Sometimes I feel I am alone on my mission to save the planet. I do wish more people would take on board, how being an easy living, throwaway society is killing the planet and damaging our own health. I’ve known people who lived on takeaways because they never took the trouble or time to learn to cook. Growing their own produce was never considered, as long as it could easily be obtained in shops. Easy-care fabric, manufactured cheaply, and mass production of the clothing industry makes sure our planet is cluttered with excessive non-biodegradable products.
Many people will always buy the cheapest if they can, regardless of quality, as long as it looks good and is made easy for them, they may not consider making what they need themselves. Growing fruit and vegetables etc., knowing that you made it possible, makes them so much more enjoyable. The covid virus has awakened more people to make an attempt to grow their own produce and many children also became interested. However, without the encouragement of parents or adults, they may fall into the pit of ignorance, not knowing much about the value of growing their own additive free food.
So much can be grown in pots, window boxes etc. Much as it would be nice to have a larger garden or an allotment, I have to stick within limits. My beans did not survive last year, with the exception of three odd seedlings, I put in a pot. The plants grew to about 45cm tall and five beans developed. They were left to survive on their own and eventually when clearing out the pot, I opened the pods. It looked like Karmazin beans, pink in colour and very tasty. It was worth it, for the beans in those five pods.
I normally use plastic drinking cups as starter pots for everything, they are washable, reusable and being white, can be written straight onto the pot reducing the need for a plant marker, or risk losing one. It’s Sod’s law if the only marker for a plant which goes astray is the one you don’t remember what was sown. This year I am going a step further in a bid to reduce the use of plastic even more. I will be using drinking cups made from plants. They are the same size and white so they can be written on, washable and reusable. They are also firmer and don’t split in the way plastic cups do. Being made of plant material, they are compostable at the end of their useful life. I bought the matching lids which will give any seeds sown requiring cover, their own little made-to-measure cap which will also make them more transportable with less risk of losing their contents. Even small changes make a big impact.
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