On our suburban block we never just use something once and throw it away. Soft drink bottles become mini greenhouses, fly traps or drip waterers for our veges. An old clothes horse that I found is being used as a structure for bird netting for my strawberry patch. Food scraps become food for chickens, worms or the compost bin. Every plant I buy I know that I can use it for a multitude of things. Just look at my previous post on lemons. Thats the point of sustainability, permaculture and not wasting anything. We have learnt to throw away so much that it is no longer precious. We forget the man hours involved in it’s production, the environmental impact when it is put into landfill and the total and utter waste of resources. We think that if we buy cheap oranges from overseas we are saving money. But what of the enormous environmental and social cost. We forget the fuel needed to transport these items to our shops. We forget that in our desire to pay less and less we have put another local orchardist out of business. We forget about additives and growth hormones and pesticides that have gone into the production of this orange.
In our desire to buy cheap chicken and eggs we force farmers to look for more intensive and thus profitable methods. Battery farms are rife and yet we do not really protest because we love our cheap eggs. Even though our cheap cage eggs are filled with hormones and our chickens sometimes smell of the fish meal they have been fed. But if you actually look at a chicken foraging for a few hours you will never buy a cage egg again.
I heard recently of an orchard that has been around these parts for a hundred years or more. They used to sell their fruit to stores like Safeway and Coles. However, now these stores expect that they will use growth hormones on their fruit. The orchard refused, saying that they had evidence that the hormones made workers in the fruit industry sick. This orchard now sells through farmers markets and trash and treasure markets.
We have been buying locally for years. We have an excellent fruit shop, a fish shop that stocks only locally caught produce and a butcher who does the same. When we started, there was no political agenda or no real desire to live sustainably. It was cheaper to buy things that had been produced locally and in season because it was cheaper to produce these things. And recycling is something you learn when you don’t have alot of the folding greens.
We also grow alot of what we require. We also fish and forage. We buy seasonal fruit and grow many varieties of the more “exotic” berries, among other fruits. Its coming up to raspberry picking time in the backyard and we won’t have to pay $7 for a tiny punnet of the things. We will be eating them every day. And we will know that our fruit isn’t tainted and only cost us a bit of work and some chook and worm poo. I agree with Jackie French (an author of some fantastic books on sustainable living). She said that she knows that what she plants now will be able to feed people in one hundred years.
We not only feed ourselves from our harvest but locally we provide more food to those who need it. And the more I read and learn from fellow bloggers the less I mind being someone who doesn’t have a “normal” suburban back yard. Leading a sustainable life is one of the best things we ever did. And being involved in blogging has made me realize that I’m not a complete and utter loony (and anyone is welcome to chorus “Yes, you are!!!!!!!!”
Just before Christmas I lost my husband – time does heal but it is a slow process and I miss him every day. However, I know that life must go on and the world does not stop turning (although I sometimes want it to). In the three months it has taken me to learn this the garden has gone to the pack so I am going to be busy with that for awhile. But thanks to my family and friends who have been such a help during this time. I love and cherish you all and Davie would have t
