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