Metaphors for Nature

Nature is always making a come back ... 

Ahh, the importance of language, and how we express our green messages, so I'm trying to be poetic or a little metaphorical in my gardening gabbling, as it's still spring for a few more days and with sore wrist in hand (pardon the pun), one needs some inspiration to get back in the back garden and level it before laying pavers etc. 

What living system can survive without its protection from the sun, its moisture retention, its detoxification, and its food and vitamins.  

We can preach the concept of mulch as the garden’s moisturiser.  

The canopies are the sun-hats for the shade loving plants and local residents which help keep the urban heat island at bay.

The sediment control measures are the detox tablets (keeping the drains and ground water free of contaminants). 

The organic fertiliser and compost are the food and the vitamins!

The drought loving plants are like botanic camels, in their water storing splendour ..... 

Where did the scarecrows go - the future of farming ...

Lately, I haven't been blogging on here much as my spare time has been dedicated to developing a sustainability education page for creative pursuits to get school students fired up and emotionally energised about sustainability, on my converse conserve website.  The Australian Education Magazine should be publishing an interview with me shortly, on this. 

I have written a couple of articles for Urban Times and like to tweet about their articles from time to time. 

Urban Times is a magazine based in the U.K for optimistic and forward thinking in relation to society generally and looking after our planet. They obviously have huge competitors like Grist and Tree Hugger, just to name two, so I like to support them. 

Here is a really interesting article which is all about planting up indoors, and I think it's extremely well researched and written. Well done, Tess! Interesting comment that hydroponics isn't regarded as organic because no soil is involved.  That's crazy!  We can certainly think about the inputs, as well as outputs with regard to hydroponics, as they don't use passive solar, hydration from nature. But with planting slated to be moved indoors more and more, and broad scale farming the prevailing means to generating our produce in the western world, I don't see scarecrows returning to the rural landscape, very soon.

Urban Noise - Animals are cursing (like) us more than we think!

Birds mating. 

I am attaching a link to an article from 'cracked.com' which isn't about gardening, unless of course you are in the habit of cursing the weeds that are hurting your daphnes and delphiniums .... to err. damnation, (Oh, ... be gone you accursed blackberry bush!) or what have you.

However, I think it's a very interesting article about where our habitats are going, but for those more faint-hearted, do be warned that here you will find some birds swearing - after all an article about swearing has to have some expletives uttered!!

http://www.cracked.com/article_19608_the-6-weirdest-ways-wild-animals-are-having-to-adapt-to-us.html

What is really worrying is that urban sirens, traffic and other noises are making it difficult for birds to make their mating calls, and other cries heard, and the birds are choosing to move away from urban centres in some cases, and as this is a very quick post, I haven't yet had the time to explore this phenomenon in more detail. (What I do find interesting about cracked.com is that its articles use popular language and  humour to expose the naked harsh truths in a clever way that will interest the audience. Sometimes we need to make light of something a little, to drive something home from the head to the heart, as I say on my website converse conserve.com).

The cartoons are great, and I am a real fan of green cartoons as my other website avows.

On the topic of birds mimicking, I once watched a great programme covering birds in the Australian bush and the aussie lyre birds' ability to mimick the sound of car alarm being activated (ga-blip), the sound of a motorised saw, and all manner of other bird calls, etc was astounding!

Eat More Organic! Four Corners TV programme .. on Dioxins, dangerous chemical crop spraying, in Australia ...

Am watching a vitally important programme on 4 Corners about chemical 2,4-D and its effects on health, our crops and the astounding fact that this well-known dioxin is still being sprayed as a herbicide and I believe as a pesticide in Australia.  Many of us were wrongly of the belief that dioxins had been banned long ago, in this country. Not so, it seems.

The point of the programme is that unsafe chemicals are still being used within our environment without our realising and that we are continuing to imbibe them whether through breathing the air, eating produce grown near where they've been distributed, drinking water seeping through from contaminated groundwater or directly by the people spraying the chemicals and their families who are then exposed to the chemicals as well.

Ten kilometres of chemical drift are occurring on to market gardening properties affecting the sex of the crops, causing two cobs to form and other types of plant deformities. When flowers and fruit form this is a particularly volatile time of impact.

One company had announced it was going to review the use of the chemical back in 1995 but as still taking action on the matter 11 years later.  The stories of Australian men back in the 1970s spraying  both 2,4-D and agent orange (that was banned) on to crops and weeds without protective masks, footwear and clothing who are deceased or dying from dioxin poisoning still all theses decades later are horribly shocking but must be seen, to convince us of the power of the chemicals industry and how we are still today so compliant in their every day administration.

Am watching this programme whilst typing, therefore some details need to be verified by watching the programme back on I View (given that I'm typing this in somewhat of a hurry).

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/?series=2303988#/series/2303988.

One really insidious aspect is the lack of information about the source of 2,4-D and insufficient testing and regulation abut the presence of dioxin, and the fact that toxicity can be minimised with enough care and attention.  What is astonishing is that the substances supplied by China, and being tested by 4 Corners representatives are allegedly of higher toxicity levels than were being used 20 years ago!

Go to the ABC - 4 Corners link above to watch back this compelling and shocking story.

If this is not sufficient food for thought to get more of us growing our own, or eating organic food, I don't know what is.

At CERES making sustainability fun

T'was a gorgeous mid winter day at CERES today, (for those who don't know it's the local centre for energy research and environmental studies) having lunch with some people.  I learned it's possible to get sun-burnt even in the winter. My friend was clever enough to remember the sunscreen but not I. Was reminded that I must post another blog on to my bloomingandbold blogspot, as it's been a while!

Learning welsh, work,  plus house maintenance (an 80 year old house does keep you occupied keeping everything opening and shutting) plus family commitments mean that one has to scratch a few extra minutes to write on my Converse Conserve.com website and of course here.  Having a firm interest in the ways we share our green messages, I was reading the Age and discovered a band who are off to the Glastonbury festival, who refer to themselves as Eco Minstrels.

They are called the Formidable Vegetable Sound System  (see You tube video) and theirs is a very unique way of promoting permaculture in the form of vegie growing antics, swing, acid jazz and funk.  They speak about their sound and presentation as yet another way of making sustainability fun.  And I think it works! Speaking of home grown produce, tried some persimmons today from a friend's garden - they are very tasty but leave a strange sensation in the mouth.

Bee Sustainable

As my opening lines on this blog are .... without the buzzards and bees where would we all bee .... seems fitting to mention this great shop in 500 Lygon St Brunswick East. called Bee Sustainable, owned by Robert Redpath.

Stocks all manner of bee keeping equipment, products of the hive including a wide array of honeys,  and equipment for domestic food production, plus a plethora of home sustainability books, and gifts. With all the aromatherapy oils in home made soap, and the scent of the beeswax candles you feel like you've left the Garden of Eden, as you exit. They also run workshops concerned with domestic sustainability such as the art of bee keeping, and sourdough bread making.

At that top end of Lygon St precinct there are other seemingly top establishments concerned with sustainability including a couple of organic grocers, a yoga lab, and a vegan meals destination - Vege To Go, Melbourne Food Ingredient depot, plus a vintage bazaar. This strip of shops would rival other shopping strips for having the most shopping options concerned with sustainability, by a long shot!