Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Sustainable September Day 5


Yesterday was all about reducing your waste and choosing reusable packaging. 

My favourite jar is the round one with the silver lid. It used to be a coconut oil jar. 


And I thought it was interesting when I went back today to look at the pureed fruit “baby food”. It’s actually much cheaper (even for the same brand) to buy reusable glass containers. This was the case at the local UK Co-Op (equivalent to Australias IGA).  

I had the apple and pear “pudding” which is literally puréed apple and pear. And you actually get less “pudding” or puréed fruit in a squishy single use wrapper than you do in the glass jar. It actually costs more for “convenience” here. 

Anyways, I thought you might enjoy that little follow up. Sometimes is pays to be more eco friendly! :) 

It has been an amazing few days for me! Day Two of my new job had me back in the office for some unusual office work. I am pleased to say I was complimented on my work in the office yesterday as I was labelling skeletons ready to go to a local museum.
How cool is that? Thankfully in my studies I have handled human remains before so I wasn't as intimidated as I could have been. It was an amazing experience to hold the remains of a human who died thousands of years ago! It just blows my mind to think of what they were doing and how they lived back then.

This Sustainable September we are focusing on the savings you get when you choose a more environmenally friendly outlook. Todays idea is something I really put into practice at my house in Wales.

Day 5 - Put your food scraps to work.

This has been my favourite thing so far! When I moved into my house in Wales, I Started grabbing my vegetable scraps to use again.

I cook a lot with carrots, cabbage, celery, spring onions and leek (which seems particularly appropriate for when i was living in Wales). 

Oh and avocados. I LOVE avocados and I have been buying them on discount (before they get into landfill) from the big Tesco shops because the avocados there are usually ripe immediately.

The cool thing is that some veggie scraps can be used to grow more of the same. I have been so impressed with the way that my little garden is growing that I have actually photographed almost the entire journey.

I even started harvesting my spring onions and leek because they are so quick to grow.

Here is how I started it all... on my kitchen window sill with a little plastic container, a couple of pieces of paper towel and about 2cm of water in the bottom. 


It doesn’t look too pretty but I managed to get most of this stuff to grow. Except the avacado seeds. I don’t yet have the patience for them. 


This as how I started my garden using the tubs from mushroom containers, dirt from the garden and food scraps. I only had a tiny shovel too. Which was hilarious for this pint sized archaeologist! Lol. I started out with two tubs of food scraps. 


Then that grew to 5 tubs. 


Then I decided on the place to start my garden. But it was a hot day so it took me and hour and a half to turn the soil (only half of what I originally wanted to do) because the ground was like clay. 


I mixed in one bag of compost to half of the garden. 


I added in my food scraps then... lots of spring onions. 


Three rows a spring onions, one of leeks, and two rows of carrots. 


This photo I took the day that I left my house in Wales. It all looked so good. 


I even added in a celery that seems to love the cooler climate (I never had much luck with these in Australia). 


And my house mates dad gave me some Red Emperor beans to use and I threw one bean into some water to see if it would take... and it did. Completely surprising me! So the bean is growing too! Winning! 

The avocados however take longer. A LOT longer. I need more practice with this type of patience. Thankfully my boyfriend, G, is the King of Avocado growing here (well he is to me anyways).


The pots to the left and one to thee right are avacado plants at Gs Houss. 

I’ve learned a lot from him and his successes with Avacados. The key here is that the avocados need to be in a warm & sunny but also reasonable sheltered position.

What does this have to do with saving money? I had hoped that would be obvious now but maybe not. Every bit of veggie scrap that you can regrow that was destined for the bin (compost or otherwise), saves you in produce you do not have to buy. I would buy spring onions regularly perhaps once a week at about £1.50 per bunch. Not having to buy them saves me not only the £1.50 a week but also the money it would take to get them from the shop. All it cost to set up my little garden was about £2 for a 20Lt bags of compost. So I had made my money back after the second week of harvesting. the even better thing is, if you cut if off in the garden, it will regrow again! It's a never ending supply!

Kindness is possible too with this one. The sweet thing is, that G is planning to use his Avacado trees as a kindness. He's promised me an avacado tree when I finally move into a house of my own. My old house mate, Beth, has said shes going to share the bounty of my little garden too, which makes me happy. So this also has the potential to be lovely opportunities for kindness.

Goodluck with your own scraps.

I hope this finds you all well.

love Daena

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