Ignorance is definitely bliss! Sometimes I think life would be so much easier if I didn't really know what was happening around me, I could then geniunely say I didn't know better when doing something ungreen. Unfortunately this is not the case - in fact I somehow seem to be drawn towards articles, books etc that brings more knowledge into my head and makes my life more difficult.
Recently I was offered a free book with a magazine subscription and I was given a long list of books to choose from, yet of all these books I went for 'Go Make a Difference - over 500 daily ways to save the Planet'. My thinking was - there should be a trick or two in there that I have missed, this will be good inspiration. It is a great book, but unfortunately rather than making me feel happy about the stuff I am already doing it has made me feel overwhelmed by the stuff I am NOT doing.
This book covers everything you can think of regarding green and ethical living and there is some very good information in it, but it has not made my life any easier. The wealth of information in it is making all my efforts look rather small.
There is all the stuff to do in the garden, like putting up bat boxes, laying on squirrel banquets and planting bee friendly flowers.
Then there are things to do with the kids, such a flying kites, getting on the bikes, making a frieze of endangered animals or even making your own recycled paper!
Of course there are also all the campaigns you can sign up to: campaign for re-use of empty homes, campaign to support the victims of Bhopal on Day of No Pesticides, campaign to stop the use of child soldiers, campaign to ban Lindane (a dangerous pesticide), campaign to make supermarkets take responsibility and obviuosly you can write to countless embassies to protest about ivory trade, whaling etc
Not to mention the long list of things that you should and shouldn't buy, e.g. buy organic produce, buy fairtrade, buy local, but avoid anything with phthalates, bromin fire retardants or bisphenol A, not to mention boycutting companies that use animal testing,child labour, sweatshop production etc
These are all very worthwhile causes, and I don't for one second suggest they shouldn't be supported, but my brain simply cannot compute it all.
I am kind of stuck, I feel I need to change more or less everything I do and even if I did I would probably still miss something. What's more important, to create a wildlife haven in your own garden to increase the very important biodiversity or to support a campaign against exploiting children??!! There is not enough hours in the day to get involved with everything that is wrong in this world, but where should I start? The thing is if you don't pay attention you could very easily end up supporting something that you really don't like - but if I had to check all the ethical lists before doing anything I would never get started. Argh!
If I had read this book before embarking on this green project it might never have begun, I would have given up on the whole idea. Thankfully I am already halfway through, so at least I could tick some of the boxes while reading the book and say 'yep, doing that already' and not end up completely disheartened, but it is not a good feeling. How did the World end up in such a mess with complete lack of respect for the Planet we live on?
So what to do now. Do I burn the book and try to erase the information from my memory or is this the time to step up the game? I just don't know. What I do know is that it is easier when you don't know... No wonder that lots of people don't really want to hear about the environmental problems that we face. But unfortunately I can't just ignore the facts, so I will need to find some way of navigating the information jungle. I will probably just have to start with the things close to home and I will always be of the opnion that trying, even when not successful, is better than doing nothing at all. The one thing thats for sure is that I will not be buying part II any time soon.
Sunday 28 February 2010
Sunday 21 February 2010
Half way
We are now half way through our year of trying to become green, so has anything changed over the last 6 months? I think it is time for a stock take.
Recycling: We have always been pretty good on the recycling front, but I think we are even better now - hardly anything goes in the bin that could go somewhere else, we recycle, compost, reuse, donate, freecycle etc.
Waste: We are trying to minimise waste, but it is difficult. Everything seems to come wrapped in at least one layer of plastic. On the plus side our paper waste is definitely down, we get almost all bills online and are signed up to Mail Preference Service etc.(In fact a lot of the paper in the recycling bin is probably my children's drawings - oops bad mum, should be keeping them, but there are sooo many)
Energy: We are definitely a lot more conscious of our energy use - we don't leave stuff switched on (In fact my husband said the other day 'what happened - we always seem to be stumbling around in the dark...)Last prognosis suggested that we might not have increased our energy use since moving, despite this house being double the size of the old one.
Water: We don't get readings for water usage, so we don't know for sure, but I am pretty certain we use less water now than a year ago. We are still to install a water butt for the garden, but the cold winter hasn't really been a great incentive to do water installations outside.
Car: We use the car less, although there is still room for improvement here. In fact doing this stock take has made me realise that the mileage readings I wanted to take have kind of been forgotten, and I don't know with certainty how many miles we drive on average in a month - so action required. At least when I do drive I try to follow the advice for greener driving.
Other transport: we do a lot of walking now which is good, on the other hand my bike hasn't made it out of the garage many times, I struggle with public transport (thankfully my husband is doing better on that front) and we are booked on a flight next month - quickly next subject!
Food: We are still managing to have 2 vegetarian days a week, and red meat has also been decreased to just once a week. Likewise we seem to have limited the amount of food that ends up wasted.
Shopping:I now try to get our meat from the local butcher rather than the supermarket and I generally pay more attention to the stuff that goes in my shopping basket. Unfortunately we are not strictly buying organic, because it is just too expensive, but I try my best to avoid excessive amounts of food that has been flown half way across the planet or is packaged in ridiculous amounts of plastic. I still haven't signed up for a veg box delivery and I rarely make it to any of the local farm shops, which is slightly pathetic - so another action to note.
Cleaning: the main products in the cleaning cupboard are now bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and microfibre cloths.
Gardening: I am learning the basics of growing our own vegetables. This is definitely not a skill I will have fully mastered within the year, but considering what I knew this time last year, there has been huge progress.
All the little things: I pay a lot more attention now in general. I try to think about what I do and what impact it might have, although that is a gigantic task - and sometimes too difficult to figure out. Changing your mindset is a very difficult thing to do (just think about how many failed diets, exercise programmes or other resolutions there are every year), but I believe we are getting somewhere.
And the big things: well we haven't made any huge groundbreaking changes to our lives, that was never the plan from the outset. We have however probably changed some priorities, e.g. I am not sure we would have spent our limited money on insulation last year, but that was the choice we made this time round. Somehow the little things also push you towards the bigger ones. A year ago putting solar panels on the roof was the stuff of daydreams, now it is something I actually want to see happen. OK, it will still be a long time, they are expensive and our bank account is empty, but it has entered the priority list.
So what is the situation? Have we achieved anything? yes! Are we truly green? No, probably not. There are still lots of things we can do, some of them we will hopefully manage within the next 6 months, others will take longer - but at least we are doing something. In fact the other day I was reading more about the Transition Town movement www.transitionnetwork.org. It is a very exciting set up based on the idea that many of the issues we are likely to face due to peak oil, climate change etc can be overcome by building sustainable and resilient communities that has a completely local basis. Transition here means the transition away from a completely oil dependent society and basically Transition Towns are trying to prepare themselves for what might come. We don't live in a Transition Town (yet...), but it made me think that maybe we are trying to be a transition family. A time might come when we all need to change our priorities, and if so hopefully this project is good preparation. I sincerely hope that the future doesn't look half as bleak as some of the predictions are suggesting, but if changes do come then hopefully they will be slightly less of a shock for us; and if life somehow continues like this for the next 1000 years, well then we haven't lost anything by learning new stuff, cutting down on waste and consumption and probably got healthier and fitter in the process.I think we are on track!
Recycling: We have always been pretty good on the recycling front, but I think we are even better now - hardly anything goes in the bin that could go somewhere else, we recycle, compost, reuse, donate, freecycle etc.
Waste: We are trying to minimise waste, but it is difficult. Everything seems to come wrapped in at least one layer of plastic. On the plus side our paper waste is definitely down, we get almost all bills online and are signed up to Mail Preference Service etc.(In fact a lot of the paper in the recycling bin is probably my children's drawings - oops bad mum, should be keeping them, but there are sooo many)
Energy: We are definitely a lot more conscious of our energy use - we don't leave stuff switched on (In fact my husband said the other day 'what happened - we always seem to be stumbling around in the dark...)Last prognosis suggested that we might not have increased our energy use since moving, despite this house being double the size of the old one.
Water: We don't get readings for water usage, so we don't know for sure, but I am pretty certain we use less water now than a year ago. We are still to install a water butt for the garden, but the cold winter hasn't really been a great incentive to do water installations outside.
Car: We use the car less, although there is still room for improvement here. In fact doing this stock take has made me realise that the mileage readings I wanted to take have kind of been forgotten, and I don't know with certainty how many miles we drive on average in a month - so action required. At least when I do drive I try to follow the advice for greener driving.
Other transport: we do a lot of walking now which is good, on the other hand my bike hasn't made it out of the garage many times, I struggle with public transport (thankfully my husband is doing better on that front) and we are booked on a flight next month - quickly next subject!
Food: We are still managing to have 2 vegetarian days a week, and red meat has also been decreased to just once a week. Likewise we seem to have limited the amount of food that ends up wasted.
Shopping:I now try to get our meat from the local butcher rather than the supermarket and I generally pay more attention to the stuff that goes in my shopping basket. Unfortunately we are not strictly buying organic, because it is just too expensive, but I try my best to avoid excessive amounts of food that has been flown half way across the planet or is packaged in ridiculous amounts of plastic. I still haven't signed up for a veg box delivery and I rarely make it to any of the local farm shops, which is slightly pathetic - so another action to note.
Cleaning: the main products in the cleaning cupboard are now bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and microfibre cloths.
Gardening: I am learning the basics of growing our own vegetables. This is definitely not a skill I will have fully mastered within the year, but considering what I knew this time last year, there has been huge progress.
All the little things: I pay a lot more attention now in general. I try to think about what I do and what impact it might have, although that is a gigantic task - and sometimes too difficult to figure out. Changing your mindset is a very difficult thing to do (just think about how many failed diets, exercise programmes or other resolutions there are every year), but I believe we are getting somewhere.
And the big things: well we haven't made any huge groundbreaking changes to our lives, that was never the plan from the outset. We have however probably changed some priorities, e.g. I am not sure we would have spent our limited money on insulation last year, but that was the choice we made this time round. Somehow the little things also push you towards the bigger ones. A year ago putting solar panels on the roof was the stuff of daydreams, now it is something I actually want to see happen. OK, it will still be a long time, they are expensive and our bank account is empty, but it has entered the priority list.
So what is the situation? Have we achieved anything? yes! Are we truly green? No, probably not. There are still lots of things we can do, some of them we will hopefully manage within the next 6 months, others will take longer - but at least we are doing something. In fact the other day I was reading more about the Transition Town movement www.transitionnetwork.org. It is a very exciting set up based on the idea that many of the issues we are likely to face due to peak oil, climate change etc can be overcome by building sustainable and resilient communities that has a completely local basis. Transition here means the transition away from a completely oil dependent society and basically Transition Towns are trying to prepare themselves for what might come. We don't live in a Transition Town (yet...), but it made me think that maybe we are trying to be a transition family. A time might come when we all need to change our priorities, and if so hopefully this project is good preparation. I sincerely hope that the future doesn't look half as bleak as some of the predictions are suggesting, but if changes do come then hopefully they will be slightly less of a shock for us; and if life somehow continues like this for the next 1000 years, well then we haven't lost anything by learning new stuff, cutting down on waste and consumption and probably got healthier and fitter in the process.I think we are on track!
Monday 15 February 2010
The public transport issue
I think we are doing pretty well on many fronts, but there is one area where we are struggling: transport. We keep trying to cut down on car use, and we have succeeded to some extend, but almost every time I decide to make use of public transport it ends in stress, frustration, tears or most often all three.
Public transport is do-able when you are an adult travelling, but if you are travelling with kids it is a different matter, and I am yet to be convinced that it can be easy.
Theoretically speaking we are well placed for using public transport, as we are lucky enough to live in a town that has both train and bus links.
I have been doing a few journeys to Edinburgh lately and tried out some different options, but none of them have been straight forward.
The first time we tried the bus. I chose this option because it can be quite a job to get to the train station. We live in the opposite end of town and walking to the station takes a good 20 minutes for an adult, walking with 2 children takes a lot longer! We can't cheat and take the car as there is no parking to get anywhere near the station, and although there are busses going through town they are unfortunately not frequent and reliable enough to trust getting to the station in time. So to avoid this we got on the Edinburgh bus that passes within easy walking distance of our house. The journey time is approx 1 hour, passing through different smaller towns on sometimes winding roads - so with in 15 minutes I was feeling travel sick! Luckily that didn't happen to the kids and the older one only got impatient after 25 minutes which is pretty good going for her, but 35 minutes of 'when are we getting off' can still be rather tiring. The younger one fell asleep, so he had to come on my lap, which made for rather cramped conditions, but I guess he was quiet at least. The journey in was however a whole lot better than going home...
The thing about busses is that you never really know when they are going to come, they are quite likely to get stuck in traffic. So when heading back we waited at the bus stop for more than 20 minutes in rather cold windy weather, during which time my daughter kept swinging around and accidently hitting other people and my son made several attempts at escaping to the other side of the road, not to mention doing mega splashes in a puddle and picking up old cigaret butts. Great fun for me! Of course the bus came eventually and that was when the party really started. My 2 year old son insisted on standing in the middle of the bus rather than sitting on a seat, which I couldn't really let him do, so he decided to have a tantrum. For more than 25 minutes he was screaming the bus down! Not only was that aggrevating for me, but I could literally feel the waves of anger coming from the other passengers in the bus - not pleasant! Obviously at the same time my daughter was complaining of a sore tummy and saying she wanted to be home. A delightful journey!
So when we had another Edinburgh trip ahead of us last week I decided we should try the train instead. Overall more successful, but not exactly enjoyable. I managed to solve the issue of transport to the station by half cheating: we had managed to plan it so that my husband was coming off a train shortly before we were leaving, so he could take the car home and solve the parking issue. This time I was also only travelling with my 2 year old, which made things slightly easier. My son is like most other boys his age obsessed with trains and he was highly delighted we were going on 'the chu chu'. What he didn't quite understand was the fact that you have to get off the train again and he was very upset when it was time to get out - poor wee man.
On the way home he was so desperate to get on the train again, that he really wanted to stand right at the edge of the platform to look for it. Not exactly a safe place to be, so once again we had a bit of a stand off, although luckily not a 20 minute screaming fit. When we got on the train there were nowhere to sit (we were getting closer to rush hour), but guess what nobody offered us a seat, so for most of the journey I had to stand trying to keep hold of myself, my son who really wanted to look out of the window and a pushchair. Not great! Obviously we had tears once again when we had to get off the train, but at least that should mean he enjoyed the trip.
So here are some of my reasons why I struggle with kids and public transport:
- Public transport is exactly that: public, so when your kids are having a bad day you can't hide it, they will aggrevate both you and everybody else!
- In a car the kids are strapped down and you know exactly where you have them, in busses and trains you have to constantly watch them and keep them occupied to avoid them jumping on the seats, running away etc.
- Public transport always includes waiting time, and one thing the kids hate is waiting!
- There is less time flexibility on public transport. If your child realises they need the toilet a second time just when you are about to leave the house that could mean a 5 minute delay if going by car, but much more if going by public transport, because you just might miss your bus and then have to wait for the next one (please see above regarding waiting time).
- Public transport can be uncomfortable and I hate to say it but unfortunately people are rarely very helpful.
I do realise that these arguments shouldn't really stop me using public transport if I truly want to be green, but I am not quite sure how to overcome them. Most of the other things we do I have come to enjoy to varying degrees, e.g. growing vegetables, saving money on energy, walking to the shops; but public transport is different. It seems to increase my stress levels and that is something I really do not need. Help needed - how to travel with young kids on public transport with out risking a heart attack??!!
Public transport is do-able when you are an adult travelling, but if you are travelling with kids it is a different matter, and I am yet to be convinced that it can be easy.
Theoretically speaking we are well placed for using public transport, as we are lucky enough to live in a town that has both train and bus links.
I have been doing a few journeys to Edinburgh lately and tried out some different options, but none of them have been straight forward.
The first time we tried the bus. I chose this option because it can be quite a job to get to the train station. We live in the opposite end of town and walking to the station takes a good 20 minutes for an adult, walking with 2 children takes a lot longer! We can't cheat and take the car as there is no parking to get anywhere near the station, and although there are busses going through town they are unfortunately not frequent and reliable enough to trust getting to the station in time. So to avoid this we got on the Edinburgh bus that passes within easy walking distance of our house. The journey time is approx 1 hour, passing through different smaller towns on sometimes winding roads - so with in 15 minutes I was feeling travel sick! Luckily that didn't happen to the kids and the older one only got impatient after 25 minutes which is pretty good going for her, but 35 minutes of 'when are we getting off' can still be rather tiring. The younger one fell asleep, so he had to come on my lap, which made for rather cramped conditions, but I guess he was quiet at least. The journey in was however a whole lot better than going home...
The thing about busses is that you never really know when they are going to come, they are quite likely to get stuck in traffic. So when heading back we waited at the bus stop for more than 20 minutes in rather cold windy weather, during which time my daughter kept swinging around and accidently hitting other people and my son made several attempts at escaping to the other side of the road, not to mention doing mega splashes in a puddle and picking up old cigaret butts. Great fun for me! Of course the bus came eventually and that was when the party really started. My 2 year old son insisted on standing in the middle of the bus rather than sitting on a seat, which I couldn't really let him do, so he decided to have a tantrum. For more than 25 minutes he was screaming the bus down! Not only was that aggrevating for me, but I could literally feel the waves of anger coming from the other passengers in the bus - not pleasant! Obviously at the same time my daughter was complaining of a sore tummy and saying she wanted to be home. A delightful journey!
So when we had another Edinburgh trip ahead of us last week I decided we should try the train instead. Overall more successful, but not exactly enjoyable. I managed to solve the issue of transport to the station by half cheating: we had managed to plan it so that my husband was coming off a train shortly before we were leaving, so he could take the car home and solve the parking issue. This time I was also only travelling with my 2 year old, which made things slightly easier. My son is like most other boys his age obsessed with trains and he was highly delighted we were going on 'the chu chu'. What he didn't quite understand was the fact that you have to get off the train again and he was very upset when it was time to get out - poor wee man.
On the way home he was so desperate to get on the train again, that he really wanted to stand right at the edge of the platform to look for it. Not exactly a safe place to be, so once again we had a bit of a stand off, although luckily not a 20 minute screaming fit. When we got on the train there were nowhere to sit (we were getting closer to rush hour), but guess what nobody offered us a seat, so for most of the journey I had to stand trying to keep hold of myself, my son who really wanted to look out of the window and a pushchair. Not great! Obviously we had tears once again when we had to get off the train, but at least that should mean he enjoyed the trip.
So here are some of my reasons why I struggle with kids and public transport:
- Public transport is exactly that: public, so when your kids are having a bad day you can't hide it, they will aggrevate both you and everybody else!
- In a car the kids are strapped down and you know exactly where you have them, in busses and trains you have to constantly watch them and keep them occupied to avoid them jumping on the seats, running away etc.
- Public transport always includes waiting time, and one thing the kids hate is waiting!
- There is less time flexibility on public transport. If your child realises they need the toilet a second time just when you are about to leave the house that could mean a 5 minute delay if going by car, but much more if going by public transport, because you just might miss your bus and then have to wait for the next one (please see above regarding waiting time).
- Public transport can be uncomfortable and I hate to say it but unfortunately people are rarely very helpful.
I do realise that these arguments shouldn't really stop me using public transport if I truly want to be green, but I am not quite sure how to overcome them. Most of the other things we do I have come to enjoy to varying degrees, e.g. growing vegetables, saving money on energy, walking to the shops; but public transport is different. It seems to increase my stress levels and that is something I really do not need. Help needed - how to travel with young kids on public transport with out risking a heart attack??!!
Sunday 7 February 2010
Winter garden
Yesterday I was doing bag packing in Sainsbury's as a fundraiser for my son's playgroup. Seeing the copious amounts of food of all kinds that go into people's trolleys made me think that if for some reason supermarket deliveries were hit by a crisis and stopped, we would all be in big trouble. Hardly any of us would have access to homegrown food, a lot of people wouldn't know how to grow it and even if we learned to grow it we wouldn't know how to cook it. We would probably even struggle to go to the local farms to get supplies because they have neither diverse enough produce nor the infrastructure to supply food locally.
This led me to make more serious considerations about our garden again. I haven't really thought much about it over the winter, it has been frozen and covered in snow a lot of the time, but yesterday I remembered my discovery from last summer: Gardening is a fascinating subject!
A year ago I had no clue at all. The only gardening effort I had made was planting flowers in pots to look pretty and maybe the occasional container with parsley.
Today I found myself making a schedule of the stuff we could plant this year with notes on when to plant and important things to remember. How did this happen?!
Lately I have been reading a book by Michelin starred chef Paul Merrett. A few years ago he decided to become self sufficient, despite having only the same flowerpot level gardening knowledge as me and he managed to get an allotment somewhere in West London. The book describes how he and his family gets on and then gives recipes for all the veg they produce. It is a well written and inspiring book. I particularly like it because he makes me feel less like a fool! If a Michelin starred chef whose daily life is centred around food hasn't got a clue how to grow vegetables, then surely I am excused for my pathetic gardening knowledge. What's even better is that he manages to answer some of the very basic questions, that I would probably be too embarrassed to ask a garden expert about. (Anybody wanting to borrow the book - send me a message).
So I am now attempting to plan what will be in the garden this year. Obviously the corner we have dug up is nowhere near the size of an allotment and becoming completely self sufficient isn't really on the agenda (yet..), but the more I read the more fascinated I become. All these little things to know, e.g. peas can become rather tall, so it is a good idea to plant something next to it that prefers midday shade like radishes or beetroot, or never grow potatoes in the same place 2 years in a row as it increases the risk of disease, or something I would never have guessed: to attract useful insects and beasties you can plant specific flowers such as calendula.
I am beginning to see the garden in a completely different light. When we are planting stuff we might as well plant something that has a dual purpose, not just something to look nice. Several of my pots that used to be filled with flowers will this year be filled with lettuce and herbs and hopefully some 'useful' flowers. If only I had truly realised what you can grow in pots earlier I could have had all sorts of edible stuff even in our old garden, which was about the size of a stamp.
I am already having visions of extending the vegetable patch even further (we don't need a lot of grass do we?!) and I am seeing bare patches all over that could maybe be filled with something edible.
Obviously I am partly daydreaming here. The chances of us having a highly successful crop anytime soon are not particularly high. What is much more likely is that despite all my planning things will get disrupted from the beginning. The weekends we are supposed to be planting will probably be very rainy or if the weather is suitable for gardening the likelihood is that something will come up that we have to go to or even more likely, projects will have to be abandoned halfway through because the kids will refuse to be in the garden for more than 15 minutes or they will batter each other with shovels or they will enjoy digging so much they dig up the seeds or ...
The same thing will probably happen when it comes to weeding and then of course again at harvesting if something actually comes up. If we do manage to get anything in quantities larger than just one meal I could easily face a cooking problem as well - like a lot of people I am much better at cooking pasta than I am at being creative with radishes and chard.
Still I have to keep the dream going, there is something surprisingly satisfactory about making stuff grow. If things get really bad I guess I can always turn to my Paul Merrett book for inspiration - if he can do it, surely I can too... (Yes???)
This led me to make more serious considerations about our garden again. I haven't really thought much about it over the winter, it has been frozen and covered in snow a lot of the time, but yesterday I remembered my discovery from last summer: Gardening is a fascinating subject!
A year ago I had no clue at all. The only gardening effort I had made was planting flowers in pots to look pretty and maybe the occasional container with parsley.
Today I found myself making a schedule of the stuff we could plant this year with notes on when to plant and important things to remember. How did this happen?!
Lately I have been reading a book by Michelin starred chef Paul Merrett. A few years ago he decided to become self sufficient, despite having only the same flowerpot level gardening knowledge as me and he managed to get an allotment somewhere in West London. The book describes how he and his family gets on and then gives recipes for all the veg they produce. It is a well written and inspiring book. I particularly like it because he makes me feel less like a fool! If a Michelin starred chef whose daily life is centred around food hasn't got a clue how to grow vegetables, then surely I am excused for my pathetic gardening knowledge. What's even better is that he manages to answer some of the very basic questions, that I would probably be too embarrassed to ask a garden expert about. (Anybody wanting to borrow the book - send me a message).
So I am now attempting to plan what will be in the garden this year. Obviously the corner we have dug up is nowhere near the size of an allotment and becoming completely self sufficient isn't really on the agenda (yet..), but the more I read the more fascinated I become. All these little things to know, e.g. peas can become rather tall, so it is a good idea to plant something next to it that prefers midday shade like radishes or beetroot, or never grow potatoes in the same place 2 years in a row as it increases the risk of disease, or something I would never have guessed: to attract useful insects and beasties you can plant specific flowers such as calendula.
I am beginning to see the garden in a completely different light. When we are planting stuff we might as well plant something that has a dual purpose, not just something to look nice. Several of my pots that used to be filled with flowers will this year be filled with lettuce and herbs and hopefully some 'useful' flowers. If only I had truly realised what you can grow in pots earlier I could have had all sorts of edible stuff even in our old garden, which was about the size of a stamp.
I am already having visions of extending the vegetable patch even further (we don't need a lot of grass do we?!) and I am seeing bare patches all over that could maybe be filled with something edible.
Obviously I am partly daydreaming here. The chances of us having a highly successful crop anytime soon are not particularly high. What is much more likely is that despite all my planning things will get disrupted from the beginning. The weekends we are supposed to be planting will probably be very rainy or if the weather is suitable for gardening the likelihood is that something will come up that we have to go to or even more likely, projects will have to be abandoned halfway through because the kids will refuse to be in the garden for more than 15 minutes or they will batter each other with shovels or they will enjoy digging so much they dig up the seeds or ...
The same thing will probably happen when it comes to weeding and then of course again at harvesting if something actually comes up. If we do manage to get anything in quantities larger than just one meal I could easily face a cooking problem as well - like a lot of people I am much better at cooking pasta than I am at being creative with radishes and chard.
Still I have to keep the dream going, there is something surprisingly satisfactory about making stuff grow. If things get really bad I guess I can always turn to my Paul Merrett book for inspiration - if he can do it, surely I can too... (Yes???)
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