How green is my household?

Interesting gifts

Hi, Hilary here, with a run down on what we received and gave for Xmas this year. Bruce had asked for a new bike (ie new to him - his present one is at least 25 years old). I found one for a very reasonable price on allclassifieds, a Canberra-based site that is great for finding stuff that it's not practical to buy on eBay. Becky (my 16-year old daughter) very thoughtfully bought Bruce a pack of brightly coloured potato plates; we ate our Christmas dinner off them, and then saved on the washing up by putting them straight into the worm farm (thus giving the worms an Xmas treat).

Becky received lots of second-hand books and some recycled jeans (as well as some less environmentally friendly gifts, such as Swiss chocolates and enormous leather boots). However, the 'greenest' present was my gift from Bruce, which came in the form of piles of sand, clayey soil, bricks and bits of wood, beautifully gift wrapped in a huge blue tarpaulin.  Luckily I'd asked for all this stuff, so I was delighted.

Our biggest use of power is for cooking, and I've experimented over recent years with various options, including a hay box (not at all successful) and a solar cooker (great, but requires at least 5 hours of solid sunshine, and is only really useful in summer). So, inspired by the Earth Garden publication Back Yard Oven, I decided to try to build a cob oven. My parents gave me the latest edition of Build Your Own Earth Oven for my birthday back in May, but I had yet to get round to putting it into practice. Bruce's present to me was the 'ingredients' needed to get started with building the oven.

The book recommends starting with a couple of practice ovens, the first only big enough for a couple of muffins. It wasn't a success, but I learnt a lot and now feel ready to go on to oven number two. Here is an illustrated account of the building of the mini-oven (click on each image to see a larger photo):

The mound of sand (rather too high - it was meant to be 'hemispherical')

The sand covered with a layer of wet newspaper

The final product - I covered the newspaper with a thick layer of dough made from clay and sand, let that dry a bit (because I'd made it too wet), cut out a door (but made it much too small) and cleared out all the sand.

The oven alight, but smoking chokingly rather than burning merrily as it should. The problem was the door being too small, but as the mud and sand mixture had set like rock by the time I realised the error, I couldn't enlarge the door without breaking up the whole thing. I'll know better next time.

The big picture - but don't forget the little one

Hi, Bruce here. Hilary and I followed the Bali climate change conference closely and were relieved when agreement on action for the next two years was finally reached. Binding targets to reduce greenhouse emissions are essential if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. The Garnaut report, due in six months, will hopefully recommend targets similar to those outlined in Bali. Kevin Rudd’s response will be interesting.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, it’s the little things that count.

Mulch

We do heaps of mulching, both in the orchard and the veggie gardens, and buy bales of pea straw to add to our food scraps and lawn clippings. My spring grass slashing around the house has left thick piles of grass turning to hay in the paddock that we could use as mulch. We don’t have a hay baler, but we do have hand rakes, so last weekend a friend helped us rake up five trailer loads ― and there’s still plenty left to rake. By producing our own mulch, we can avoid the emissions associated with the harvesting and transporting of pea straw bales.

Chooks

One of the nice things about spring is that the hens go broody and raise new layers and roosters for the pot. After five successful hatchings last year, this year has been a disaster with not a single egg hatching from the first two broody hens. We were inclined to think the roosters had run out of puff. The third hen fared better, producing four chicks, and another two hens are now in the ‘maternity ward’, so we hope to get lots of New Year chicks.

Firewood

We use wood from our pine plantations to heat the house. It’s a sustainable system, and is the most energy efficient way to heat a house. However, it requires some forward planning and tree felling, because the wood has to cure for at least two years to burn efficiently. We used two stoves last year and burnt more wood than I had planned, so I have been splitting large logs this week, and hope they will be right for next winter.

There’s always plenty to do on the farm, especially when you’re trying to be C neutral.

A cheery cherry harvest

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.