Turtles-Paradise

One of the things that often bothers me about ‘Eco-Living’ is the saturation of the market with products labelled as green, eco-friendly etc. and that as a result come at a premium price. It seems like a triumph of marketing more than anything else.

It also has the problem of penalising people on low incomes, who frequently cannot afford organic-cotton fairly-traded independent designer premium cardigans. Whilst I do believe that we need to put our money where our principles are, it should be recognised that a great many people struggle to make ends meet and often cannot even afford enough to eat. This is true both in the developed world, and in the developing world. The different access to resources between a large corporation and a small independent business needs to be recognised. The difference between someone on a professional income raised with a good understanding of ‘how money works’ and someone on a part-time minimum wage job who generally runs out of money before they run out of month also needs to be recognised.

‘Eco-friendly’ products frequently act as a way of assuaging guilt. They are a way of us continuing a pattern of consumption and convenience but paying a little more in order to feel like we’re still doing the right thing. Buying new clothes every season is not sustainable, regardless of how organic the cotton is.
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This weekend is the spring bank holiday weekend – a three day weekend (at least for those who don’t work in retail, call-centres, waste collection services, pubs, restaurants, and whatever other businesses have had to shift to a 24/7 working culture) that I take as an inspiration to celebrate the beauty of late spring.

Over the last week I have added six tomato plants to my garden, courtesy of a work friend who grew too many. I have also lost my two out of three of my thyme plants that had just progressed outside and then got battered by a surprise rainstorm.

On bin collection day I had no landfill rubbish to put – a testament to the compost bins more than anything.

The Great Decluttering Project goes slowly but steadily onwards. I have almost finished all my CD’s – a long task as some were full of old backed-up work and art that had to be transferred onto my hard-drive. I have discovered a company that you can ship old CD’s and DVD’s to and who will recycle them for you. SImply send the CD’s, by themselves, to

Polymer Recycling Ltd
Peninsula Business Park
Reeds Lane
Moreton
Wirral
CH46 1DW

Now, however, I am off to Wales. One of my favourite places to go, a quiet little town near Cardiff. I am going to spend time with a good friend, and just relax for a couple of days and enjoy being alive.

My kettle has broken. My guess is that the heating element has burned out, and it being the dirt-cheap value-brand kettle purchased for less than a fiver, it’s not worth trying to get it fixed.

In considering replacement options, I considered getting another dirt-cheap one (easy on my pocket), or doing some research and getting a good kettle that would last. On the one hand, I wanted to be able to get rid of it easily in the event of our eventual move – I didn’t want to sink a bunch of money into something that would only be used for a year or so. On the other hand, cheap disposable appliances use energy and materials in their creation and transport, and they frequently (not always) break down faster.

Then I realised there was a third option I hadn’t considered.

Not replacing it at all.

Here was a golden opportunity for clearing some counter-space, reducing the number of items in my kitchen, and solving both my ‘not spending a lot of money’ and ‘not buying cheap appliances’ problems in one swoop.

I don’t need a kettle. I have two other methods for boiling water – slowly, on the stove-top. And quickly, in the microwave. Do I really need a single-purpose item that does the same job?

The main thing I used the kettle for was making a cup of tea in the mornings. This morning I made it in the microwave. Easy!

The next time something of yours breaks down, ask yourself: do I really need to replace it? What else do I own that can do this job for me?

There are several ‘zones’ outlined in permaculture, which go from the house right out to the wilderness. The purpose of each zone is different, and our level of impact on it is also different. I want to talk a bit about each zone and how we can simplify the way we work and live within it, and discuss simple ways of bringing each zone in alignment with permaculture principles.

Zone 1

Zone 1 are the outside areas that we spend most of our time in. It is not, necessarily, the areas closest to our house. This zone contains our most frequently visited plants, that usually include herbs for cooking and any kind of instant cut-and-eat type leafy vegetable. It will also contain seedlings and plants that need a lot of attention in the form of watering etc.

You want these plants close to where they will be used. Herbs should be on the kitchen windows, or just outside the kitchen door. Seedlings should be on a path travelled every day – maybe the front walkway to your car when you go to work, or maybe the path to the chicken hutch for when you go to feed them. The idea is to minimise the effort needed to utilise them. You aren’t going to walk to your allotment three blocks down to snip a few sprigs of rosemary!

We can simplify this zone in the following ways:

• Grow a limited number of herbs and seedlings. Grow only the herbs that you actually use for your cooking – Ferm has written a great guide on ‘Herbs to Grow for Ethnic Cuisines‘ As always, don’t just grab the cheapest mixed herbs container from your supermarket – instead, really think about what you need and use.
• Use labels for plants so you remember what they are! I also like to write down some very basic info about the plant, e.g. ‘water often, full sun’ or something similar.
• Pick plants that are hardy and flourish with the minimum of attention. This will vary depending on where you live, but plants like basil, thyme, coriander, and rosemary are good choices.

Everyone can grow plants in Zone 1.

There are many people who don’t have gardens, or balconies, or patios. You might not have space for a full-blown vegetable garden, but most people can find the room for a window box with cut-n-grow again salad leaves, or a few pots of herbs.

Growing your own herbs and salad leaves can:

• Lessen our dependence on big-chain supermarkets that import food from countries thousands of miles away.
• Decrease the number of ‘food miles’ we contribute to, and accordingly lessen our contribution to pollution and the draining of our oil reserves.
• Increase the amount of nutrients we get from our food by giving us extremely fresh produce.
• Give you control over the growing conditions of your food; lessens your exposure to chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and other nasties.
• Connects you with your food, and with nature.
• Provides a feeling of independence and self-sufficiency

Even just one pot of parsley makes a difference.

We’ll be back to the permaculture zones very soon, but I just wanted to say congratulations to my other half, who successfully landed two part-time jobs in the past couple of weeks. In ‘Let’s talk about Money‘ I told you we just about broke even. We’ll be in a much better place now. The important thing for us to remember:

• Not loosening up on the frugality side of things. It’s easy to not spend money when you don’t have money! But a lot harder to resist that urge when you do have that extra income. Both of us have the same goals of financial freedom in the long run, and neither of us want to achieve that by working stressful, high-powered careers. The only way to make it work will be to cut our living expenses to the bone.
• Sitting down after my other half goes through the next stage of his visa applications and discussing the next stage. For the past two and a half years the visa application and being secure in living together has been our top priority. I got an apartment, because it looked better for the visa application. We both delayed other life goals in order to make this happen. It cost us well over £2000 in fees and incidental expenses, and who knows how much we spent on plane tickets!

With less than two months to go before he is (hopefully) allowed to remain indefinitely with more-or-less the same rights and opportunities as a British Citizen we will now need to solidify what we want to do next in our joint lives. Of course, we know more-or-less, but we need to write down the exact figures and plans to make it happen.

Okay, enough about us! We’ll be back to permaculture in the next post.