Hi, Bruce here. We're trying a new approach to blogging, because maintaining a weekly schedule of ‘big’ issues was proving difficult. Instead, we’re just going to talk about the day-by day-things we do to reduce our impact on the planet. It’ll be a mix of big and little issues, all of which, we hope, will eventually help us to meet our goal of being carbon neutral ― or even carbon positive!
There are hundreds of ways to reduce your carbon footprint and one of the best is to grow your own fruit and veggies. Growing your own food – organically of course –reduces greenhouse emissions associated with commercial growing, packing and transporting of produce.
This week was cherry harvest time – the first picking of the year – and what a harvest it was! We have two 15-year-old cherry trees, pruned to keep them small enough to be netted – otherwise the crimson rosellas would have a feast and we wouldn’t!
Five weeks ago, one of my sons helped me net trees when the fruit were just little green blobs. Last weekend, and again today, we reaped the benefits of looking after the trees for all those years, and picked over 40 kg of large, red, ripe, delicious cherries.
So what does one do with a personal cherry mountain? Fortunately, three of our neighbours have wineries – we live in a rural area near Canberra – and I traded several kilos in exchange for bottles of wine. So, our wine cellar expanded greatly, and of course, the wine had very low wine miles!
Freezing and bottling accounted for several more kilos, and the rest will be given to friends or enjoyed at home.
So, why not plant a fruit tree, or better still, several trees in your backyard – we’ve had a great time with the cherries, and there are still the apples, peaches, nectarines, etc to come. Looks as if we’re going to have a very fruity summer.
Comments