Green living

The story of stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:20:00 +0000

Amongst the news of the success of various stimulus payments and the rebirth of our national economies from the rubble of the financial crisis comes a report by a team of international authors led by Nobel-price winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and commissioned by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that questions the very basis of how we measure our wealth. A link to the full report can be found at the Globalpost website.

This reminded me of the wonderful animation "The story of stuff" with Annie Leonard which explores the modern cycle of production (posted below). The website for "The story of stuff" has further links.

The age of stupid and who is going to pick up the bill

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:01:00 +0000

In this four-minute movie produced by Peter Wedel the CO2 intensive lifestyle of an urban dweller (played by Benno Fürmann) is put in contrast to the people in developing countries which are affected most by Climate Change. (more info at www.germanwatch.org)

Australian per capita emissions top even those of most other developed nations, including those mentioned in the movie. For the most up-to-date information on Australian emissions see Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts.

The new documentary "The Age of Stupid" by McLibel director Franny Armstrong looks beyond this immediate scenario and shows that in the end, climate change will affect all of us, no matter how sheltered we in the developed world deem ourselves from the effects of global warming. The message is clear: the time for change is now.

The Age of Stupid will be screening in Australia later this month.

Winter vegetables

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:04:00 +0000

Image above: North-Eastern corner of our garden

Winter is truly upon us. We have had some freezing nights, and more cold weather may be on the way. I really like the early mornings, when the fog is still settled on the mountains, and everything is covered in white frost.

People in Canberra often wonder whether you can grow anything edible in winter, and many won't even try.

However, despite the temperatures, there is an amazing number of vegetables that will happily grow and keep us well fed, as long as they get a chance to "defrost" during the day. In fact, given our increasingly hot summers, I have come to wonder whether winter may even be a more productive time than summer when it comes to growing food.

We have been eating the most beautiful purple sprouting broccoli (from seed I saved last year, image left in its "frozen" state early in the morning) and various leafy greens suitable for cooking such as Tuscan kale, a range of different kinds of silverbeet, spinach, collards, Chinese kale and mibuna.

There are red and green cabbages that are coming along nicely, and my "living salad bowl" (image right, image again taken early in the morning, when the leaves are covered in frost) supplies us with a daily bowl of all sorts of beautiful lettuces, arugula and Asian greens such as mizuna and tatsoi.

I have also planted various root vegetables which are still growing strong, ready for harvest sometime in the near future, including turnips, swedes and carrots. Some of the alliums, such as bulb onions, garlic, spring onions and leeks are also in various stages of growth, ranging from very immature (onions) to close to harvesting (leeks, spring onions).

I believe the success to my winter garden has its root in a few things that I have learnt over the last few years:

The better you prepare your soil, the more likely you are to be successful.

If you didn't get around to preparing the ground as well as you wanted to, or you didn't have enough manure or organic matter when it was time for planting, try top-dressing the soil around your plants.

I tried it this year, using a mix of straw and chook manure, and found it to be very beneficial. In fact, even those parts of the vegetable garden that I had prepared well benefitted from extra mulching half-way through the season, as most of the winter vegetables, particularly the brassicas (cabbages, broccoli etc) really like loads of nutrients.

And last but not least: make sure your plants get enough water. It is easy to assume that because it is cold, you don't need to water, but many plants in winter fail because they are thirsty. To check whether the soil is getting too dry, stick a finger in. If it feels dry below the knuckle, it is time to give them some water, ideally at the beginning of the day rather than in the evening.

Make great bread in your own oven

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:12:00 +0000

The other day I was in the supermarket, looking for my favourite strong flour (baker's flour), when I overheard a couple in their fifties discuss whether the "bread mix" on offer could also be used in a normal oven or only in a bread maker. I couldn't help myself and chirped in, and we ended up having a very friendly conversation about the lost art of baking bread.

I used to make a daily loaf in our bread maker (see my universal bread maker recipe here). This is an easy way to get started, although you may find, like I did, that a bread maker is not enough to feed a growing family. Plus, while the bread certainly tastes better than many kinds of shop bought breads, the texture really isn't all that great and more substantial kinds of bread don't always turn out so well, either.

I have since changed my method to making a batch of six loaves of bread in the oven. I have a normal sized fan-forced oven, not one of the super-sized ovens I have seen in some newer homes. Six loaves can just fit into my oven and can be baked at the same time which makes it an efficient use of energy. I have two heavy expandable oven trays that can be adjusted to fit the full width of the oven. I use one tray at the bottom and one in the middle.
I freeze the surplus loaves whole. They defrost easily on the bench top or in the fridge, or they can be defrosted (whole) in the microwave in about 2-3 minutes at high.

I start in the morning with making the dough. The most important ingredients for really good bread are baker's flour or strong flour (not the normal "plain" flour you may use for making cakes or muffins), yeast (I use dried yeast), water and salt. Baker's flour is a bit more expensive than plain flour but it makes a huge difference to the taste and texture of your bread - and it is still substantially cheaper than buying decent bread. You can add oil which gives the bread a nicer colour and keeps it from drying out too quickly.

This recipe is enough for two 800g loaves of bread.

* 1kg baker's flour
* 600 ml luke warm water
* 2 teaspoons of salt
* 1 tablespoon of dried yeast
* some olive or vegetable oil (around 2 table spoons)

* heavy baking tray (the heavier, the better, but if you don't have a proper tray, use your cookie tray instead),
* baking paper
* water spray can with clean water

Carefully mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon then put into an electric mixer with a dough hook for around five minutes or knead by hand (this can take up to 15 minutes) until the dough is all smooth and well combined. (Make sure your mixer can handle the amount of dough. I inherited a mixer which is probably around 40 years old. It is very heavy and can just manage the dough. By contrast, my smaller, more modern kitchen machine gets overwhelmed.)

Let the dough rise under a wet towel/ lid for about 4 hours until it has at least doubled.
Carefully push the dough back a bit using a wooden spoon. (Don't push too much, as we don't want to lose all the air the yeast has created already).
Let the dough rise a second time.
Carefully take the dough out of the bowl and divide into two parts. You don't want to knead the dough too much at this stage, just enough to form two even loaves.
Put the loaves on a sheet of baking paper large enough to fit onto your oven tray. Let them rise again under a wet towel.

Pre-heat the oven to hot (210 degrees Celsius). It is important that you put the trays you are going to use into the oven because they need to be as hot as possible when you put the loaves on. Once the oven is hot and the loaves have risen, quickly get the baking tray out of the oven, put the baking paper with the loaves onto the tray, push back into the oven and quickly give the sides of the oven a squirt of clean water with your water spray can.

Bake the loaves at 190-210 degrees Celsius (that depends on your oven - mine is ok using lower temperatures) for about 30 minutes. To test whether the loaves are baked through, knock on the bottom of the loaves. If it sounds hollow, they are ready.

Now you can experiment. I usually make at least two loaves with whole meal flour (800g baker's flour/200g whole meal flour works best for me, but you can use more whole meal flour if you wish), and two mixed sour dough loaves (800g baker's flour/200g rye flour, caraway seeds to taste plus some sourdough starter for taste and texture), and I often add other ingredients as well, such as sesame seeds, linseeds, pepitas and sunflower seeds.

It's the soil, stupid.

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:21:00 +0000

It is hard to believe after the intense heat wave earlier this year that winter is almost upon us. The nice thing about living in this part of the world is that despite the very cold winter nights we can still grow a surprisingly large variety of winter vegetables. I started planting about six weeks ago. The first crop is coming along nicely - red and white cabbages, silverbeet, rainbow chard, spinach, bok choy, tatsoi, snow peas, broccoli and kale. Some of the plants, including the broccoli and some of the chards, are from my own seed!

The following picture was taken in late March after I put the first plants in. I have been experimenting with both direct sowing and growing seedlings in large polystyrene boxes for later transplanting. I have to say that so far, I have had more success with transplanting seedlings. It is easier to plant them out as I don't have to try to space the seed (which I am not good at) and I don't have to worry about seeds all pooling in one spot after a heavy rainfall or birds digging in the seed bed. The plants get "intensive care" for the first few weeks of their life and do well in the polystyrene boxes where they are a bit sheltered and receive good and even moisture. Once I transplant them, I can space them the way I want them - and I realised that a bit more space (but not too much) actually does help the plants grow better.

These pictures were taken early last week. I am pleased to see how much everything has grown!

Leafy vegetables need a lot of nitrogen to grow well and I put a lot of effort into preparing the beds.I noticed that the soil was in many areas pretty much devoid of life, apart from the odd beetle grub which I collected in a bucket and fed to the chooks. I dug up the heavily compacted soil and added masses of chook manure and created slightly raised beds about 1 meter wide, enough for four rows of plants. In addition, I have been feeding the plants with a mix of blood and bone, seaweed and cow manure, and I can finally see some real results: not only are the plants doing well, but now I find earthworms, too!

This time I also added a soaking hose so that I can water the plants some of the time without actually having to stand there holding a hose. However, winter crops need the odd watering over the top, particularly in areas with limited rainfall, as this will help reduce the number of aphids that simply love cabbages of all kind (most annoying!)

I have also dug up the 80m2 summer bed and put in a cover crop of mustard and clover for winter. The mustard helps fight various pathogens that may build up in the soil, the clover makes an excellent mulch once it dies down in spring/early summer. There are various ways of using a cover crop once spring time comes - you can either let the clover die down and plant straight into it, using the clover as a mulch, or alternatively dig the cover crop in and then plant the new seedlings.

A third vegetable bed with another variety of winter crops is also in preparation. Unfortunately, I don't have enough chook manure left to give it the same productive boost as with the first one, but I am planning to try regular top dressing with a mix of manure and straw and see whether that will work as well.

Crash Course

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:21:00 +0000

I came upon Chris Martenson's "Crash Course" site a little while back and I found it rather useful in understanding what is going on in the financial world. In fact, I think this is a "must see" for anybody trying to get their head around what is happening around the world at the moment.

However, Martenson not only focuses on the economy but also brings the other two major issues of our time, energy (peak oil) and the environment (climate change, shrinking resources, loss of biodiversity) into the picture and shows how all three feed into a crisis beyond anything we have ever witnessed in modern times.

It is worth watching the whole series at http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse.

Droughts and food - are we heading for a food crunch?

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:48:00 +0000

The nexus between climate change, peak oil and food production has been one of my interests for a while. Is it really possible we could see a "food crunch" sooner rather than later? Part of me finds this hard to believe. The shops are full of beautiful produce, and while food prices have been going up, they are still quite moderate.

On the other hand, as those affected by the floods in Queensland can attest to, the plethora of produce in our supermarkets can be a bit of a mirage which will vanish very quickly if there is a disruption to supplies. In our "just in time" culture, few people have food reserves at home or know how to preserve food. Are we more vulnerable than we imagine?

Parts of Australia, which is a major food producer and net food exporter, have been in drought for a long time. Even in my carefully tended to garden I am experiencing a significant crop reduction due to the heat wave. However, food is a global commodity, and the whole idea of international markets is that if one part of the world experiences difficulties in production, another part will supply the shortfall. Prices may go up, and that would be catastrophic for the many poor people in the world who are already struggling to survive. But could there really be a "food crunch" similar to the current "credit crunch"?

This morning I came across this article on global food production on Market Oracle. The following two graphics (quoted from the above mentioned article) show how most of the world's main food producing areas are currently affected by drought. It should make us all stop and think.

According to Market Oracle, the credit crunch, low commodity prices, drought conditions and low food reserves now all point towards a dramatic fall in global food production for 2009. The author predicts that many countries will respond to a jump in food prices with currency appreciation:

"Appreciating a currency is the fastest way to control food inflation. A more valuable currency allows a nation to monopolize more global resources (ie: the overvalued dollar allows the US to consume 25% of the world's oil despite having only 4% of the world's population). If China were to selloff its US reserves, its enormous population would start sucking up the world's food supply like the US has been doing with oil. "

That sounds very serious to me. Obviously, there is not much any individual can do about grain output and major crop failures, but I think I will go back into my garden and try to grow more food. I hope you will, too.

Victorian bushfires

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:34:00 +0000

My heart goes out to the victims of Victoria's horrific fires.

So many lives lost, so many homes destroyed.

The Victorian bushfire appeal is one way of doing something to help.

Gardening at the coalface of climate disruption

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:57:00 +0000

The temperatures have been soaring over the last two weeks, lingering around the 38 to 40 degrees Celsius mark in our area, and going even higher in some other parts of the country. The heat wave in South-Eastern Australia has not speared my garden, either - and it is disheartening to see the damage a number of days of intense heat can do. The potato plants are pretty much gone. I have harvested a few kilos of potatoes, but I suspect the total harvest will hardly justify the cost of putting the tubers in and looking after them for months. I have strung shade-cloth over my two main vegetable beds - which is sort of keeping plants alive, but only just. The zucchini stay small and shrivel up, the tomatoes almost seem to get boiled on the plant, as do the cucumbers. The corn is turning brown and the cobs remain only partially developed. My passion fruit vine which I had planted on the Northern (sunny) side of the house to protect it from frost literally looks boiled - I don't think it made it through. (This is kind of ironic, given that its predecessor died in minus 8 degrees Celsius last winter).

Even the trees are struggling, losing leaves and being weakened in the heat and thus more vulnerable to insect attack. All my vegetables need twice daily watering just to stay alive. A challenge in times of water scarcity and water restrictions! Luckily we had some decent rains before Christmas so there is still a good amount of water left in my water tanks, making me less dependent on public water supplies and giving me the ability to water when the plants need it rather than only on even-numbered days. But the intense heat is sucking all moisture out of the ground, despite the application of thick mulch.

Of course, those who have lost lives or property in the terrifying bushfires currently raging across Victoria are so much worse off than me with my wilting corn and drooping silverbeet that I feel I should not complain. I still have a roof over my head and my family is safe, even if I will have to buy some of my food instead of eating my own produce. And hopefully we will soon have a change of weather and at least some of my plants will survive long enough to start producing again.

But it does beg the question - how will we manage if widespread climate disruption and heat waves such as the current one become more prevalent? Climate experts predict we may get these kind of heat waves every couple of years in the future, rather than once every few decades. And the current heat wave is breaking all past records, too.

Even if we turned around our economies immediately, stopped emitting CO2 emissions altogether and went totally green, we would not be able to avoid some level of climate change. We are already too far gone to stop it completely. Unfortunately, it does not look like we are going anywhere near fast enough in the right direction. Add to that a looming oil crisis, water shortages and the destruction of our soils through industrial agriculture, and we will be in for a very rough time indeed.

I worry that in all the angst surrounding the credit crunch, we may not pay enough attention to the real crunch that is coming our way - the real prospect of a global food crunch which will make the credit crunch look like a walk in the park.

Welcome President Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:57:00 +0000

Of course I have been glued to the television this morning, watching history in the making. Finally, a president who is well educated and understands the challenges we all face. It is also a relief to hear a president who knows how to use the English language after the painful bumbling and stumbling of George Bush. Part of me thinks it is a terrible shame that President Obama did not get elected before everything around us started to unravel - the economy in tatters, our environment close to breaking point, oil production close to or beyond its peak. Just imagine where we could be if we had not had Bush in the White House for the last eight years, undermining every attempt to make progress on the central issues of our times.

On the other hand, I am glad we have somebody like Obama in the office at times like this - when we really do need a person with a keen sense of responsibility, with intelligence to understand the challenges ahead, including the most pressing challenge of climate change, somebody with an ability to listen not just to the lobbyists but to the concerns of ordinary people as well. It will be difficult and he may not be able to deliver all we hope for, but I do think he is the best choice the American people could have made.

And of course I am delighted to see the election of a black president in the US. It seems like yesterday when I first noticed Obama, heard his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention and listened to Will-I-Am sing "Yes, we can" on YouTube. A friend kindly lent me Obama's two books, and I was hooked.

Now I am just wondering - when will we see our first Indigenous Prime Minister in Australia?

Summer garden

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:18:00 +0000

Late last year I visited another inspiring organic farm, Allsun Farm near Gundaroo in NSW. I was interested to see that this was already the second farm I had seen recently where vegetables were grown in long rows of raised narrow beds. I decided I might try this in my own vegetable garden this summer. So far I have been very happy with the result. The commercial growers don't mulch these raised beds, but I decided in my garden to add a thick layer of mulch, using certified organic sugar cane mulch around the plants and grass hay on the paths between the raised beds.

I prepared the beds by getting rid of all weeds (which I fed to the chickens), incor-porating as much organic matter as I had, including composted chook manure, homemade seaweed brew and cow manure brew. I then created raised rows and prepared the necessary "infrastructure" - bean poles, a fence with wide mesh for tomatoes etc.

My main vegetable bed has a rabbit proof fence around it. The fence was installed a few years ago when a rabbit plague made vegetable gardening a rather frustrating enterprise.

Once the seedlings appeared, I applied a thick layer of sugar can mulch around the seedlings and added a layer of hay on the "paths" between the raised beds. By the way, this year the rabbits are back in force and I was worried about my second (unfenced) vegetable bed, but there is very little damage so far.

That has left me wondering whether maybe rabbits don't like sugar cane mulch? Or maybe there still is enough green grass to eat for them so they don't bother with my vegetables? It would be nice if it was the sugar cane mulch, as the fence is a bit of a hassle and I would rather do without more fences.

This year I am growing tomatoes, corn, a range of climbing beans, zucchinis and various other summer squash, different kinds of pumpkins (including Queensland Blue, Turk's Turban, Pottimaron and Japanese pumpkin), a range of Asian greens, silver beet, amaranth, beet root, red cabbage, Chinese cabbage, capsicums, hot chili, carrots, snow peas, lettuce, Tuscan kale, many different kinds of herbs, broccoli (from my own seed), potatoes, and of course perennials such as asparagus, jerusalem artichokes, globe artichokes and yacon. I have probably forgotten a few things, too.

Everything had come up nicely and was growing well. And then we did, what so many Australians do - we went for a summer vacation and left the garden to its own devices. I was a bit worried about how my vegetables would fare while we were away! My dear neighbour very kindly fed the chooks and looked after our cat. She also watered once during the week we were away, and thanks to all the mulch, the garden survived well.

Luckily, though, summer had waited until after our return before really turning up the heat! At the onset of this week's heat wave (according to the weather report, we reached 36 degrees Celsius this week), I added some shade cloth over the more vulnerable plants such as lettuces and the green leafy vegetables. Even the most vulnerable lettuces survived the heat in the shade.

I am also having another go at growing melons. I have had no luck in previous years, as my melons remained tiny and pretty much inedible due to the limited growing season. However. This year I decided to plant them in tyres (seen here next to Turk's Turban pumpkins), hoping that this will give them some extra warmth and better protection and maybe also improve the amount of water available to the plants (by watering into the tyres I can avoid any run-off and ensure that the plants get all the water I give them). So far it is looking good, but of course I am still a long way from harvesting.

Home-made strawberry ice-cream

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:03:00 +0000

250 g strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg (as fresh as possible, I only use eggs that have been laid that day by my own hens)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250ml cream
enough milk or plain yoghurt to make up 1 liter in total

Put all ingredients into your food processor or blender and process until smooth.
Refrigerate for one hour.

If you have an ice-cream maker, pour the mixture into your ice-cream maker and process until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.

If you don't have an ice-cream maker, you need to freeze the mixture until it is semi-frozen (usually after a couple of hours), then take it out of the freezer and process it again in your blender before returning your ice-cream to the freezer. You may need to repeat this procedure one more time if the ice-cream becomes too hard.

Strawberries!

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:21:00 +0000

Last year, I planted three dozen bare-rooted strawberries. I tended to them carefully and was rewarded with a grand total of about 5 strawberries in my first year (plus a few uncounted ones that went straight into the kids' tummies). It didn't seem like the best deal at the time... However, I continued to look after them, I replanted the large number of runners, mulched heavily, applied cow manure and sea weed brew and whatever else I could get my hands on, and aren't we being rewarded this year!

A local strawberry farmer asks $10.00 per kilo for strawberries you pick yourself. Given that price, I have now more than recouped my initial expenditure, and the kids just love it! We have been eating fruit salads with strawberries, home-made strawberry ice-cream, strawberry pavlova and whatever else you can come up with. Being a bit of a squirrel, I usually put a small batch of each harvest into the freezer so that we can still enjoy strawberries even when the harvest is over.

Strawberries love plenty of mulch, consistent moisture and not too intense sun. The ones I planted on the sunny side of the house didn't do all that well. I also noticed that the birds mostly peck on the strawberries that are planted as single specimen, whereas the mass planting in my main strawberry bed is virtually unaffected by birds.

Is it worth growing strawberries? Absolutely. Not only do they taste much better when freshly picked, growing your own also means you know what's gone into growing them. Earlier this year, the consumer organisation CHOICE conducted a study of pesticide levels on strawberries and made a number of disturbing findings: 17 of the 27 samples of conventionally grown strawberries (bought at Coles, Woolworths and independent retailers across Australia) contained residues of at least two types of pesticide or fungicide. One sample contained a pesticide residue at a level that exceeded the maximum residue limit (MRL); others contained a pesticide that the regulations don’t allow Australian growers to use on strawberries, and some contained residues of four different kinds of pesticides.

According to CHOICE:

Strawberries are unfortunately more likely to be contaminated with pesticides than other fresh fruit, as growers use pesticides to protect their strawberries from insect pests and fungal diseases. Without pesticides, strawberries would be more expensive because yields would be lower and there would be greater losses from them going bad before they get to the shops. [...]

The last time independent test results were published in Australia (in 2003), strawberries stood out as the fruit with the highest levels of pesticide residues [...]. They've been flagged in the US as of 'high concern' for pesticide contamination. When last tested in the UK, 67% of strawberries contained pesticide residues. In France a recent survey found pesticide residues above the legal limit in 20% of strawberries.

Advent Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:44:00 +0000

Advent, the time before Christmas, seemed to arrive faster than expected this year! Every year, we follow the German tradition of having advent calendars to count down the days to Christmas. Most years I have been a bit lazy and ended up buying a traditional chocolate-filled calendar. However, I have noticed over recent years, that the number of calendars with a Christmas motive (Santa, Christmas trees and the like) were gradually replaced by commercial motives. This year, ALDI for example, only had a choice of "The Incredible Hulk" (image above from the official website), "Spiderman" and "Bob the Builder" calendars with zero reference to any Christmas anything.

I cannot for the life of me see any connection between "The Incredible Hulk" and whatever the spirit of Christmas might be. To me, Christmas is a time of reflection on the values of life, family and community. We stick with old-fashioned traditions in our family. Some modest presents for the children, a focus on spending time together creating things such as Christmas craft or decorating the tree, and preparing traditional festive food is all we need to enjoy Christmas. And our Advent calendar this year is home-made, too:

Make your own worm farm

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:37:00 +0000

Worm farms are great. The worms take care of your food scraps (although you need to go easy on acidic things like citrus peel and onions), they love coffee grinds and used tea leaves, and they make fascinating pets for the kids. A well-run worm farm does not smell and will even process your used paper, provided you rip it up and soak it in some water first.

I reckon that might be a good way to process letters with private information (eg from super funds or insurance companies etc) that could be used for identity fraud and therefore should not go into the recycling bin.

To top it all off, worms produce one of the best soil conditioners you can get. Of course you can buy one of the various commercial worm farm models (the one pictured above is available from Neco), but in the spirit of reusing things we already have we thought we might try to make one ourselves. The boys helped and we all had a great time making it.

This is how we did it:

You need:

2 styrofoam boxes of the same width and depth (one with a lid would be great, but we didn't have one either and came up with a different solution)
a couple of bricks (we only had one and will add another one when I find one...)
a piece of fly screen big enough to cover the bottom of one of the boxes
a carpet knife (or other sharp knife)
old paper, leaves etc
worms

Styrofoam boxes are often used to transport vegetables in. They are good because they are easy to work with (eg to cut to size or put holes in), and the worms won't eat them. (Worms love cardboard boxes to eat!). I am not sure where ours came from - they have been sitting in the shed for a while, waiting to be used for something.

One of the boxes will serve to catch the worm liquid. Put a brick in and cut the box at about 1cm above the brick(s). This is to stabilize the worm farm and will help to support the box on top. You can add a little tap at the bottom of this box but we didn't have one for now - maybe this is something I will add later.

Make little holes in the bottom of the second box so that water can flow through.

Put a sheet of fly screen over the holes which allows the water to run off but keeps the worms in the upper box.

Make paper strips from old newspaper (or rip up an old phone book as we did) and soak the paper in water. Squeeze out any excess water and put in the bottom of the box. We also added some dead leaves and straw from the garden.

Put the box with the holes and the paper/straw etc on top of the other box.

Add worms. Unfortunately, your standard Australian garden variety of worms will not do. Composting worms are a particular kind of worms and you can buy them in packs of a thousand or more. In Australia, many hardware stores stock worms. We got a good handful of worms from friends to get started, but you do need a critical mass to really get going. I will buy some more next time I am in town.

Cover the worms with a couple of sheets of wet newspaper and some moist hessian. Add a lid. Your worm farm is now ready.

We might think about a worm farm beautifying project next, given that the worm farm sits next to the kitchen entrance. But quite frankly, I don't think the shop-bought version looks all that much better than our home-made one.

Making sustainable living.... sustainable

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:36:00 +0000

When a dear friend of mine (single male, no kids) asked me quite innocently some weeks ago whether I was "doing any work these days?" I felt like I had been slapped in the face. I had been running on empty for a while, often feeling dizzy when working in the garden, forgetting what I meant to get when I went into another room, and with a general feeling of being rather overwhelmed. You see, I am a "stay-at home mom", so therefore - in the eyes of society - I am not working.

I felt this myself, despite the fact that I have three young children, one still in (cloth-)nappies, I am homeschooling my six-year old, I am in the process of planting a permaculture garden on our 3 acres block and grow almost all the vegetables we eat, I bake all our own bread, I cook from scratch every day, and I have no grandparents or other relatives around who might be able to look after the kids for a couple of hours so that I can get a break.

I was an academic in my former (pre-children) life, and the endless amounts of washing and cleaning, of wiping bottoms and feeding my insatiable boys (who seem to get hungry again as soon as they finish one meal!) simply don't seem to have the same kind of "work appeal" as typing away at the computer or lecturing a group of students.

Of course you can now say - well, that's your choice, so just stop whingeing and get on with it, or get a proper job! Believe me, I tried. For a while (when I had only two kids) I was teaching part-time at the university. Financially, this made no sense whatsoever - I ended up being worse off by the time I had factored in the cost of child-care, petrol and parking.

It also made no sense for my family. My younger boy absolutely HATED childcare - and actually, I did not particularly like the place, either, but I had no choice. The housework and the washing still had to be done even though I was spending less time at home. I was rushing out of the door in the morning and had to race back in time to pick the kids up. Every weekend was taken up with preparations and reading student assignments. The garden did not get done because I simply did not have the time. All that rushing around and driving all over the place also did not sit well with my ideas of a simple, environmentally sustainable life.

When baby number three arrived, I decided that I was not going to go back to work but stay at home full-time. Any parent who spends substantial amounts of time alone with their children knows that this is both hugely satisfying and extremely draining. Children, especially younger ones, need you all the time. They are always hungry, they want your attention, they don't have any concept of getting something done, and they truly challenge your own perception of yourself as a functioning adult. And when you mix with grown-up society, you have nothing to show for it, either - there is a limit to how much you can talk about mountains of washing; and the latest cute utterings of a 2-year old, while endearing to the parent, are not exactly of great interest to the "working" segment of society. Not that endless talk about cricket or office chit-chat is any more interesting, but it is certainly more acceptable.

I found myself subconsciously trying to make up for lost status. And of course I was yearning for intellectual stimulus, too, and I was happy to accept offers of "voluntary" (i.e. unpaid...) work such as writing for our local paper. What started off as an easy to do side-job quickly became a major occupation - research had to be done, the article had to be written in a certain style and have a certain length, there were deadlines to consider, in short: I was BUSY. But I also did not have the money to "outsource" any of the services I provide at home - the cleaning, the food production, the child-caring. And I was once again losing sight of my goal of a simple, sustainable life.

I felt tired all the time. I became more and more forgetful. I couldn't remember words or I would get them all mixed up. I felt like I was going mad. It was clear that something had to be done.

Just about around that time I heard our wonderful Governor General, Quentin Bryce, in an interview with Kerry O'Brien, talking about the futility of trying to be a "super woman". Here is an excerpt from that interview:

KERRY O'BRIEN: It's all there, get used to it.

You have had a stellar career, champion of women in a man's world, achieving real change, raising five kids, the embodiment of super woman in that sense in the '80s and '90s, as it was talked about then. But the reality of trying to be super woman can tear women apart, can't it?

QUENTIN BRYCE: It does, it absolutely exhausts them. For a very long time now I've been saying to young women, you can have it all, but not all at the same time. How important it is to take very good care of yourself, of your mental and physical and spiritual wellbeing, it's hard to do. It's easier to be a workaholic than to have a truly balanced life. It's very tough for a lot of women teetering on that tight rope of balance and balancing too many responsibilities.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You gave one insight as Governor when you spoke at a mental health conference in 2004 about your mid-20, when you had three children under four, you said, "I remember lying in my bed shrouded in fear asking myself how would I ever cope with my little baby, two toddlers, keeping my household running, my job, my marriage, my life, how easily I could have travelled down another road, I gained my first insight into mental health, how vulnerable we are, I had heard and read about breakdowns, suddenly I had a glimpse". Does it bring it back?

QUENTIN BRYCE: It does. It was a time in my life that taught me a very important lesson about the need for women in their families to put themselves on the top of the family agenda. That if a mother is well, a family is well. I became quite ill because I neglected my health and I ended up with quite serious pneumonia, and it's a lesson that I have passed on to many young women.

I decided it was time to stop and think. I learnt to say no. I resigned from my newspaper job. I stopped blogging for a while. I slowed down and re-focussed on what is actually important to me. I made time to read novels again, something I had always enjoyed but had not been able to do for several years because I had been too busy. I decided to re-label myself. I am not just a non-working stay-at home mom, I am a home-educator and permaculturalist. And I no longer think that being busy is a sign of a successful life.

A good life is a sustainable life. It goes beyond a greener lifestyle. It is also about balance and happiness and having time to enjoy the moment.

Is your town water killing your plants?

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:06:00 +0000

Last year I wanted to start growing various berries and I put in a selection of raspberries, loganberries and hybrid blackberries. Only the blackberries made it, and they didn't do too well, either, although they are still clinging on to life and are making a come-back. The raspberries died after a while without ever making any progress, even though they are supposed to be really hardy and do well in our climate. I thought I had done it all right - the right kind of preparation, well mulched soil, I had put in all the infrastructure, and quite frankly, I was very disappointed and couldn't quite work out what had gone wrong.

I think I now know the answer. Many berries like slightly acidic soil, which I had catered for. However, I had been watering them with town water.

What I did not know and only learnt today: our town water is not pH neutral but has a pH value of around 8.5. That makes it quite alkaline. Watering with alkaline water is bad for your soil and can severely affect your plants.

As the table above (quoted from Virtual Chembook, Elmhurst College) shows, a pH value of between eight and nine is equivalent to baking soda and sea water. Normal range of rain water is around five or six, stream water ranges from six to seven.

I killed my raspberries with town water!

I have planted new raspberries this week. Unfortunately, I have already watered them with town water once before I realised that his was not a good idea. Luckily we do have rainwater tanks, and after the winter rains, there is some water in them. As much as possible, there will be only tank water in the garden from now on!

The lesson from this - find out from your local Council (or a knowledgeable friend!) what pH your water supply is before you use it on the garden.

My father's garden

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:11:00 +0000

My father's garden is an example of what you can achieve with organic growing methods even if you have the worst possible soil. Situated on an ancient sand dune left over from a time in the ancient past when large parts of northern Europe were covered by sea, my family has been feeding the soil with whatever organic material was at hand - with great success.

The land has been in the family for many generations. My great-grandparents ran a large flock of hens at the beginning of the 20th century which significantly helped boost soil fertility. The land was then left without cultivation until my parents moved there over 35 years ago.

After clearing out a lot of rubbish (including an old car that somebody had buried) my father set out to create a beautiful productive wilderness. As part of that process he used to get large piles of horse manure and other organic matter delivered from people who more often than not were rather glad to get rid of it.

On a number of occasions and to the great embarrassment of my mother, these valuable deliveries co-incided with significant family events, so that extended family and friends were greated with steaming piles of manure on the front lawn!

Even to this day, many of my parents' neighbours offload their tree clippings, dead leaf matter and other wonderful soil food at my parents'.

Add to that mix a good deal of work and that most wonderful of all ingredients, copious rain, and you can not only feed yourself, but your whole neighbourhood as well. And there is no need for artificial fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides!

I am trying to re-create a little bit of that paradise here in my patch in NSW. I am still working on my soil - dealing not with sand, but with solid clay. Luckily, the recipe for success is the same - add plenty of organic matter and keep mulching!

Unfortunately, though, we only get a fraction of the rain my father's garden is blessed with. Working with less water is a challenge, and one that I will again tackle as we go into spring and summer this year.

Christiania bike

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:33:00 +0000

Trying to get around town with three little children in tow has sometimes been a bit of a challenge. I have been avoiding taking the car - quite apart from the environmental and financial cost of driving, getting three young kids into the car, strapping them all into their seats, then doing the same in reverse in front of the shop or the library is more time consuming than it is worth. So we ended up staying at home much more than I really wanted to.

We now have the solution - a Christiania bike! Technically speaking, this is not a bike but a trike, and it is fantastic. The box in the front can take up to 100kg of cargo. I have a little fold-up bench in it for the two younger boys. The seat comes with a seat belt and a three point harness for my youngest. My older boy sits on a cosy blanket in the front. The three shiny metal frames on the side can be plugged in to make a frame for a roof. I have made a rain cover from various materials I already had at home and we have been travelling around the village every day this week. It is so much fun!

We get to places quickly, the kids love it, there is enough space in the box to add some shopping or library books (today we got bare rooted grape vines which we later planted on the pergola!), and I got used to riding the bike quite quickly. It felt a bit different to a normal bike at the beginning, and I also realised I wasn't quite as fit as I thought I was :-) - but just a few days of riding the bike around is already having an impact both on my fitness level and my confidence.

This really is a wonderful way of getting around - and I hope that at least some of the people who stare at us when we zoom past might think this is a good idea and something to copy!

Funnily enough, just when we got back from our first outing, I heard on the radio that Australia Post is considering changing their delivery fleet from motorbikes to cargo bikes and trikes, so maybe we will soon be just one of many rather than a slightly odd curiosity.

The Christiania bike comes from Denmark. The other great cycling nation, Holland, also has a range of cargo bikes and trikes, known as "baksfiet". The sole Australian importer of Christiania bikes is psbikes.

I am particularly impressed with the quality of the bike - every bit is beautifully made to last. No cheap plastic bits that will fall off in a couple of months. Proper pedals made from metal. The steering works incredibly well, and it is not difficult to ride at all - despite the weight in the front!

Apparently, there are more than 20,000 such bikes in use in Copenhagen. I have read about trikes with longer boxes for child care centres and pre-schools which fit six or more kids. Christiania also offers bikes with a little ramp to put a wheelchair into the box. Then there are some with straight boxes with lids, useful for delivery businesses such as catering etc.

The psbikes website also has some great photos, worth having a look.

How safe are CFLs?

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:24:00 +0000

Any green-minded person will tell you that we should all replace old-style incandescent light bulbs with energy saving compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). In fact, I wrote about his only recently on this blog. But after a couple of rather disturbing incidences at my house I am now wondering - how safe are they?

The benefits of CFLs over old-style light bulbs are obvious. They are supposed to last much longer than traditional bulbs, and they use up to 80 per cent LESS energy while providing the same amount of light. Over the average life span of a CFL (6000 hours usage per globe) this will save 1.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions and about $176 in energy costs (assuming a price of 10.95c/kW - in fact, we pay more than that). It is no wonder that the previous Howard government decided to phase out incandescent light bulbs over the next number of years.

And you guessed right - all light bulbs in my house are CFLs. Unfortunately, I found that some of the cheaper generic CFLs seemed to dim rather quickly - they were still going after a while, but the light output diminished to a point where it simply felt rather gloomy in the house. Inquiries with some people "in the know" revealed that there are major quality differences between different brands and that the market is not as well regulated and controlled as it should be.

I then gradually replaced the cheap ones with brand name CFLS, such as "Osram" and "Philips". I also received a pack of "Mirabelle" brand CFLs through the NSW carbon reduction scheme.

However, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the typical acrid smell of an electric fire in the sitting room. I couldn't see any fire but the stench was getting stronger and it seemed to be particularly bad just under the light. I thought we must have some problem with the wiring. I turned the lights off, checked outside whether there was smoke coming out somewhere, even crawled up into the attic space - but I couldn't see anything unusual.

The following day I noticed that one of the light bulbs in the sitting room was "dead". When I tried to unscrew it, it cracked at the base, just where the glass goes into the plastic encasing - not good, given that CFLs contain nasty mercury. We quickly evacuated the kids, opened all the windows, I made sure the thing didn't break completely, carefully sealed it in a plastic bag and got rid of it.

Then last week I again noticed this awful smell, this time in the bedroom. I looked up and saw thick black smoke coming out of our ceiling light! By now I was convinced that there must be a major fault in our wiring and I was worried we may end up burning the house down by turning the light on.

So I disabled the power to the lights and got our very nice local electrician to come and have a look at the problem. He unscrewed the lamp, took everything apart - all fine, no problem whatsoever with the wiring. What we did find, however, was that two of the three CFLs in the lamp were partially blackened inside and there were signs that the plastic base had started to melt and burn.

The CFLs had self-destructed! Both were from the "Osram" selection of bulbs. The Philips and Mirabelle lights are still going but I am not holding my breath. Maybe I was just unlucky and this was simply a bad batch. Or maybe this is a major problem of quality control, given that all the CFLs, no matter what fancy brand, are made in the same country that last year produced toothpaste contaminated with highly toxic diethylene glycol and children's toys covered in lead paint.

I intend to write to Osram and let them know about their quality product. But I am also furious with our government for not implementing better quality control measures. This is outright dangerous.

Thankfully, we may not have to live with CFLs for much longer. LEDs (light emitting diodes) are even more energy efficient than CFLs, they last longer, shine brighter and, according to my electrician, they are only a couple of years away from becoming widely available as a standard lighting option.

Frost in my garden

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:29:00 +0000

It is the middle of winter, and we are experiencing some very cold nights.

I love getting up early and walking around the frost-covered garden to admire the tiny icicles that have formed on eucalypt and wattle leaves over night.

The vegetables get a decent chill, too, which improves the taste of some winter cabbages. Many people don't realise that you can actually grow vegetables all year round, even in the coldest parts of Australia. And we are talking of temperatures down to minus 8 degrees Celsius over night!

However, too much of a good thing can also be bad, and that also goes for frost. I have planted my winter vegetable garden in a spot that will quickly thaw once the sun comes up.

Cake in a bottle

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:45:00 +0000

When I first looked into the ins and outs of bottling fruit and vegetables, I came across the somewhat unusual concept of bottling cakes, which was described in a German canning book called "Weck's Einkochbuch." (Weck is Germany's oldest bottling company.)

I know this sounds bizarre, but it is possible! Obviously, this is not as essential as preserving surplus food from the garden. Nonetheless, I did give it a go just for the fun of it. It is actually kind of handy to open a jar of cake to serve to unexpected visitors, and it allows you to bake several cakes in one sitting and keep them fresh for up to six months without the need for a freezer.

However, you do need to make sure that the jars you are using are either perfectly straight or better still, conically shaped with the wider end at the top, otherwise you will be serving a jar of crumbs (in which case your visitors will think you are not just slightly unusual but downright mad).

I used straight Fowler's Vacola jars (as seen in the picture). However, as the quality of the glass used in Fowler's jars varies substantially, you need to check carefully for little knobs or uneven surfaces on the inside of the jars, otherwise it becomes close to impossible to get the cakes out. The instructions below assume you are using a system similar to Fowler's or Weck's, consisting of jars, rubber rings, lids and clips. If you are using a different system (eg Mason jars), adjust accordingly.

This is how to do it:

Choose a recipe you like (any mix using baking powder as rising agent should do).
Fill clean glas canning jars half-full with the cake mix, making sure that the bottle rim remains perfectly clean so you won't have crumbs stuck to it later on.

Bake your cakes at moderate heat (160-180 degree Celsius) in the oven for 60 minutes or according to your recipe. Check with a wooden skewer whether the cakes are done.
Remove cakes in jars from the oven. If a cake rose above the top level of its jar, cut the excess off with a sharp knife.

Put on the bottling ring and lid, attach the clips, put jars in a hotwater canner, fill with water up to 2/3 the height of the jars and process at 100 degrees Celsius. It is important that the temperature of the water you add to the canner is the same as the temperature of your jars, otherwise you risk breakage.

Processing time is 20 minutes if the jars were still quite hot when you put them in the canner. It is 30 minutes if you allowed the jars to cool down.

Households asked to slash energy consumption

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:04:00 +0000

This article was published in the Palerang and District Bulletin in July 2008. When I first looked into household energy consumption, I was struck by two things - the incredible increase in energy consumption overall, and the contribution of lighting and entertainment to our energy usage. Once I realised the running cost of halogen downlights (something I had not been aware of as I never had any), I noticed that most of the newer houses seem to have halogen lights as the default option. Clearly, we need to better educate architects and builders when it comes to household energy efficiency. The other major culprit in our household energy expansion are the new widescreen televisions that Australians are so keen on. Many of these new televisions use more energy than the average household fridge.

NSW households are under pressure. Petrol prices are going through the roof, food is getting ever more expensive, water restrictions are still in place, and now the NSW state government has unveiled a new $150 million plan to cut energy consumption growth to zero. This will affect both households and businesses, as everybody will have to make significant cuts to their energy use.

Based on a business as usual scenario, residential household energy use is projected to increase nationally by 56 percent between 1990 and 2020. The latest ABS data show that in 2006, the vast majority of energy in NSW came from non-renewable sources, with black coal providing 89 percent of the total NSW electricity generation. This compared with only 7 percent for renewable energy from wind, solar, hydro or biomass.

It is clear that if we are to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050, business as usual is not an option. We need to both reduce our overall energy use and change to a different energy mix by replacing coal with lower emission resources such as natural gas and renewable energy. While households only have limited influence over the structure of our energy supply, the good news is that it often does not take much to improve the energy efficiency of your household and reduce your energy use.

This can be a win-win-win situation – good for the environment, good for national energy security and good for your wallet. And if you use the savings you make to opt for 100 percent Green Power, you will also contribute to changing our economy to a lower carbon future.

The easiest way to achieve an energy efficient house is to incorporate all significant features right from the start, such as solar orientation, insulation in walls, ceilings and floors, thermal mass and double-glazed windows. The savings in running costs for energy efficient houses will very quickly pay back the initial outlay in extra spending, as an average of 39 percent of energy consumed in typical Australian homes is used for heating and air-conditioning.

Unfortunately, most existing buildings are nowhere near that ideal, and many homes leak energy at an alarming rate through lack of insulation, cracks in the walls or gaps around windows or doorframes. Insulation should be a number one priority for all homeowners, particularly in our climate.

Energy use for residential lighting almost doubled in Australia between 1985 and 2005, and one of the major culprits has been the popularity of halogen downlights.

Contrary to popular opinion, halogen downlights do not save energy. Most halogen globes are as inefficient as traditional incandescent light bulbs, and several halogen lights are needed in the place of one standard light bulb to achieve even lighting levels in a room. As a result, energy consumption increases significantly.

Replacing inefficient light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) or micro-CFLs (for halogen light fittings) is a simple solution. Turning lights off when leaving a room further reduces energy consumption.

Stand-by power is also a major contributor to household energy use and can account for as much as ten percent of your electricity bill. Many electrical appliances continue to use power even when they are turned off. In an average Australian home, items on standby power together generate over 750 kilograms of unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions each year. The easiest way to ensure you are not paying for phantom power is to turn appliances off at the wall when not in use.

The popularity of game consoles, set-top boxes and plasma televisions is another factor in the rapid increase in power consumption. The energy requirements of televisions, for example, have risen rapidly with the increase in screen size, and large screen televisions can use up to four times as much power as older style televisions.

Refrigeration, on the other hand, is one area that has seen a massive improvement in energy efficiency of 40 percent over the last decade, making it more environmentally friendly to replace an old fridge rather than getting it repaired. If you are buying a new fridge, make sure you retire the old one.

St Martin's Bread (Weckmänner)

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:37:00 +0000

You can tell it's winter in our part of the woods. It is cold outside and baking bread warms the kitchen and fills the house with a lovely scent.

These little bread men are called "Weckmänner" (sweet bread men). Traditionally, in my Rheinland home town of Cologne, they are eaten on St Martin's day, which is in November. However, June and July in South-Eastern Australia have a kind of November feel for me, and so we eat them now! They are, in fact, delicious any time of the year.

This recipe was developed by my mother, who is an excellent cook. It reflects very much the cultural mix of the modern Rheinland, as she developed it from a combination of a Turkish and a German recipe. The result is delectable.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

500g plain flour (plus extra flour for kneading)
7g yeast (or 2 teaspoons of dried yeast)
12g baking powder

approximately 250ml warm milk
1 cup of plain yoghurt
6 tablespoons of vegetable oil

70-80g of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt

Mix the flour, yeast and baking powder in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients to the bowl and mix to a batter-like dough. You need to continue beating it until the dough starts to develop bubbles at the edges.

Cover with a dish towel or a lid and leave to rise for at least 30 minutes in a warm spot. The dough needs to double in size.

Add a tablespoon of flour to improve consistency before tipping the dough onto a floured benchtop or table. Knead the dough (and add flour as necessary) until the dough is no longer sticky.

Divide into nine or ten segments, then form little men. It is a Cologne tradition that one of their arms is folded over - don't ask me why or what it means! Add raisins for buttons and eyes. In Cologne bakeries, you can also buy Weckmänner holding little clay pipes - to our great excitement when we were children. (I wonder whether today's children would find this exciting?)

Lay the little men onto a baking tray and let rise again.

Mix some egg yolk with a tablespoon of yoghurt and apply with a brush to give a nice warm colour.

Bake for 12-15 minutes at 210 degrees Celsius.

Creating a no-dig garden bed

noreply@blogger.com (Chervil) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:13:00 +0000

It's almost child's play...

The idea is to smother the weeds and grass under the newspaper, and to keep the newspaper moist under the mulch to encourage earth worms.

Lay newspaper.

Lay out watering pipes (in this case, some of the pipes had to go under a footpath). You want the pipes on top of the newspaper and under the mulch.

Water well.

Top with mulch and compost.

Ready to be planted!