Kitchen Garden Forum

If you thought the peat question was important, here's the really big one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13376416

http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/Publi ... fault.aspx

Yes, I agree it's a very serious problem and unfortunately there's little we can do to control the way the developing world uses up natural resources or impacts on the environment.

But I think we could do a lot more to clean up our own backyard here in the UK. For instance many of us see daily examples in our towns and cities of electricity being wasted with shops and offices being left lit up at night when unoccupied, street lights left on between midnight and 5 a.m. when roads are empty, etc. If the government introduced some kind of fuel rationing it would udoubtedly be highly unpopular but it would be a wake-up call to many people to consider their fuel use. They certainly had to during the last war, and even during the infamous Three Day Week.

However, with the way fuel prices are forecast to rise over the coming winter I suspect we'll probably all suffer a natural form of fuel rationing anyway i.e. by price.

As for food consumption, I wonder how much this country would reduce its food imports by if everybody who had land or a garden was encouraged to "grow their own". Again, as during the last war, it was introduced as a necessity but I understand it did go a considerable way to helping to feed the nation. If we're honest, ample supplies of food are far too readily available to us in the UK, and if overseas imports became a scarcer commodity, more people might try to grow a little more of their own. Of course we'd never be able to grow the tropical fruits like oranges, lemons, bananas, etc but I don't see why we import so many carrots, onions, tomatoes, etc. when we ought to have the capacity/capability to grow more of our own.

Hi Primrose, I agree. We went to great dixter gardens last Tuesday and they had what looked like banana plants still wrapped in bubble wrap from the winter, they definitely looked like banana leaves, the gardens are walled and multi level, quite sheltered. They also had a huge fig very well trained against a barn wall, it was huge

Hi Alan, as Primrose says there is a lot we can do to reduce our own consumption, by growing our own, by recycling, by being satisfied wih less,
renovating instead of chucking and buying new. It makes sense, I recently bought a nest of three tables at a boot sale, solid wood with glass tops in very good nick. I paid a fraction of the price of a cheap composite table I had seen earlier in Focus and rejected because it looked cheap and nasty.
Some folk throw out perfectly good furnishings and linen because it doesn't fit with the new look/decor... now that is consumerism.
The government should crack down on built in obsolescence and poor quality
and do their bit... stuff often doesn't last the guarantee ... appliances used to last years.

Do you think that "consumerism" is something that decreases with age and that the older part of the population are far less orientated to needing to have "the latest fashion"? Probably as a generation, we take rather less from the enviroment that younger people do, (although we probably make more demands on the NHS!)

I've never felt myself to be particularly materialistic but have noticed as I've grown older I've developed a distinct disinclination or need to update my domestic belongings, except when they genuinely break down or wear out. I'm conscious that every new consumer item bought has its own environmental impact. My mobile phone for example is over ten years old and probably makes me a laughing stock amongst the young fashionistas, but as I only use it for emergencies, it serves its purpose. Also, I'm perfectly happy to recycle and buy stuff I need from charity shops or car boot sales.

It would be an interesting experiment to have a one year moratorium on being able to buy new consumer goods unless you could produce a broken down predecessor, but of course then the global maufacturig economy would completely collapse, there would be mass unemployment and the stock market where all our pension funds are invested would also collapse so we'd all disintegrate into poverty as we watched our pension funds go bankrupt. One of the problems is that we are now a global village and all nations are inter-dependent.

But that's no reason why our own country shouln't take whatever steps it can to put its own house in order in terms of trying to become as self sufficient as possible..

Freecycle or Freegle

Another one here, does free services too, as well as lending equipment, a good one to use if you can get a whole road or area together

http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/home