Compost Bloke earns his stripes

Compost Bloke isn't as interested in all this eco stuff as me, and, to be fair, is somewhat bemused by my efforts.

However, he's fully earned his name - and composting kudos. He's not super big on gardening, mostly sticking to mowing the lawn and pruning things, but for years while I wasn't here he faithfully dug all his compost scraps into the garden.

As a result the soil is brilliant - rich, dark, free-draining. So in spite of my somewhat scrappy efforts this season, the garden has taken off.

Now that it's late February the cherry tomatoes are booming. 

And here's the payoff for Compost Bloke - he's rather partial to those little sweet tomatoes.

Conscious Consumers go mobile

Conscious Consumers have created a smartphone app to help you find accredited cafes and restaurants while you're on the move. Nice.

Car confessions

So, yeah, I have a car now. No more pleasant sense of eco-virtue from being carless. (When I lived in my city apartment I sold my car and walked, took public transport or a Greencab when it rained, and occasionally made use of car-sharing scheme City Hop to reach less accessible places. It was good.)

But here in the suburban hinterland it's harder to do without. I have at least tried to minimise the environmental impact by choosing a small car, so it's relatively fuel efficient. (It's a Honda Jazz.)


I've vaguely noticed that I don't fill it up very often, but maybe it would be good to start paying more attention. So, as a little challenge to myself, I'm going to take note of how long it takes me to burn a tank of petrol.

I filled it up today - from fuel light on to full (34L worth - $75!!). I'll let you know when it's empty again.

Paradise Lot

There was an inspiring permaculture garden featured in the NY Times yesterday.

Reading about it makes me itch to get out the spade.

I wonder if Compost Bloke would let me turn the lawn into an edible forest?

Hand-me-down baby

Before he even got a foot out of the womb our baby started treading lightly, thanks to the tradition of The Great New Zealand Pass On. As soon as the news got out that we were pregnant, offers of hand-me-down baby stuff started coming in from friends and family. We've had almost everything given to us:


- a whole wardrobe of maternity clothes 
- pregnancy and baby books
- cot
- bassinet
- Portacot
- pram
- all-terrain buggy
- back pack
- baby bath
- bouncer
- baby gym
- nappy bag
- blankets
- muslins
- sleep bags
- toys
- oodles of baby clothes of different kinds and sizes

It's been amazing.


It probably helps that we have been laggards and had our baby after almost everyone we know has already  finished with having kids.

Now I'm keeping my eye out for the next baby coming up so I can take my turn in the Great Pass On. It's nice to think that all these things we only used for a few months can have yet another burst of life.

Reuseable baby wipes

Another part of the nappy equation is the wipes you use. I use washable baby wipes - partly for eco reasons and partly because it means exposing the baby to fewer additives. (The Waterwipes website has a long and fairly sobering list of ingredients in baby wipes that are potential skin irritants.)

Wendyl Nissen at Green Goddess has a recipe for deluxe DIY baby wipes involving witchhazel and rosewater. I was keen to try her recipe when I first had the baby but could only find the ingredients in ethanol with preservatives, which seemed to defeat the purpose! (In her latest book, Mother's Little Helper, Wendyl recommends sourcing the witchhazel from health shops and food-grade rosewater from Indian or Middle Eastern food shops, not the chemists'.)

I wound up just using plain water, which seems to work fine. At first I used paper towels, but they were hard to peel apart when wet and tended to tear. My partner's bright idea was to use thin kitchen wipes cut into sections instead (Wendyl suggests using Chux cloths). I wet and squeeze out the wipes and layer them in a re-purposed plastic takeaway container ready for use:

There's no need for any preservative because I just make them up fresh every day or two so they don't get a chance to go musty. Used ones just get tossed in the nappy bucket to get washed and line dried with everything else.

Now the baby is beyond the newborn stage I use a combination of disposable wipes and these ones - disposable wipes for cleaning up poo and these for when baby is just wet and not dirty.* (Yeah, I'm a little wimpy about poo!) It's another compromise - my partner prefers to use the disposable wipes, and who am I to discourage him from changing nappies? - but I save at least half a dozen wipes a day so I reckon it's worth it.

I really like it when I change a wet nappy and don't have to throw a single thing away. 

*Or, as my partner would say, "there's just a fart's worth of poo".

Gifts and guests

I've mentioned this before - I really struggle with trying to be sustainable when it comes to stuff for other people: giving gifts, having people around etc. When I buy stuff excessively packaged in plastic, or *ahem* fly to the other side of the world, it's often because I want to do something that's nice for someone else.

I was interested to read a really clear explanation of this conflict in Niki Harre's Psychology for a Better World (see the chapter on identity; also pp. 137-138). There are a lot of big ideas in this book. One is that you want to act in a way that is consistent with your identity, but in your life you have multiple identities that are sometimes in conflict. In this case, you are a greenie - so you want to be environmentally responsible - but you are also a mother/daughter/sister/friend and a member of a society that traditionally gives gifts - so you want to give a nice gift.

She also explains that you empathise much more easily with one person, especially one similar to you, than you do with any more than one. (Millions of people will suffer because of climate change vs your Nan will really like this present? Nan wins, hands down.)

So it's not just me! It is actually really hard to reconcile wanting to act in a sustainable way with wanting to do something nice for someone else, when those two things are in conflict.

So, Christmas is kind of hard. I think maybe the solution is to resolve the conflict by being creative and coming up with a solution that is both sustainable AND nice for someone else.

There are some excellent present ideas that are both nice to get and local/eco-friendly.

Who wouldn't want a gift voucher for a cleaner to come in and clean your house?!

Blackberry season

It's high blackberry season and there's the most fantastic crop on the Western Hills.

Picking here is a dream. My memories of blackberry picking as a child in suburban Wellington are of all the bushes being well picked over and getting scratched up the arms stretching precariously over the edge of a steep bank to reach the last few. The same was true in Aro Valley where foraging was fashionable among the students. Up here there are masses of bushes dripping with beautifully ripe plump berries. You can saunter along the edge of the road idly picking only the juiciest and popping them in your mouth.

There are so many ripe berries within easy reach that you have to conclude that no-one up here really picks them at all. You're not in Aro Valley now, Compost Girl.

But what could be more frugal and eco-friendly than foraging?  So I was out today with the baby strapped on in the front pack, picking the blackberries down our street.

When I was a kid my Mum used to keep the best berries for blackberry and apple pie or to eat with muesli for breakfast. Any small or somewhat manky ones would go in a jar to make blackberry cordial. I'm doing the same, although I'm not up to pie - I've just made a simple blackberry sauce to go over vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Here's Mum's recipe:

Blackberry cordial

2 cups blackberries
2 cups white wine vinegar
450g sugar
250g honey

Pour vinegar over blackberries and stand one week. Strain and put liquid in a saucepan with the sugar and honey. Bring to the boil then remove from heat and cool. Bottle. Can be used much like Ribena.

Like my Mum I'll be adding blackberries to the jar over several days of pickings.