Change the World Wednesday – 16th May

Coffee Take Out Container – another useless waste of resources

Running on coffee…

I was looking for a suitable image to use with my opening line. I didn’t find one, but look what I did find…

What’s wrong with taking a reusable thermos flask.

We really must take stock of ourselves with these ‘use once and throwaway’ items.

Just another nail in the global coffin.

How many trees were sacrificed to make these?

Even if they are made of recycled paper, the industrial processes and chemicals involved in manufacturing must have an adverse impact on the planet.

Report: My parsley seedlings have all sprouted, not a failure. But, I am still worried about the spindly nature of the shoots. Time will tell.

On with the game.

This weeks Change the World Wednesday challenge:

Now that we’ve observed the area around us, let’s use that knowledge to plant something. Choosing a location which considers rain fall, sunlight, “pests”, etc., plant something using sustainable methods such as double digging, companion planting and natural pest control. Use natural compost instead of fertilizer. And then … come back and tell us all about it.

Or …

If you’ve already planted, tell us all about the process … did you choose the garden’s location based on natural elements? Did you prepare the garden using double digging? Did you make use of natural compost and companion planting? How do you control pests? And, knowing what you now know about Permaculture, will you make any changes next year? We want to know everything.

Hmmm… a continuation of last weeks.

I didn’t really play the game last week, because I always watch nature. I also discovered that while I wasn’t aware of it, I was already somewhat of a permaculturalist simply by being me and doing what seems right. Then I went off on my tangent and rooted for a need for permaculture to be an integral part of our lives.

Nezara viridula

Okay, tomatoes. The last lot of tomatoes that I planted were invaded by these…

I had no idea what they were, but recognised by the plethora of the little beasties that they were a pest.

Rather a little cutie. I had seen the odd one before and simply thought ‘pretty green bug.’

Now it was more a case of ‘damned green nuisance.’

Under the onslaught of these, my plants didn’t fare well and bearing tomatoes was a remote possibility, so I said farewell to them and yanked them all out. More compost.

It took some weeks before they decided there wasn’t much left and they left, or died maybe.

Today, in writing, I searched ‘green bug tomatoes’ in Google and discovered they were in fact Nezara viridula, or known as stinkbugs.

See, even at 60+ I learn something everyday.

Now that the stinkbugs have gone, I have some new tomato seedlings sprouting my compost heap and some are ready for transplanting. So I will try again and hopefully the stinkbugs won’t return. I will chose a different spot this time, hopefully one that doesn’t appeal to the little green beasties.

There is absolutely nothing different in this case that that I would have done anyway, so I’m not trying to be a permaculturalist, so it almost doesn’t qualify for the challenge, because I have changed nothing.

I am going to try an experiment.

I use oodles of coffee (oodles for our American cousins signifies a  lot) and as a result I have have coffee grounds up to my ears. They all go on the compost heap and get mixed up with the cat turds (Lixo does his part), potato peelings, etc and weeds; makes a grand outdoor potting mix. I am going to try straight coffee grounds as a growing medium as one would do with say sand or sawdust. It may well respond sort of like hydroponics. The medium doesn’t matter it’s the water that does the trick. I’ll keep you posted.

That’s it for this week.

Need more coffee!