It’s been a few years since we have planted a successful veggie garden. This year we tentatively set up a couple of raised beds and purchased the minimum amount of seedlings and I’m happy to report that so far most of our babies are growing successfully. (Our biggest threat has been an earwig infestation which has resulted in me going out each night with a torch and flicking the little creatures off our tasty plants.)

These are the three cherry tomato bushes we bought and they are all still alive!

I felt like I needed a mentor, my confidence, though improved, was still smarting from previous crop failures. Our dear friend Bruno visited last week, which reminded me that his father lives around the corner and is an enthusiastic gardener who supplements his diet with an impressive spread of vegetables grown in his back yard. (Dom and ‘the boys’ were born in  S.Angelo in Italy where the family had owned land and a fine cart pulled by the family’s two cows. Dom has even made a small replica of the ‘cows and cart’.)

Bruno and Tony told me that Dom is a bit of a cow whisperer.

I asked Bruno if he thought his father would be willing to help me, and suddenly it was all organised! We agreed to meet up over the weekend so I ventured over with a list of questions in mind. Of course I have a heap of books on the subject and I could just ‘google it’ but I have tried these methods before and they just haven’t stuck so I decided that the only option was to spend time with a real live experienced gardener. Fortunately Bruno and his brother Tony were happy to translate for me, as well as offer a wealth of information from their own experiences as gardeners.

Here we see the Annetta menfolk checking out the area where the seedlings are grown.

The beans caught my eye immediately, the tendrils happily winding themselves around bamboo sticks that Domenico grew in his original Reservoir home, around twenty years ago. These beans were in full sun for most of the day and yet Dom was not at all concerned that they might get damaged on freakishly hot days, he simply waters them morning and evening and this is enough for them to make it through the blistering heat.

I would sell my soul to have beans growing in our garden that look like this!

He rotates his crops, with Bruno and Tony commenting that one year the tomatoes will be planted where the beans are and the next year it will be vice versa. To keep the soil enriched he uses dynamic lifter; in earlier years he would buy bags of goat manure but as the years pass it has become easier to follow this new regime.

One side of the bed is a cos type lettuce, the other is a scariola, more suitable for cooking.

He saves his seeds from year to year and has a special spot for growing them. I was fortunate enough to take away some cucumber seeds and some lettuce and tomato seedlings, and garlic and don’t forget the bottle of homemade wine! The most amazing thing that occurred was he gave me a very special tool used for making holes in the soil for the seedlings. I am honoured to have received such a gift.

Bruno and Tony joked that they hadn’t been presented with one of these. Maybe it’s because I look like I need all the help I can get!

I asked him about how he deals with ‘pests’. While he does rely on snail and slug pellets, he has an ingenious way of trapping them – he places the pellets under a piece of metal in a grassy area at the edge of his beds and the snails and slugs make their way to this little lean-to, gorging themselves on pellets, thus leaving the seedlings for human consumption.

Come on snails and slugs, I have built a special home for you!

He had also planted cucumbers, tomatoes, two kinds of leafy greens and there was a fine crop of garlic that caught my eye.

Domenico kindly gave me some garlic to grow, even though the planting season has passed. I’ll see how I go!

I envied his confidence in his ability to grow his own food and thought I should definitely take a leaf out of his book.

It was a humbling experience and I hope to go back again, with my next visit being when it is time to plant the broad beans. I will take this opportunity to promise that I will take care of our new family of seedlings to the best of my ability, committing to being a confident and consistent carer.

For most of my life I have gained great pleasure from objects that hold special meaning for me. Ranging from things as everyday as my first recipe book or an essay from high school, to family heirlooms like a Bible left to me by my grandmother and a vase that once belonged to my mother’s sister, who died seventy years ago.

The longer we live the more possessions we acquire. Many of these items hold special memories. Eventually there is nowhere left to store these precious items. (I still haven’t been able to sort through boxes of my parents’ possessions, which have been in our shed for nine years!)

Way back in March, around the time of our son Louis’ birthday, we came across a few items we had kept for him from the early years. You know the kinds of things I’m talking about, his first cereal bowl and mug, a football trophy, a pencil case from primary school. I have always assumed that our sons would want these memories from their childhood.

Around the same time I read an article entitled Stuff it: Millennials nix their parent’s treasures. As I read through the article, I felt like the journalist was addressing me personally. Here’s a taste of what had me squirming in my seat:

“As baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, start cleaning out attics and basements, many are discovering that millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, are not so interested in the lifestyle trappings or nostalgic memorabilia they were so lovingly raised with.”

How did that happen! Once I got over my reaction, which ran something along the lines of, ‘how will memories be passed on if the items that hold them are not valued’, it occurred to me that our need or desire to surround ourselves with keepsakes can quickly become ‘unsustainable’. As I look around our house I am aware of stories attached to every item. It doesn’t take long before I feel transported to another time, another place. I can relate to the hoarder reality TV shows where a person sees value in everything they have collected and can’t bare to let go of anything.

Another quote from the article:

“They are living their lives digitally through Instagram and Facebook and YouTube, and that’s how they are capturing their moments. Their whole life is on a computer; they don’t need a shoebox full of greeting cards.”

Okay, so I have quite a few shoeboxes full of greeting cards, dating back thirty or so years.

Earlier in the year I read an article about Marie Kondo, who has written a book that could possibly solve all of my problems. I told my sister, Jann, about the book. She actually bought it and read it and has since offered me some advice on how to deal with all of those treasured cards. From Jann, “the Japanese book on tidying your home and life recommends getting rid of things like old cards that people have given you. She says that they have served their purpose once they have been given.”

I think I will have to take it slowly. Meanwhile I will ponder why the thought of letting go of things from the past feels so difficult. I envy the next generation if they really don’t feel so attached to their possessions. I’m working on not being so attached. I bet you’re thinking, she’s going to have to let go of them sooner or later, and I agree. Let’s see if I can beat the reaper.

Back to the classroom. One of our set texts was ‘The Conundrum’ by David Owen. The extended title was ‘how scientific innovation, increased efficiency, and good intentions can make our energy and climate problems worse’. It didn’t sound like it would be relaxing bedtime reading however I persevered. 

In the introduction, Owens tells a story of arriving in Melbourne for a conference. He was telling someone in the audience about his theme for the presentation, when the guy interrupted, saying, “Just tell me what to buy!”

I know that feeling. If the lifestyle we are currently living is not sustainable, then just tell me what I need to do to reduce that old ecological footprint of mine!! 

Anthony James, our lecturer, had a multiple choice ‘sustainability quiz’ that we hoped might provide us with ‘the answer’.

He set up three cups and we had to say which cup we thought was the most sustainable option. We were presented with a plastic cup, a paper cup and a china mug. I have added a fourth cup, just to make this a bit more interesting: the KeepCup.

This is an abridged version of the class discussion, which, not surprisingly, went on for a rather lengthy period. 

You also won’t be surprised to discover that each option has its pros and cons. 

The china cup, made in England, will last longer than the other alternatives but of course there are issues such as the need for frequent washing, transporting it from one side of the planet to the other and, besides, your favourite barista would probably not welcome you bringing your own mug from home. 

Plastic, while often recyclable, uses up valuable oil and gas resources in the manufacturing process. (The original cup was a Styrofoam cup – they are so much out of favour that I couldn’t find one for the photo shoot. They have a very bad reputation!)  

This paper cup is 100% compostable. (Produced locally in Melbourne by Planet Cup) This is a good option however it still means that the paper has to come from somewhere and energy will be tied up in producing them.

The KeepCup, created by Abigail Forsyth, also from Melbourne, has been so successful that it is now sold in 32 countries. Based on the idea of Forsyth’s daughter’s juice cup, it has clearly caught the imagination of millions of people around the world. And here lies the problem. We can’t stop buying them. In an article from The Age in 2013, when the company were asked to create yet another version, Forsyth responded on their blog,”we are trying to create fewer cups, not more…” In that same article we learn that “since 2009 we have bought 3.5 million cups”. 

Owen asserts that ‘we’re consumers at heart’, and, in my experience, this rings true. I bought a KeepCup but I still haven’t used it – I don’t actually buy takeaway coffee very often – but I just like having one. 

At the end of our session, Anthony declared that trying to work out which is the most sustainable cup is almost an unanswerable question and an analogy for sustainability overall. 

He wanted us to consider these questions before our next class:

Why have we assumed that something is so necessary?

What do we actually need? 

This last question is my favourite – what do we actually need.  

Have you ever completed one of those on-line quizzes where you can find out your ecological footprint?

Are you now asking yourself, what the hell is an ecological footprint?

The WWF defines it as ‘the measure of the impact humans have on their environment’. Here in Australia, it is noted that “we are consuming more than three times our fair share of the planet’s resources.”

Let’s just sit with that for a while.

In our second workshop for the Swinburne course we were asked to take the quiz on the WWF website and share our results with the class. This is not the kind of information that I felt comfortable sharing, especially in a classroom full of people who were obviously into living sustainably. (Why else would they be doing this course?) I just hoped I didn’t have to go first.

Fortunately I hadn’t taken the seat at the end of the row and even more fortunately, my result, thought not as ‘good’ as some, was ‘better’ than others. (Since when did such a thing become a competition!)

Pretty much everyone in the class was surprised by their results; even for members of the class who were vegan and only rode bicycles etc. It didn’t seem that anyone was living within the limits of the planet. One of the complicating factors in Victoria is that our electricity is created from burning coal, which means the majority of us will automatically have a bigger footprint.

Your homework for this week is to check out your own ecological footprint. I have chosen the WWF version because it is user-friendly and even a little entertaining.

http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/people_and_the_environment/human_footprint/footprint_calculator/

There are those who don’t think much of the whole idea and others who think there are better methods. You are encouraged to ignore such folks, just for the purpose of this exercise.

Feel free to share your results with us. Or keep it to yourself. You might be relieved or shocked. You might wish you’d never done it or feel pleased to have somewhere from which to begin to make changes.

One step at a time.