Archive for The Garden And Yard
British Gas sponsor the race for an eco-village
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s always interesting to see what corporate sponsorship can do to change the landscape of a community and make it more eco-conscious. The front end investment can be sizable but the long-term benefits can go along way towards demonstrating how a community can become greener and save energy. British Gas is sponsoring a program called ‘British Gas Green Streets Challenge’ and aiding 14 different communities in the UK with investments of £140,000 (about $200,000) to install new energy-saving technologies. The community that is most successful will receive an additional £100,000 next year from the company to invest in an environmental project.
The small village of Casterton sits quietly in the hills of the Lake District in the northwest of England, in an area renowned for its scenic beauty the little hamlet of about 500 residents hopes to win the award and celebrate being one of the greenest communities in the country. The stewardship of the investment has been left in the hands of the locals and so far the village has diversified its efforts. Three homes in the village now have solar PV panels on the roof, half a dozen have energy-efficient brand-new boilers would save about 40 percent per year while two homes will be installing biomass stoves. On a broader scale the villagers shared new insulation, radiator panels which improve central heating systems efficiency and of course this part of the world runs on cups of tea – a small army of eco-kettles has also been called into action. I wish they would do this in my neighbourhood!
Casterton in Cumbria
The local school has also installed solar panels upon its roof. This will generate about $4,000 per year for the school as part of a special tariff system in the UK which reimburses the owners for the generation of excess electricity. In turn the school will donate half of the earnings back to the village who have opened a community energy fund to distribute money earned two other new projects.
Village co-ordinator Ian Ashworth stated the project is being warmly embraced:
“Many of the houses in Casterton are solid-walled cottages, which are notoriously hard to insulate.As part of the challenge we’ve shown residents that there are lots of simple things you can do to make your home more energy efficient, like putting in reflective radiator panels. We’ve also installed a number of solar panels and are really excited about the impact the money generated from these will have on our village for years to come.”
The final decisions are made next year but you can find out about Casterton and all of the other entrants via the official website for the project at www.GreenStreets.co.uk
My Organic Garden: The Life and Times of an Arbour
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Greetings fellow organic garden enthusiasts. Well this has been both the best of times and the worst of times for my arbour project – actually for the season on the whole but that’s for a future blog. For those that have not been reading my organic garden reports, here’s a Reader’s Digest recap. The garden center where I purchased my plants mislabeled the seedlings so I accidentally bought Sicilian zucchini planets instead of the everyday garden variety zucchini. Not a good mistake if you’ve never grown them before as I’ve learned (and written about). I am sure that the Sicilian zucchini’s are incredible fare but you need some sort of degree to grow them as they started to take over my garden in almost a maniacal fashion. After trying the suggestions from my research (that included a call to Martha Stewart’s radio show) I decided to build an arbour for it to grow in/on. That pretty much catches us up to where we are now and, I am sad to report, that my arbour has been in trouble.
The bamboo I decided to reuse from the teepee experiment slowly fell off the arbour one by one. I was trying my best to make this a zero waste project but I’ve had to store them for use in a future project. I had to use more scrap wood along the top but luckily the very handy person who helped me construct the arbour had plenty on hand. I have no idea why or how scrap wood becomes so plentiful but I’ve learned it certainly comes in handy – waste not, want not. Unfortunately (the worse of times), I lost a few of the tentacles of the Sicilian zucchini plant. They had created a basket like weave through the slats of my fence and sadly the trauma of being moved killed them. Luckily (the best of times), the move did not kill all of the plants as I first thought as some tentacles thrived and continued to grow up the sides of the arbour.
My Organic Garden – It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times
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Swiss Chard
Greetings fellow organic gardening enthusiasts! I’m taking a break from the arbor/Sicilian zucchini drama this week to discuss other garden news like the uprising of the brussel sprouts. I didn’t think it was possible but they have somehow gotten even larger and leafier since I last mentioned it. The brussel sprouts have completely taken over the poor unsuspecting basil and I fear that we will need to mediate the upcoming turf wars. On the bright side, I have red tomatoes! Yes, slowly (and I do mean at a snail’s pace), the tomatoes are turning red. With the amount of sun and extremely hot weather we have had this summer in Southern Ontario it confounds me. I have no idea why they are taking so long – over the course of a week they barely turn from dark green to a slightly lighter dark green. At this rate my tomatoes should be red in or around November.
Also, I have planted the largest cherry tomatoes on record. I thought I was growing little cherry tomatoes as I do every year, but the labeling skills at the nursery left much to be desired and my cherry tomatoes are the size of plums. That’s right, plums. They are very sweet though and are the perfect topping to a pizza with a little tomato sauce, fresh basil (from the garden) and a smattering of mozzarella cheese so I’m not complaining. There is nothing like picking something out of your garden and then eating it right away. Unfortunately that’s not happening as much as I would like this season but I digress.
I was given an heirloom tomato plant, and was excited to see what became of it as the seeds were apparently very old. This plant has grown to an impressive four and half feet tall and it is leafy, full and I prune it lovingly. Do you know that all this tender love and care has yielded me? One tomato! That right, one tomato is all it has grown. Now that I have picked that one tomato, it has grown two flowers so there is still hope. Maybe it’ll decide to give me another tomato before frost comes.
