Song for Jasmine

For the eco-minded individual, March is a good month. There are events of all shapes and sizes that you can take part in. Here are a few of them.

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.

Why? Because bottled water represents a great deal of plastic and fuel used to transport water that is no better than tap water – and often is tap water – so that people can pay 1000 times as much as it would cost them to take it from the tap. The bottles leach chemicals into the water, which is not good, and then they often end up in landfill instead of being recycled, which is also not good.

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.

On this side of the pond, there’s the next edition of Semaine sans pesticides (Week without pesticides) coming up, March 20-30. Pesticides are used so heavily these days that people in developed countries are contaminated from birth, which can’t be good. Take a look at the protective gear this guy is wearing in order to spray that stuff on your food!

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!

Easter has come and gone, and those of you lucky enough to have a garden may well have been out in it planting things. I don’t have a garden, and my mum is probably raising her eyebrows right now because I didn’t get that much done in hers over Easter, but I do have a terrace, and I am looking forward to trying my hand at growing a few plants this year.

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

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!

Some dates for your diary:

• 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 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, 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.

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?