Growing vegies gets cheaper and easier when you save the source.

CHRIS Brock’s vegie patch is laid out in terraces, stepping up the slope above his house in Healesville. It’s well fenced to keep out wombats and netted to ward off birds. Right at the top of the hill, he’s working on a different line of defence.

In the top bed, he’s growing General Mackay climbing beans, but his family won’t be eating any this year – they’re saving them for seed instead.

“It’s a rare variety, and I only had a small amount of seed,” Mr Brock says, “so I’ve grown them out to hundreds of seeds. Next year I can grow a decent crop myself, and share them with others.”

Mr Brock is an environmental scientist, and the convenor of Yarra Valley Seedsavers. As well as the climbing beans, this year he’ll be keeping seeds from broccoli, swedes, wombok and kale, to list a few.

“I’m concerned about conservation of seed varieties and about maintaining diversity in what we eat,” he explains. “Saving seeds and growing your own vegies is a practical way to be less reliant on the industrialised food system, which is degrading biodiversity.”

His group meets before the change of seasons. Together, they sort seeds, share tips and deposit and withdraw from their collective seed-bank, according to their needs.

“There’s a lot of cultural information you don’t get on a packet of seeds. When you meet the person who grew them, there’s so much you learn about how to grow that vegetable, when it’s ripe and how to prepare it,” he says.

Brock and his fellow gardeners are part of the national Seed Savers Network, founded by Jude and Michel Fanton. The couple have worked on similar projects in over forty countries. They’ve also published a guide, The Seed Savers’ Handbook, which contains instructions for over a hundred vegetables, herbs and flowers, including tips on avoiding cross-pollination among certain varieties, as well as storage and cultivation.

Ms Fanton says there’s no reason to be intimidated. “For plants that go to head, you can rely on self-seeding. It’s the simplest way, and it’s what we’re doing in our garden more and more,” she says. “Let things like carrots, parsnips, parsley or dill go to seed, then whack the seed-head around into other beds.”

When it comes to tomatoes, she also suggests starting with the most straightforward method. “You can just squeeze the seeds over a paper towel, write the name on it, let them dry on the table or the windowsill, then roll them up and put them in a jar.”

No matter the plant, the most important thing is to make sure the seeds are completely dry before you store them – otherwise they’ll decompose.

Once you get in the habit, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. “It gets easier and easier to grow things, because the plants are adapted to your soil, your growing style and your climate,” Ms Fanton says.

“Home-saved seeds are changing all the time and that aspect of evolution is really important for the way we cope with climate change.”

There’s another, less tangible benefit, too. “Sharing and saving seed is a way to remember people too,” she says. “For example, we’ve got a sweet French fennel from Michel’s aunty and we’ve had it for 31 years. It really adds a poignant aspect to the word heirloom.”

Word-of-mouth advice works in every language.

LINA Hassan is very enthusiastic about household sustainability. “Everywhere I go, this is my message,” she says, leaning forward on her couch, in her Thomastown home.

She arrived in Australia from Lebanon in 1985, escaping the civil war. The day after she fled her apartment in Tripoli, the building was destroyed.

Ms Hassan, now 47, is an aged-care and refugee support worker with Victorian Arabic Social Services. She’s also a bilingual sustainability assessor with Environment Victoria.

When she began training for the organisation’s Green Town project, she discovered – happily – that some wartime deprivations had prepared her for the long drought and rising electricity bills in Melbourne.

“I like all the tips, really, because back home during the war, we were already adopting some of the strategies,” she says. “We never had electricity. We only had four hours of water each day.”

If her smile weren’t so open, I’d think she was making a tongue-in-cheek comparison. But Ms Hassan is speaking in earnest. The connection is safety – an urge to provide security for her children; later in our conversation, she describes climate change as a waiting bomb. “We have to act, all of us. We all worry.”

With future generations in mind, she is most worried about water. Together with her husband, Raafat El Kashef, who is also a Green Town assessor, she’s installed tanks and become an avid water recycler. “I’m Muslim and I pray five times daily. I was wasting one bucket every time I washed,” she says. Now, she uses it on her herb and flower garden.

She is critical of the state government’s decision to ease water restrictions. “It’s too soon,” she says. “People were adopting ways to save water. We don’t know if we’ll have shortages again in the future.”

Under the Green Town program, Ms Hassan visited over 40 households and businesses in the Lebanese community in Melbourne’s north, explaining sustainability issues in Arabic.

One in five Victorians speaks a language other than English at home. For many people, mainstream eco-advice – like this column – is inaccessible. 

As a remedy, Environment Victoria has posted info sheets in 20 different languages on its website. Then there’s Green Town, which operates like a pyramid scheme. The organisation has trained six community leaders, who oversee 59 assessors, who’ve visited hundreds of homes and businesses from different language and cultural backgrounds. All up, over 10,000 people have heard the message.

Nina Bailey, who coordinates Green Town, says it’s the most effective behaviour change campaign her organisation has run. Based on the participants’ estimates, they’ve cut energy and water use by about a third, and waste to landfill by one quarter, on average. Converted into power and water bills, that amounts to savings of more than $500 per year.

Despite this success, the state government has withdrawn its funding for the scheme. Ms Bailey is hopeful she’ll find a way to keep it going. She says the results say something powerful, no matter what language you speak: awkward as it may feel, talking about climate change and sustainability with friends and family can be transformative.

“If you have knowledge, it’s worth sharing, because people want to hear it,” she says. “Your neighbours may be interested. People who seem different are often concerned about the same issues you are.”

Read this article at The Age online

New eco-home research makes a financial statement.

LAST year, the Cape Paterson Ecovillage broke new ground when its high eco-standards were written into the local planning scheme.

The development will border on the existing town of Cape Paterson, on the Bass Coast, about two hours south-east of Melbourne. Each of the 220 new houses must be oriented for passive solar gain and have a minimum energy rating of 7.5 stars, as well as efficient appliances, at least 2.5 kilowatts of solar energy and 10,000 litres in rainwater tanks.

Now, the project’s developers have released research showing that all these features will save homeowners money over the long term.

“When we started, we wanted to pull together all the proven sustainable housing solutions in one place, and to attempt to deliver a carbon neutral project,” says the ecovillage’s director, Brendan Condon.

That was eight years ago, and back then, he thought they’d need to offer incentives to help buyers pay the extra upfront costs. But because of the steep rise in utility bills in recent years, and the price hikes still to come, it’s no longer necessary.

“We’ve hit a clear tipping point now where the uptake of these sustainability features makes absolute economic sense,” Mr Condon says.

He says that if homeowners re-invest savings into their repayments, they could cut years from their mortgages. And once an electric vehicle (powered by extra solar panels) is in the driveway, “the economic benefits expand rapidly”.

“If we hit high predicted energy and water cost futures, you could pay your mortgage off between seven and eight years early. The benefits accrue to about $300,000 over a 25-year mortgage.”

Independently reviewed research, funded by Sustainability Victoria, compared a Cape Paterson home against three benchmarks – an existing 4-star dwelling, and both a larger and smaller new 6-star home. Consumption was assumed to remain constant in each house, no matter the price rises.

The report’s author, consultant Anthony Szatow, says that in all the scenarios modelled, the greener homes came out in front. “Solar power, efficient appliances and water tanks all return in excess of 10 per cent, after tax. Most sustainability features provide very attractive return on investment, purely on a financial basis,” he says.

“And that financial proposition is just going to get better and better as the cost of centralised energy and water goes up.”

With the strict guidelines for the Cape Paterson homes in mind, Mr Szatow says householders should shop around for plans. “Experienced, skilled designers and architects should be able to get a new home to a 7.5-star rating with very little premium,” he says.

He adds that another financial benefit will come at the point of sale. “It’s early days in the market for sustainable homes, but the indication so far is that homes with the highest star ratings and solar power do have a resale premium.”

For Mr Condon, it’s not enough that the ecovillage has gone green alone. He wants the mainstream building market to change its ways too.

“Rising energy, fuel and water costs are going to become intractable problems for our community,” he says.

“You have a choice now to build conventionally and lock in rising costs, or build sustainably and protect your wallet and the environment – and to do it in a comfortable house.”

Read this article at The Age online

Start your engines, sometimes.

THERE are now well over 200 share cars dotted around inner Melbourne. And before long, that number will double again.

Car share schemes work like this: you join up, book online when you need a vehicle, then walk over and swipe in. In Melbourne, there are three companies: GoGet, Flexicar and GreenShareCar. The rates and plans differ, but all involve a membership fee as well as a charge for usage.

It’s a model that’s growing rapidly in many countries, and one that steers gently into the space left vacant by shifts in the way we’re buying and using cars.

In recent years, the increase in car ownership has slowed in Australia, and the distance we drive in each vehicle has begun to decline. Meanwhile, public transport patronage is on the rise.

Stephen Ingrouille, from Going Solar, publishes a newsletter on sustainable transport. He says car sharing reduces congestion and lowers greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’re not going to wean this society off its car obsession for a long time – that’s just a reality. But car sharing is a good intermediate solution,” he says.

“Share cars tend to be energy efficient models: the companies want them to run as cheaply as possible, because petrol is included in the cost.”

Research by consultants Frost and Sullivan in the USA found that in 2009, every share car replaced 15 private cars, and that car sharing members drove nearly one-third less than they would if they owned a vehicle. Widespread growth of these schemes would mean fewer motors, used more efficiently.

Mr Ingrouille argues that governments should require apartment developers to swap large car parks for modest share car bays, or even a taxi rank – thereby improving housing affordability, as well as reducing traffic.

“A lot of energy goes into manufacturing cars, but often they’re just sitting idly,” he says. “Typically, a family might have had two cars; with car sharing they could have just one. Or for people like me, who prefer public transport, it’s great to have access to a car occasionally.”

Mike Murray, from GoGet, says householders join up to save money and for convenience – especially in areas where parking is limited. In Surrey Hills, in inner Sydney, two out of every ten licence-holders are GoGet members.

Late last year, the company purchased its first fully electric vehicles – Mitsubishi iMiEVs – and one is now parked at The Nicholson Apartments, in Coburg. Another one will soon be stationed in South Yarra.

Mr Murray says electric vehicles are perfectly suited to car sharing, because the average GoGet trip is only 30 kilometres.

“People suffer from what we call ‘range anxiety’ with electric vehicles, but you could do more than three of our regular trips before you’d have to charge it at all.”

He believes car sharing can spread beyond Zone 1. “We’re trying to develop a low-density car sharing model, because that’s where most Melbournians are – we’re not all in Brunswick or Southbank.”

GoGet will begin by parking shared utility vehicles at Stockland’s Selandra Rise development in Casey. “The developer is telling us that a lot of households have three vehicles. If they owned one car, and had car sharing instead, they’d save a lot of money.”

Read the article at The Age online

Branch out with backyard fruits of yore

CECILIA Thornton was always a vegie gardener. Then one day, in a dentist’s waiting room, she read an article about heritage apples growing in Cornwall.

“It was the names that got to me,” she explains. “These fascinating names – Lord Lambourne, Beauty of Bath and Cox’s Orange Pippin. I was really struck by them.”

On further research, Ms Thornton discovered that people in Australia were conserving these varieties too. Now, she’s the president of the Heritage Fruits Society, which manages Petty’s Orchard in Templestowe.

Every autumn at the orchard, the society holds its Antique Apple Tasting Festival. The 2012 festival will be held on Sunday March 25; visitors can take a tour, and taste and rate the 200 varieties grown onsite.

“Heritage varieties have been selected by gardeners and diners over centuries, even going back to Roman times. They’ve been chosen for reasons of flavour, ripening time, or colour, or for their resistance to certain diseases or their cooking consistency,” she says.

Ms Thornton argues they’re important not only for their historical links. “The commercial varieties in supermarkets are chosen mainly because of their handling and keeping qualities, so they don’t bruise as easily and they keep for ten months. They’re not chosen for their unique flavour or their juiciness.

“Some of the heritage varieties only keep for a week once they’re picked, but they taste like heaven. If you don’t have one in your backyard, you’re missing out.”

So how should you choose your trees?

First, survey the space. You can maximise your harvest in a few ways: by choosing columnar varieties that don’t branch out; by pruning normal trees into a shape tall and skinny; or by “espaliering” them flat and wide against the fence.

“You can also do duo or trio plantings,” Ms Thornton suggests. “In one hole, plant two or three apples, plums or pears, about 150 millimetres apart. Just make sure they’re varieties that will cross-pollinate.”

Next, choose your fruit. What do you like to eat? “We’re really lucky in Melbourne, we have a climate that’s kind to everything from stone fruit and citrus, to sub-tropical fruits,” she says.

Ms Thorton is growing several sub-tropicals, including jaboticaba, longan and wampee. “You can grow them here so long as they’re near something that holds the sun’s heat, such as masonry or water,” she says.

When there was no room to walk around her thriving backyard in Bayside, she bought a block on the Mornington Peninsula.

“I’ve got a lot of rare and unusual fruits. I’ve got gooseberries, josterberries and mountain paw paw,” she says. “I’ve got something called a jujube, which is very popular in China because it has stress relieving properties and tastes delicious like sweet dates.”

If you’re looking for something less exotic, Ms Thornton says you can’t go wrong with citrus. The Heritage Fruits Society website has tips for planning, planting and care, as well as historical catalogues, fruit poems and exhaustive lists of varieties.

As a general rule, it’s best to plant fruit trees in winter, when they’re dormant. “Fruit trees are a lot less work than a vegetable garden, but while they’re young you have to water them through summer and mulch them well,” she says. “Feed them during their growing season with plenty of organic chook poo and blood-and-bone with potash.”

Read this story at the Age online