crop Protection, not Crop Science. If your Portugese is any good, you can also take a look at a technical note by the same author, which you can get without paying for it!

I’ve mentioned the ants on my sunflowers, they were farming aphids. I read in several places that mint deters ants. Not having any mint to hand at the time, I put down the contents of a few mint tea-bags, and that seemed to do the trick! That same link actually advocates planting sunflowers so the ants will herd aphids onto them, taking them away from other plants. I didn’t read that bit first time round, it seems there’s more to companion-planting than meets the eye!

peas

We have 6 large tubs for our terrace garden, plus a number of smaller pots, which provide a good deal of growing space. We shall add more tubs next year. We paid more for the pots and soil than we have saved on the food we have grown so far, but I think that it will only take 3 or 4 years to pay back the initial investment. Meanwhile, we’ve been able to go shopping less often, saving us time, and money on petrol, and we have been able to supplement our table regularly, with good-tasting, pesticide-free produce. All things considered, our first summer of organic terrace gardening has gone very well so far, and it’s not over yet!

(part of) my garden

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spring onions

Back in April, I described my gardening plans for this year. Time for an update! It’s been seven weeks since then, so I ought really to be well advanced with my plants. Unfortunately, we have not had access to our terrace all that time because of work that needed doing on it, so I’m rather behind with the schedule. Still, there is progress to show, and here it is.

I bought the seeds, here they are, most of them. I was interested to see that some of the seeds on offer were ‘certified organic’, like the beetroot here on the left. I’d never heard of organic seeds before, but if that means they don’t use pesticide or fertilisers to raise the stock, that gets my vote.

seed packets

more seed packets

pots on terrace

I also got some big pots. I have had the white one you see here for some time, and I recall it was expensive when I got it. It seems pots still are expensive, which is why I’m not getting more until I am convinced I can produce something in them. The brown pots are huge, they hold 120 litres of compost each, that’s over four cubic feet. I would have preferred white pots that would absorb less heat, but despite the number of garden centres in our area it’s not easy to find something suitable. Large pots will hold a lot of water, so plants will survive better in the summer heat. Our balcony takes the full force of the summer sun, so that’s an important consideration!

lettuce

Our local organic store, Satoriz, now sells organic compost, which is a great idea. It’s good stuff, but it can’t be used on its own because it needs something mixed with it to help it drain well. On its own, it tends to pack solid when its wet, forming a solid layer like a dried-up river bed. That’s not good because the soil doesn’t breath or absorb water properly when it’s like that, it needs to be open and porous. Still, it’s good to know that ‘organic’ is really entering every part of the home-food-growers’ domain, and I will definitely be using this compost as a regular part of my gardening.

chard

When you fill a pot as big as these with new soil, it’s a good idea to make sure the soil is thoroughly wet before you plant anything. The compost sold by garden centres is normally very dry so it weighs less, people are more likely to buy it if they can carry it. When it’s that dry it can take a lot of water to soak it thoroughly, these big pots actually took 30 litres of water before anything drained out the bottom, that’s one quarter of their volume in soil! I watered them 3 or 4 times over a day or so before I was happy enough to plant in them.

beetroot

The lettuce is growing strongly, as are the chard and beetroot. I’ve already thinned them out, but I may still have to thin the lettuce some more, they’re growing very vigorously. The spring onions have sprung, as you can see at the top of the post. You can see a sunflower growing well in the white pot above, but I can’t take the credit for that one, it’s a seed that found its way into the pot somehow and sprouted without asking permission. The sunflowers I planted are a dwarf variety, they shouldn’t grow to more than about 18 inches/45 cm high, and you can’t see them over the edge of the pot yet.

nasturtium

peas

I also have some peas coming through. I had not intended to plant peas, but we bought some for eating and there were a few that were sprouting, so we thought we’d give them a try. They’re doing very well, in fact they’re currently the biggest plants I have out there.

The french marigolds are doing well, and I did plant nasturtiums, which have also come up. The thyme, sage, rosemary, and basil have sprouted too, but they have been a bit disappointing with their germination, slow to come through and slow to get on with the job. The mint hasn’t come up at all, but that’s my only no-show this year, so I can’t really complain.

ants on sunflower

Fortunately, other characters, such as this enormous slug, have not found their way into my little garden. That’s one advantage of an exposed, hot terrace, it forms a natural barrier to some pests. I don’t think my lettuce would last long if this guy found them!

slug

So I’m not competing with the local farmers yet, but even since I took these photos a couple of days ago the plants have grown quite a bit. It won’t be long before I’m getting a few lettuce leaves at least. I know other people out there who are blogging about their organic gardens, The Natural Patriot has already started harvesting goodies from his. The Earth Home Dwellers are having a go too, but I don’t know how they’re getting on. C’mon guys, tell us, I’m curious!

If anyone else is growing their own organic vegetables out there I’d love to know how you’re doing?

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The Aegean

The idea to have a world-day for the oceans came in 1992 from Canada, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It’s been celebrated every year since then, but this year marks the first time it has official U.N. recognition. Henceforth, World Oceans Day will be celebrated on June 8th, every year.

You might think that since I live near Geneva, about as far away from the sea as it is possible to get in Western Europe, I would not have much to say about the sea. If you think that, you must be new to this blog (welcome!), the sea is one thing I can talk about for hours. I grew up in England, closer to the coast than most people there. Nobody in England is more than 70 miles from the sea, I grew up much closer than that, about one mile away from the shore, on an island, no less. I spent many a childhood summer day freezing in the cold water, picking my way over the stony beaches, trying to see what I could through the opaque grey-green waters of the north Kent coast (not much, as it happens). I collected foraminifera (tiny shells, less than 1 mm across) and looked at them under a microscope. I remember the first time I saw sea-anemones, on the beaches of Jersey on a family holiday. I’ve seen octopus and nudibranchs on crowded Greek beaches, and sharks and dolphins in the Maldives. Oh yes, I can safely say I love the sea.

The oceans are huge. They cover almost three-quarters of the surface of the earth, and something like three fifths of the earth is over a mile below the surface of the sea. There is an awful lot of seawater out there. So why do we need a world-day event to draw attention to the oceans? Well, as it turns out, the seas and oceans of the world are not in good shape, and it’s our fault, again. You can find out more about the threats to the oceans on the Marine Conservation Society website, here are a few of the highlights.

Everyone knows about global warming, and the melting of the polar ice-caps. That’s bad news for penguins and polar bears, but also for people. A large fraction of humanity lives near the coast, making a substantial part of their living from what they can haul out of the sea. Rising seas and warming waters will change that. Not only will islands and low-lying regions be lost under the waves, the ecosystems at the coastal fringes will suffer too. Coral reefs, for example, provide living space and nurseries for a great many species, and are essential to the marine environment. Even creatures that don’t live on or in them directly often depend on the animals that do. Excessively warm water leads to ‘coral bleaching’, which can kill it if the water stays warm for long enough. Bleaching events are more common than they used to be, and are predicted to become much worse over time. Despite some research showing that some corals may adapt to warmer waters, there is strong reason to believe that most corals will be killed by warm seas by the end of this century unless we make big cuts in our emissions of greenhouse gasses. Scientists are working to find ways to help coral survive, but they’re racing against the clock.

Coral

Overfishing is another major problem for the oceans. By depleting stocks of even a few species, we change the way entire ecosystems behave, often seriously. Tuna have been fished almost to extinction in the Mediterranean sea, and there is little sign that common sense will prevail to reduce the pressure on them. Tuna are predators, high up in the food chain. When you remove top predators, often the result is that a few species lower down the food-chain start to dominate, out-competing other creatures. The ecosystem becomes unbalanced, and may change its nature completely. It may not be enough to simply stop hunting the predators, the ecosystem may no longer be able to recover on its own.

Floating garbage is another serious problem. On the tiny atoll of Midway in the Pacific ocean, albatross often mistake floating plastic garbage for food, which they then feed to their chicks. That kills many of them, not surprisingly. Albatross aren’t meant to digest golf-tees, toothbrushes, and lego blocks.

Even the efforts we go to to protect the oceans and their inhabitants can often be misguided. I’m sure we’ve all heard of dolphin-safe tuna, it even got a mention in Lethal Weapon 2, released some 20 years ago. I’m fond of dolphins, like many people, but I was shocked to learn about just how much damage dolphin-safe tuna-fishing can do. The methods used to catch tuna without harming dolphins have a much higher rate of bycatch than other methods. ‘Bycatch’ is another word for ‘collateral damage’, animals accidentally killed while hunting a specific species at sea. Much of the bycatch in dolphin-safe tuna is in itself seriously endangered, far more so than dolphins themselves. No, dolphin-safe tuna is not a good thing for the marine environment.

Sunset on the Beach

You can find out more about World Ocean Day at the World Ocean Network site. Maybe one of the events that they list is taking place somewhere near you. If not, there are plenty of web-based resources available, like the 24 hours in the Ocean online event from the Musée Nausicaä. I’ll certainly be following that for some of the day.

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4. “Don’t be Stupid” about climate change
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wild primrose

I’ve grown vegetables in pots before, but not without pesticides and fertilisers. This year will be different, I intend to follow the growing trend and see how well I manage without chemical assistance. If it’s good enough for Michelle Obama, it’s good enough for me!

Michelle Obama wants to plant an organic garden in the white house lawn, and apparently this is upsetting the agricultural chemicals industry in the US. They are concerned that it sends the wrong message because it is organic. This despite the fact that more and more people out there are moving away from pesticide use. The fourth Semaine sans Pesticides (‘week without pesticides’), just last month, was twice the size of the one last year.

14 countries participated, from Canada, South America, Europe, and Africa (a summary is available online). Pesticides are nasty chemicals, and it seems a lot of people, the world over, think we can do without using so much or so many of them. But how?

Fortunately for the small gardener, there’s a lot of good information out there about natural pest control, such as using coffee to repel slugs and snails, using neem oil as an environmentally-friendly pesticide, companion planting, for mutual pest-resistance, selecting plants to attract useful insects, and growing vegetables in pots. I’ve even read some of it, and have decided what I want to grow this year.

I want to grow lettuce, beetroot, chard, and spring onions. Beetroot leaves are good in salads, so they’re not just for the roots. I also want to plant a few herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, mint), as much for the smell as anything. I’ve chosen these plants for a variety of reasons:

• they’re easy and fast to grow, so I can hope to get something quickly
• for the most part, they’re cut-and-come-again, so I can hope for a long season
• lettuce and chard, in particular, don’t keep too well in the fridge. By growing my own, I hope to have them fresh whenever I want them.
• they don’t need staking, so occasional high winds and storms won’t damage them (I hope)
• in the event of a disaster (hailstorm, heatwave, locusts, whatever) I should be able to replace them rapidly

Jasmine with carrot

Incidentally, if your parrot likes beetroot, do bear in mind that it retains its colour as it passes through the digestive system of your feathered friend. Jasmine liked beetroot, but the first few times we gave it to her we were a little concerned about the red droppings at the bottom of the cage a few hours later!

I also want to grow some flowers, partly for the colour but also for the local birds and insects – some of them anyway. The local bees will probably like the thyme, and I’m sure they’ll go for sunflowers too. The sunflower heads will be kept for feeding the birds later in the autumn and winter.

The minimal research I’ve done so far suggests that french marigolds are good at deterring aphids, so they’ll be very much in evidence, in and around the other plants. Nasturtiums are easy and, if I am to believe what I hear, edible too, but I’m not convinced. Maybe I’ll try them, maybe not.

I don’t intend to be too ambitous with my gardening this year. I won’t have a great deal of time for it and I’m not expecting to save a lot of money. I do expect to grow some tasty food, and to have a lot of fun in the process. I’ll let you know how it goes!

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• 28th March, 8:30-9:30 local time, Earth Hour
• 22nd April, Earth Day
• 20th-30th March, Semaine sans Pesticides (“Week without pesticides”)

Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour is something that started only two years ago, but is catching on fast. In 2007, 2.2 million homes and businesses in Sydney, turned out their lights for one hour, as a gesture to raise awareness about global warming. Last year, 50 million people took part, in 400 cities in 35 countries around the world.

This year, over 80 countries will take part, representing over 1400 cities (and growing fast). The Eiffel Tower in Paris is one of many major landmarks worldwide that will have its lights turned off for that hour. Apparently Switzerland hasn’t heard about it yet, but there’s still time.

They’re hoping to have a billion people participate this year, so please visit the Earth Hour site, watch their rather impressive video, and join in. Maybe invite a friend or two over for the evening of the 28th and see how much fun you can have with the lights out!

Earth Day 2009

Earth Day, just over three weeks later, is a bit less dramatic, but they claim to already have a billion people participate in their activities, so it’s no small thing. Earth Day has been around since the 1960′s, and is aimed at raising awareness about environmental issues. There are a variety of different events, organised all over the place, so there may be something near you. Switzerland are on board this one, at least in Zurich, as far as I can tell. It’s unfortunate that the earthday.net web-site is so poorly structured, it’s really hard to find anything useful there. You might have more luck with Google., or you can find some ideas on how to participate at the earth911.com site.

Making the bridge between Earth Hour and Earth Day, you can take the Earth Hour 2 Earth Day Challenge if you want to do more.

A Week Without Pesticides 2009

Another noteworthy event is “Semaine sans pesticides” (“Week without pesticides”). This started in France, and is young, like Earth Hour, this year being only its fourth year. France uses more pesticide than any other country in Europe (76,000 tonnes per year), and this movement is all about letting people know there are better ways of doing things. It has also become an international event, and this year it has gone as far as Brazil. Check out their website to find out what’s going on near you.

An American study published last year showed that pesticides can be measured in young children on a conventional diet, and that switching to organic foods eliminated the pesticides from the childrens’ bodies in less than 36 hours. Switch back to a conventional diet and the pesticides are detectable again almost immediately, which means the children are eating pesticides every day. I don’t know about you, but that rather worries me.

So, there’s a lot going on in the near future, and it’s easy to get involved. Attend one or more of the events for Earth Day or Semaine sans Pesticides, or switch off your lights for an hour on the 28th and have some fun.

Oh, that reminds me, I haven’t mentioned this to DweezelJazz yet. DweezelJazz, fancy spending an hour with me in the dark on a Saturday evening?

(Possibly) related posts:

1. March diary
2. Earth Day 2009, it’s here!
3. Earth Hour: It’s not about the money
4. Gardening over for the year…?
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an organically grown carrot

The BBC published an article on Tuesday with the title Farmers fear EU pesticide rules. Interestingly, a few hours later they changed the title to “Euro MPs back pesticide controls”. This concerns the very law that I mentioned in a previous post, “Optimism“.

It’s a shame the BBC changed the title, but the story still made it out into the world with that title, so i feel I am allowed to refer to it as such. So why should British farmers fear these rules? The majority of the EU states welcomes them, as do I, though the MEPs don’t ask me for my opinion.

Apparently, they fear the rise in price that would follow the drop in productivity, even to the point that the ‘British carrot’ could become extinct. Why, then, does the Soil Association believe otherwise? The Soil Association is an organisation that supports and promotes organic farming. They published a report in October 2008 entitled “England And Wales Under Organic Agriculture”, in which they discuss the consequences (email them if you want a copy, it’s not available for download). They point out that going completely organic could, for the UK, reduce the use of fertilizers by 95%, spraying by 98%, and increase jobs by 73%. There are many other benefits, not least of which is a huge reduction in the carbon footprint of their food.

The common objection to going organic is that yields would decline. This report shows that they would not suffer as much as is often claimed, Britain would not starve. It might even be better off with the right balance of farming techniques, there’s plenty of scope. If the Argentinians can manage to raise organic beef on large farms and export it around the world, surely Britain can do likewise?

Unfortunately, the soil-association report doesn’t mention the fate of the British carrot, so I don’t know what would happen there.

France is not so scared of going organic, it seems. The French are putting 12 million euros annually into turning their farms organic. They want organic production to grow considerably in the near future. France is the biggest consumer of pesticides in europe, but they don’t seem to be scared of running out of carrots as they change their ways.

Shopping at Satoriz with Jasmine

Personally, I buy most of my food from a French organic chain, Satoriz (Jasmine often came with us). Their prices are reasonable, the quality is good, and they have a full range of organic products, from soap and baby food to beer and wine. Oh yes, and carrots, like the one at the top of this post. I’ve also noticed that the food I buy from there tastes better than food I get from elsewhere. Satoriz have a lot of shops in my area, and have recently opened a large new outlet. I hope they continue to do well.

America, too, has an agricultural system strongly based in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As Obama prepares to be sworn in as president, there are people calling on him to reform the way the USA produces food, citing largely the same reasons.

So if all the French, the Argentinians, and the USA think they can produce food without so many chemicals, I have to wonder what the British farmers have to fear? Surely they aren’t really scared for their carrots?

(Possibly) related posts:

1. Meanwhile, in the garden…
2. Nuclear power and radiation exposure: should you worry?
3. An hour, a day, a week, for the earth
4. March diary
5. Gardening update

Despite this, I personally am optimistic about the future. It’s true that we face a challenge of immense proportions, but individual actions really can make a difference. We talk about “saving the planet”, but the planet is not in peril. It is us, our children, and the plants and animals we share this planet with which need saving. Solving the problem of climate-change means nothing if it is not about saving those lives, those species. The problems of climate-change and conservation of wildlife are closely related. Action is needed by governments, yes, but also by individuals. Governments won’t be able to solve this problem if we don’t want them to. Every level of society needs to be involved, from the UN down to you and me. We don’t need someone else to go first before we act, we can all start now and do something in our own corner. The more people act, the sooner they act, the more difference it makes.

Here are some of the things that happened last year that give me cause to be optimistic.

In Britain, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ran a campaign in 2008 asking people to do something in their gardens to help birds and the insects they depend upon. Some 25,000 homes responded, with all sorts of contributions. Even something as simple as choosing the right plants for your balcony can make a difference to your local birds by encouraging the right sorts of insects at difficult times.

In September last year, the European Parliament published the results of a survey of 30,000 people around europe to find out their attitudes to climate-change. It seems that 3 people out of every 5 have already taken some personal measure to reduce their carbon footprint. So the majority of europeans have already done something on their own, without waiting for their governments!

Interestingly, 1 person in 10 said that they did not know what they could do to reduce their carbon footprint. Simply talking to people and spreading information is therefore an important thing to do.

Another survey, this time by the BBC, asked 22,000 people worldwide what they know and think about the problems of climate-change. 9 out of every 10 people asked think something should be done, with 2 out of every 3 saying that drastic action is needed in the near future. Even the majority of the Chinese people (7 out of every 10) think that serious action is needed soon. The same picture emerged in almost all the nations included in the survey. Clearly, people accept the need to act when they are well informed.

On a different scale, the European Parliament recently introduced tougher controls on pesticides, such as banning arial spraying, protecting water-resources with buffer-zones, requiring the use of safer alternatives where they are available, and reducing pesticide use in parks, playgrounds, and other public areas.

Perhaps the most optimistic event of 2008 in this respect has to come from the United States. President-elect Obama has chosen real scientists to take key posts in his administration, including a Nobel laureate. Maybe now more governments will stop looking at each other and start looking at themselves.

None of these things is going to “save the planet” on their own, but each of them together may mean that there will be more of the planet left tomorrow, and the day after. Simply knowing that people do care to act once they know the truth is, to me, very encouraging. It’s a beautiful world, and it always will be. Just how beautiful is up to us.

I wish you a happy and peaceful new year.

(Possibly) related posts:

1. Climate Action Day in Ferney-Voltaire
2. World Oceans Day, June 8th
3. Earth Hour: It’s not about the money
4. Gardening over for the year…?
5. Personal experience of climate change