I thought some might be interested in this link - I love Ted.com

Roger Doiron: My subversive (garden) plot Video on TED.com www.ted.com

Some Random Thoughts

Where to start – so many things have been happening – this
competition really makes you think about life and your impact on the planet. Following is a brief run down on some of the stuff that’s been happening in our garden, kitchen and Christmas preparations.

In the Garden

When we first started talking about the greenest street competition two households that are not full participants said they would happily contribute their scraps to our compost and have been given 10lt buckets with lids and all is ticking along well - we had one household already contributing so our compost and worm farm are doing well. Then there is Tony who is passing his cooked food scraps our way for the chooks. Our chooks are very happy and I have already enquired about one of his recipes – the scraps smell so yummy.

I propagated a large number of seedlings, mainly tomatoes for the school gala - I love growing tomatoes. They were ready a few weeks early but I was pleased I managed to keep them growing strong and healthy with a seaweed liquid feed I had brewed. Several of the neighbours made the most of the opportunity and supported the school and now have full vege patches. I have most of my tomatoes planted out – a few over in my patch at the neighbours, some in 3 places in our main gardens down the back then some in bags the potting mix came in up the top. I got hit by the blight a few years ago and will never put all my toms in one spot again – I cried that year.

When my seedling were small I covered them with the bottom ends of soft drink bottles – had to do some recycling bin raids – the 2 ½ lt ones were best – I cut breathing holes in the top and it just helped protect them from the wind and cool during those early days – and snails for that matter.

Our raspberries are doing well and we have some in the freezer ready for a jamming session and I experimented with a desert the other night – a little refinement is required with regards to consistency but the taste was seriously good.

Today I planted out more corn – I have put the seed straight in this time, so we’ll see how they go. I also planted a small patch of carrots – I recently bought some neem tree granules and it recommended they could be used against carrot fly, so I have lightly worked them into the soil as per the instructions – fingers crossed that one day I will be able to successfully grow carrots.

My comfrey is finally growing well and I harvested a bunch of leaves for another brew. I have
really noticed the effect of the liquid feeds on my sprouting broccoli – they have just kept on going and they have been the largest sprouts I have ever had before – we are still going on my last few plants – my other garden favourite. My next mission is to sow some more broccoli seeds but I am going to put neem tree granules in the seed raising mix – something I read suggested that they might take it in to the leaves and then the caterpillars won’t like them – I live in hope and figure it is worth a try – will keep you posted.

In the Kitchen

We had family visit from the Hawkes Bay bearing gifts which included a large bundle of rhubarb some of which has gone into an experimental rhubarb gin – based on a recipe from a reliable source. We will be testing this week – best I get this blog done before that jar is opened.
I have been making yogurt from a starter I got from a workmate – I am doing it in an old Agee jar and simply wrapping it in a towel in the cylinder cupboard – I have figured out it is best if left just 6-8 hours, after that it seems to get bitter. Made a riata with it tonight – yum! Have
added fruit and the kids gobbled it down. I think I need a cow!

I made a batch of lemon curd as I had a plentiful supply of eggs and lemons. I gave some as a gift
to a friend; she quickly decided this was something she was not going to be sharing with her kids. The short fridge life was still not going to be an issue.

Christmas

Our eldest got the Christmas bug early so we made salt doughand he was away with his own idea of an advent countdown tree, taking off a home decorated peg and adding a new salt dough decoration each day.

We also received a decorated egg carton with 12 very yummy mini carrot cake cup cakes complete with cream cheese icing. Completely environmentally friendly – going to use that idea.

And Finally Nappies

I have gone a bit cold on my nappy recycling attempt – I was taking the insides out – wet ones only – and popping it in different places in my garden. It seems to act very like mulch – but I’m not sure the soil gets to breath. My enquiries into what was actu ally used in the insides got answers that were way too short and I don’t want to contaminate my garden until I have experimented a bit more. But I can’t help thinking the gell could have great benefits for retaining water in our sandy soils. And they make up a third of out weekly rubbish – I live in hope of nappies becoming a distant memory.

I will try to be more regular, so you don’t get such a big blast next time. Wish there were more
hours in a day.

Merry Christmas

Vegetarian food

Sue mentioned she may try to cook a vegetarian meal from time to time. Good on her!

There are lot of myths around vegetarian food, for example getting enough iron or sufficient protein. I'm a very active athlete so it's important that I have a diet that supports that, and I've had to learn what that involves.

Jess too is a longtime vegetarian, and was vegetarian all through her pregnancy. So young Rylan has been a vegetarian all his life, and he is a very healthy, active, and alert young boy.

Once you get used to it, vegetarian cooking is easy-peasy, and relatively cheap.

It's claimed that if everyone in the world was vegetarian then we'd have enough food to feed the world, and we'd be much kinder to plant earth. It goes without saying that various animals are pleased too.

Diet is so much tied up with lifestyle, therefore it involves the whole family. I applaud anyone who is willing to make changes and give it a go.

We are happy to give suggestions or share recipes, or help in any other way.

Tony Number 6

Green progress!

Hi, Teresa here. I decided that a place to start with lessening my footprint was to convince the boys to walk to school more often. The main challenge was to get 5-year-old Alan to comply (and I'm a sap!) Day One, Alan was not happy! By the time we got to his classroom he said he didn't like me anymore! I said I understood. By the time I collected him at 3pm, all was forgotten and forgiven - until he realised we were were walking home!! Certainly this is an adjustment for the whole family, but I believe it's worth it. It's great that all of us in this household are becoming more aware of the petrol we use, of the cardboard we throw away, AND the cat food tins that end up in the trash!! (Seriously!) It's definite that habits are changing at number 9! :-)

Emergency storage.

We brought a plastic crate from Mega Mitre 10 to store our Civil Defence emergency things in. If we win this competition maybe we could all buy one . Its ideal to store your supplies outside in.

Lemon crop

Have a huge crop of lemons, if anyone would like some.

Someone told me to take the lemons off the tree when flowers start showing again.

Have been making use of recycled bottles, even had to steal some out of someones recyling green bin at their gate!

 

Have made lemon honey and lemon syrup which stores well in fridge for the odd sore throat and instead of buying ready made juice from supernarket.

 

Get the kids to help you if you would like to make .

Recipes to follow in another blogg after the christmas rush!!

 

I did yesterday write on the street board but with last nights rain its probably not that easy to see ( I need to get a new thicker pen)

SUNDAY NIGHTS on Prime at 5.30pm New Zealand Gardening show with yesterdays being how to collect your rain water for your garden.

Got my first christmas present yesteday
To me From me : a storage box lockable for outside to store my large Emergency kit.!

 

Greening the Pool

Even I don't fully understand why I ended up in a property with a swimming pool. Essentially I'm an introvert and none of the family are really keen swimmers. Suffice to say in a previous relationship, with a combined 4 teenagers having loads of energy, it seemed like a good idea, or at least the teenagers of both sides of the new relationship initially enthusiastically thought so.

Since that relationship passed on, left on my own now, I've even invested in pool decking, albeit as part of getting the swimming pool surrounds to compliance status, not a trivial exercise. I sometimes wonder where the rates would go if we had the same prescriptive law applied to the sea, only blocks away and just as much a danger to the very athletic 2-6 year olds the law aims to protect.

Still, as I now have my 2 year old grandson Rylan living with me, and I see him daily working his way through 999 Ways For A Toddler To Kill Himself. So the fact that the swimming pool surrounds, rather than the inviting images you tend to see in glossy magazines of blue water and beautiful happy suntanned people lying half naked; looks rather more like Colditz – and is a suitable thwart to Rylan, who has a passionate interest in escaping the house and getting into the pool area (# 698).

If you mention greening the pool people tend to make one of two comments:

1. You're nuts. What do you mean green the pool? The aim is to use loads of chemicals to get rid of the green stuff that naturally develops in still water.

2. You're nuts. Greening the Pool is an oxymoron – all swimming pools are a blight, they waste precious water and pollute the environment with nasty chemicals – and the only green thing to do is fill it in.

Given these attitudes, and many may be surprised, but in my experience having a water tight hole in the ground capable of holding 30,000 liters means rain water naturally gathers in it, even to overfilling; so that over the 8 years I've lived here I've but once had to use public water to top it up, and that was when I accidentally left the backwash running in a dry spell.

Clearly the pool does not leak, which is generally listed as one of several ways to socialize your pool. Another one, which I got onto a few years ago, is to cover it with a solar blanket. This prevents evaporation, especially troublesome with the winds that buffet the pool. It also means the sun heats the pool and -- notwithstanding the many comments that a pool is a waste of space, time and money in our climate -- the temperature gets up to around 28C by the end of the season.

The pool I inherited also has electric heating. I'm not at all sure if this works, not only practically in terms of the elements still being a goer; but I get the feeling, as sometimes on a wonderful still evening I stand near the pool, look up at the mysterious stars, and think I'd most likely waste my money (and the country's electricity) in a futile attempt to heat not only the cold night sky but the universe.

One of the other anti-social complaints about pools is that the nasty chemicals in the water are backwashed into the public sewerage system. Happily the backwash system of our pool is not connected to the public system – it is pumped to the bank beside the pool. There native trees blossom, as evidenced from the wonderful self-sown Nikau fern, Cabbage trees, and various other native bushes that grow there. And, somewhat interestingly, the hydgranga flowers are white.

Another step to green the pool is to put a timer on the motor driving the filtering system. This I haven't got, but as I care a lot about how high my electricity bill is, my internal timer is very effective, hence I never run the pump unnecessarily.

Having a relatively 'green' pool, as part of the Greenest Street competition I thought I could look into more friendly ways to prevent bacteria and algae growth. Currently the chemical of preference is chlorine and the initial thought was to put in a salt water system. However, like a lot of things, under investigation this is not so straight forward. It appears that the salt water system generates it's own chlorine and may be, assuming the backwash is connected to the public system, even more harmful to the environment, otherwise I'd be interested to find out if plants respond so well to it.

There appear to be other greener cleaning systems, like ozone, or growing certain plants, or a mix of systems; that may have varying degrees of effectiveness or at least enable a reduction in the amount of potentially harmful chemicals used. My next step is to talk to others and to outlets to see what may be on offer in New Zealand.

A final thought is, as Carolyn reminded us, as did last night's violent shake; in the event of a natural disaster having so much water on hand may put our street at an advantage over neighborhood streets, or at least enable us to carry on watering our veggies or flushing the toilets; thus we are tossing around disaster contingency plans for barricading the street entrance.

Meanwhile... Rylan has escaped and is heading down to the beach (# 821) so I'll have to chase after him -- then I'll clean the pool and, hopefully, back to my veggie garden, which I'll write about in the next blog.

Anthony (Tony) Number 6