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Gardening sustainably
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Message 1.Â
Posted by TomBradbury (U3349234) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
Gardeners are a pretty resourceful lot, often recycling or reusing all manner of things that have a(nother) useful life in the garden. However, I often wonder how much of an environmental impact gardening has these days. Just walk around any DIY store or garden centre at the weekend and the place is filled with people who have all driven there, filling their vehicles with all manner of chemicals, and bags of compost (which seems to still be predominantly peat based), a paraphernalia of garden kitche, plants transported in from four corners of the earth, in plastic or polystyrene pots that the council won't take because they are the wrong plastic or cannot be recycled. Then there are all the people wanting to get the look by landscaping, using both renewable (railyway sleepers) and unrenewable resources (York stone paving, gravel, cement) and which uses tons of energy to produce. The list goes on and on. Is gardening really that sustainable?
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Message 2
This posting has been hidden during moderation because it broke the in some way.
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Message 3
Posted by Palaisglide (U3102587) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
Tim thank goodness we are all different, as an old gardener brought up at a time the garden was a major part of the household economics I have a far different view to the young couples who are moving in around me.
They go from latest fashion to just keep it tidy as a childrens play area, in other words all our needs differ.
Is it sustainable? what does that word mean, do a few bags of compost with peat or a dozen square blocks of concrete make a big impact when India is building four miles of motor way per day over good agricultural land and telling us they will put one million cars on the road this year.
China after the problems with Japans nuclear plants tells us it will be building a lot more coal fired power stations, I do not think our puny efforts will make much matter but it is a good excuse for the government to get more money in green taxes out of us all.
I also watch the youngsters buying things they have no idea how to look after and will most likely be dead in a few months. Best make the most of it though as our biggest garden centre could be closing down in the early part of next year due to the economic situation, you could say the problem is being solved, but not because of anything we are doing.
Frank. -
Message 4
Posted by kate1123 (U14824475) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
It depends how you view gardening, is it a hobby or your contribution to society?
Does the person who races go-karts as a hobby ever consider how sustainable it is? As hobbies go surely we are up there as one of the lower impact groups.
I would like to recycle more but I am doing more than most. All those people who drive to the garden centre would still be driving somewhere on a saturday, our whole economy is now based on shopping so it has to continue.
I would also suggest that if times harden further and we all need to grow some food, then gardeners will be needed to lead the way. -
Message 5
Posted by marcia (U14085462) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
My daughter, keen to save the planet for future generations to enjoy, is very enthusiastic about re-cycling but asks me why I rinse plastic milk and yoghurt pots and glass jars - using litres of precious water to do so.
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Message 6
Posted by garyhobson (U11055016) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
As the OP has observed, home gardening is about enjoyment and consumption. Just watch Garden-ER.
But home gardening was never about sustainability. Even the most ardent vegetable grower can only be expected to grow a small proportion of the food they eat. This is especially true if one includes foods such as bread and meat. How many gardeners actually grow all their own corn and make their own sandwiches?
In the Middle Ages people were more self-sufficient. In order to grow sufficient food to feed one household required about 10 acres of land. The only way to grow sufficient food to feed today's population is through efficient intensive agriculture and supermakets.
Lots of people buying loads of stuff in garden centres might seem good for the economy. It's certainly providing jobs in the supply industries.
But the all-important factor is the balance of payments: we probably incur a deficit by importing plants raised in Holland, and mowers made in China. But we ought to be able to get some credits from exporting roses and apples. I believe that B&Q make most of their revenue from stores they have on the continent - hopefully exporting lots of British-made spades, decking, and paving slabs.
But all that has nothing do to with sustainability or saving the planet. The only way the planet will be saved is by a few clever people finding better and more productive ways of producing food. Finding better ways of producing food is exactly what people have been doing over the past several thousand years. There is no reason to believe that this trend will not continue. -
Message 7
Posted by Obelixx (U2157162) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
I would have thought more efficent food production, transport and utilisation was the key. Just look at all the news stories about how much the UK household throws out because it's bought too much, and supermarkets emptying shelves of perfectly edible food in order to introduce new stock.
As for gardening being sustainable, it's a question also of intelligent use of resources. Gardens are currently a national treasure providing havens for a wide range of wildlife that can no longer survive in agrichem countryside. Kitchen waste is recycled as soil conditioner. Crops can be grown for cheaper, fresher, healthier food - as long as you target your available space and efforts at expensive stuff like salads and soft fruit and veg varieties you can't find in shops rather than cheap and plentiful spuds and carrots. I can recycle plant pots here, and just about everything else because our local council i well organised in that respect.
People with more money than sense or know-how will always be seduced into the instant gartdening of programmes like Gardening ER but experience will show it's better to be more considered and patient and evolve a garden as time, money, circumstances and experience dictate. -
Message 8
Posted by Summerchild (U14187397) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
I'm loving this thread. Lots of my own thoughts have been voiced here.
So far as I can see all that I can do is to take responsibility for my own behaviour and to support community initiatives.
One thing I never do is to drive to the GC without a passenger or two. One thing I always do is to offer excess compost, plants and pots etc to community groups.
I am open to tips from others from on this board.
Summer -
Message 9
Posted by Jasmin (U14270220) on Monday, 17th October 2011
The trouble with walking to my local garden centre - which I do sometimes, for the free coffee, you understand!
- is that then I can't *buy* anything because it's too heavy to carry home. So, if I want something for the garden, I have to take the car. No choice.
As to compost - don't know where you get your's, but the vast majority of the compost sold in my local GC - which is part of a national chain - is peat-free.
And my council recycles *all* plastic, irrespective of type, but I keep most of the pots I buy plants in so I can pot up other plants or use them for seedlings. Haven't thrown out a pot in years!
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Message 10
Posted by nooj (U13729031) on Monday, 17th October 2011
A very simple thing we can all do is to eat seasonally, unless of course its a celebration.
It saves so many air miles and, whatever it is that gets used to chill stuff right down for transport.
I know we cant grow bananas, but we can grow beans, instead of getting them from Kenya -
Message 11
Posted by Papa Nopsis (U14479902) on Friday, 21st October 2011
Jasmine,
Can't you take lots of cycle rides to the garden centre, with your pannier bags on their racks and bring home a little every time?
It would still be a saving!
You might also be able to give more time to the cost of purchases on the way!
micro economics! -
Message 12
Posted by Calendula (U2331338) on Friday, 21st October 2011
I'm with Obelix on this one. There are gardeners and then there are people who buy things from garden centres - not necessarily the same people at all.
Slightly OT, I have been off work sick today and saw some of the many home and property shows which seem to inhabit the majority of daytime tv at the moment. Almost without exception a garden was seen as something to "keep tidy", "smarten up", "maintain as easily as possible", or as "space for the kids". Nothing about growing, nurturing, spending time working on, developing, and not a vegetable in sight.
If the majority of the population see a garden as a chore it's no wonder they chuck money at it and expect instant results. Nothing sustainable whatsoever in that attitude. -
Message 13
Posted by Papa Nopsis (U14479902) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
The assistant at a new supermarket in the high street tells me that their best selling products are those for the garden, so it is not just the garden centres which print money.
i spent about £90 this year on items for the garden, a minigh, a heated propagator, and some seeds. I have earned (if I bought at retail value) about £1800. I've done a lot and there is more to do.
For me sustainability is one step forward and one step back since I have had to re-organize the garden drastically to deal with the sudden heavy increase of traffic on a very nearby B road. I know it can be done and I'm doing it.
That is not the main gist of an interesting and informed discussion on this thread.
I do not use a car at all. The use of kerosene/petrol fuel can be the worst abuse of earth resources, although 20% of all food is now said to come from in-organic sources, ie fertilizers to increase productivity, oil to keep the farm machinery going and so forth.(?) that proportion may increase further. I do use heating oil for
the house about £500 per year.
Sustainable gardening is in a certain very limited sense a political statement although many keen gardeners may not be exactly aware of it, and find it more agreeable not to think along those lines; ie what opinions do all sustainable gardeners have in common?!
1)We prefer not to go the supermarket to buy food?
2) We prefer not to spend money on unnecessary food items (or on twittish exercice regimes in local gyms)?
These two facts (quite distinct from the flower gardener who has a different goal
entirely, some of which may be commendable for a large public) distinguish
sustainable gardeners as
1) anti-consumerist wherever possible
2) anti-capitalist
Even if you have retired from the food retail business or banking in the city!!
In the USA quite a few people get keen on homesteading even in their 20s and 30s and go do their thing in rural Kentucky or Virginia.... The allotment and sustainable gardener in the UK is the nearest we get to that, but there are a certain few young 'uns who have bought modest places in Portugal, where planning regs are less inhibiting, for a few thousand pounds, and are Homesteaders of a European variety! I would not choose the Danube valley for such initiatives, even though house and land prices there are even cheaper, and that must be for obvious reasons!
In UK it CANNOT BE DONE since second home owners have shoved up the prices so high that a traveller or anybody even more honest
at least 10 times as much even to get on the mortgage ladder with a 100% loan.
The worst dishonesty of modern capitalism is the SHO's who visit the countryside for three weeks a year, and while they are here say they "Live here", a pack of lies just for the sake of a fancy return on an "investment".
For me sustainable gardening in UK for reasons of the history of land ownership
in these islands has got to be completely rethought to prevent anybody who does not actually use the rural garden for personal food production, from owning the home at all.
This is not as fanciful as it sounds; many farm properties have what are known as "agricultural ties" (even when they are new built) and the system should be extended to large numbers of what are now second or even third homes.
they would be "Horticultural ties" (or possibly a better nomenclature)
to emphasize personal food production.
It could even be called a "Sustainable Gardening" tie.
( a "tie" does not mean that the home is not freehold, merely that it may not be bought by anybody who is not in the occupation designated by the planning development. authority)
increase -
Message 14
Posted by Papa Nopsis (U14479902) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
a "tie" does not mean that the home is not freehold, merely that it may not be bought by anybody who is not in the occupation designated by the planning development. authority) Â
Agriculturallly tied properties do go for marginally less than those on the more open market. The regs are strict. if it were found that (and it does happen) such an occupant were not employed in the designated area, they would be obliged to sell the property. They would find it difficult to buy in the first place, without documentary evidence.
However rural communities in the South and SW England have all been expanded without any regard at all for A "sustainable tie" condition of any sort, in such a way that the villages are ghost towns in Winter and used by people from slough or High Wycombe for a few weeks in summer. Rural village developers want as high a price as they can get for their agricultural land with change of use to house plot. If they get that permission while prices were buoyant, it was the difference in price of £6000 per acre for farmland, and
£750,000 for six house plots on that same acre, a factor of increase of 1200%
Are "Sustainable Gardeners" or "Occupy" demonstrators happy with that?
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Message 15
Posted by farmerSteve (U2644680) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
As you are well aware as a gardener rotation is of supreme importance
I was always told the very best rotation a farmer can have is :-
Rape
Wheat
Barley
houses
your points about ties are quite pertinent
The problem is that if a house with an agricultural tie becomes redundant due to the reduction in labout needed on farms today
this house cannot be bought by a local ex farm worker cheaply, he cannot live there since he is now working in the town as a jobbing gardener which does not qualify
but Mr Banker from london can buy this rural retreat as a second home and register it in the name of his wife who will keep a couple of sheep in the back paddock as company for her horses. The sheep being her only income qualify her as working as a farmer even though thye may be looked after by the same lad who would have liked to have lived in this house. -
Message 16
Posted by Papa Nopsis (U14479902) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
I am quite certain that it does not work like that Steve.
The planning enforcement people are quite strict about it.
You may be right in saying what you do about a banker, but he does have the same rights as everybody else to encourage his wife to keep livestock
and be sustainable.
It does not happen, unless he buys 100 acre with it; then the Planning officer
would have to agree that keeping a dozen cows entails being in the industry of agriculture and employed in it.
Terms and conditions of the occupancy vary; some in forestry areas restrict the occupants to forestry occupations, or even in horticulture to horticulture. An estate agent's jobsworth would be on the line if he sold to such people.
Start up Homesteads would also have to be considered since the conditions are actually already to be involved in the occupation concerned, so a "Homestead" tie would be different again.
I am repelled by the idea of paternalist Farm communities of the late 19thC/early 20thC but there is surely huge scope for new village communities
dedicated to sustainable gardening?
The old guard farm working community is a sad reflection of what can be done in the garden. A desultory "horticultural show" of the meanest proportions, the feeblest vegetables, the most insulting of village clubs, that I visited recently,
was just defective in its entirety, and that in a village which used to hold 500-600 people actively working the land.
Today everything is pretty and maintained from London or Bristol or Birmingham. ALL the farms are absentee farmers.ALL the retired farm workers
suffer a different kind of absence, such as there are left. -
Message 17
Posted by Papa Nopsis (U14479902) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
It has to be the principal occupation, and a wife would not qualify since her principal occupation is house wife, unless she can show accounts to verify
what she has previously earned from agricultural work, at the same time as wiving.
I am thinking of the principles of the freehold "tie" regulations which are good.
Your list above is correct, more should be available for housing but in a very different way, and consequently at a lower price.
Laugh at this:
What is the difference between
1) Tottenham rioters
2)St Paul's/Times Square Occupy/iers
3) Allotment gardeners
1) Rioters are anti-consumerist but only want consumer durables (that we take for granted here)
2) Occupy are anti-capitalist which is a level above anti-consumerism, being
anti financial products consumerism.
3) Allotment gardeners have opted out completely years ago; they have gone native, back to nature,to the homestead or plot, wisely disillusioned by it all! -
Message 18
Posted by nooj (U13729031) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
Wiving
Says it all -
Message 19
Posted by farmerSteve (U2644680) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
Actually any perosn who tried to maintain that the bankers wife was just that ought to have a look at discrimination legislation
All She will need is a holding number and then she is recognised by Defra as a farmer
it is a sad state of affairs.
Actually there is a simpler way if said farmer wishes to sell property off to the banker
he waits a year with the house on the market at full price and if no farmworker or other person connecvted who qualifies they can then contend there is no demand for such a house and can get change of use
actually most of these properties being at most 3 bedroom do not attract the london banker
They will never give permission for building the larger houses on an ag tie -
Message 20
Posted by Papa Nopsis (U14479902) on Saturday, 22nd October 2011
to my knowledge it is not at all easy to get a change of use on such properties, Steve., even if it stays empty.
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