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More on emissions trading - this time our comparison to the rest of the world

Tim Colebatch in today's Age newspaper rebuts the Rudd government's #1 justification for the 5% emissions target: our per capita cuts. He says it much better than I can, so read the article, but here are some extracts: 

It's the Rudd Government's favourite line against critics of its 5 per cent target for emissions cuts: in per capita terms, we're doing more than Europe is. The PM, Penny Wong and Wayne Swan use it every time.
But there are two things wrong with it. The smaller error is that their numbers are wrong — all of them!

...

If both [Australia and Europe] achieve their lower 2020 targets, we will still emit almost twice as much gas per head as Europeans: 16.1 tonnes compared with 8.8 tonnes.
And if we kept on at that rate, by 2050 our emissions per head would be 10.6 tonnes — back where Europe was in 2005.

It's our current per capita output that is the reason we need to make cuts larger than everyone else - it's certainly not a justification for making meagre cuts, especially as we started so much later than most other countries.

Emissions target are so low as to be laughable

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin [head shaking]. What's the point of a 5% reduction in emissions, when we need at least 25% to have a chance of making a difference? It's very disappointing for those of us who voted Labour in the hope that you'd actually *do* something.

For a much more in-depth analysis than I can manage this close to Christmas, read this article from the SMH in which experts express surprise that the compensation package remains unchanged, even though the emissions targets have been very severely watered down.

Early summer abundance

This year is the first year I've felt we have enough space devoted to food growing to make it really worthwhile. Previously I've had one or two tomato plants, a zucchini plant (which failed to fruit) and a punnet of lettuces. It has been a luxury to have four different vegetable gardens, plus pots to hold the tomato seedlings which sprang up spontaneously. Our back corner is a riot of tomatoes, particularly the cherry variety. As some of them were 'volunteers',  we had no control over what size they are, so we have all shapes of both large and tiny tomatoes. Gives me an ambition to get into some heirloom multicoloured varieties next year!

What surprises me is that some vegetables take ages to grow, and others spring up literally overnight. So we had one zucchini which I lovingly  watch flower and then suddenly (after a particularly large downpour) it was ready to pick. After only one day! But the cucumbers, which began to flower long before the zucchini, are growing at a snails' pace. Maybe it's because they are planted under the passionfruit vine and there is a lot of competition.

Speaking of snails, though. We've had a lot of wet weather lately, and not a single snail in sight. I put that down to vigilance bordering on obsession in the past two years. At first I used to just encourage the snails away from the garden, but after my fourth attempt at growing basil was thwarted by slimey gourmets, I took more decisive measures. I used to go out with a torch and collect the snails in a bucket, then cover them in salt and water. I'm not sure it's the best method, but it certainly killed them. I got so obsessed with the snails I was searching the backs of all the leaves in the garden looking for the babies and squishing them with vigour. 

Then suddenly, there were no more. It's like word got out by snail mail (heh) that our place was dangerous. Not a single snail this spring/summer, even with the recent rain.

more recycling for recycling corner

Discarded aerial reclaimed and is now supporting our climbing beans. We thought about modifying it, but the ground was so soft we just shoved it in and it works! (reception is not enhanced).

Second recycled vegetable garden bed

It's been a few weeks now, but we have finally finished planting up the second, larger, recycled garden bed in our back corner. This is the bit of the yard behind the shed and you can't actually see it from the house. When we bought this place, the back corner was a jumble of palm trees, indoor plants that had been tossed out and creeping grass runners.Now it's become our 'recycled' corner: using only recycled water, sunlight and building materials to create veggies and dry clothes!

We have spent a year rejuvenating the corner: building a retaining wall with old railway sleepers, paving under the clothes line and filling in the bits between the palm trees with garden beds made from recycled timer.

This last garden bed is made from timber slats from our old bed along with some bits of broken packing pallets we salvaged off the side of the road. We tried to keep as much of the project as possible recycled. The big what pot you can see at the left of this photo is our old kitchen sink (which recently had to be replaced), the little table is from the second hand furniture store at the end of our street. And the pavers came from the lovely Bower Reuse and Repair Centre, which is a treasure trove of old floor boards, doors, windows and, strangely perhaps, bike parts.

Much of the soil in the new garden bed is recycled garden soil enriched with manure and compost from our sadly neglected little compost bin. There is also a good thick layer of premium potting mix because we really want the veggies to grow up healthy and strong.

Many of the plants are also recycled: the tomatoes, lettuce and rocket are all 'volunteers' from around the garden. The zucchini, dill, chives and beans are all purchased. I'm sure that I'm not supposed to plant all of those varieties of vegetables together in the same bed, but I will focus on the principles of companion planting and permaculture next year. This year all my energy has gone into getting the hard work of creating the beds done.

Making pickles and preserves

With all my tomato plants fruiting simultaneously, I realise two things: I should have planted them at staggered intervals; and I 'm going to need a good preserving method.

Fortunately, with all my tomato weeds coming up, I will be able to replace the early fruiting plants a little later in the season, which should mean a continuous supply through the summer.

I've also found a lovely website called Green Living that gives very clear instructions about how to preserve tomatoes as cooking sauce. Given that we go through about two jars of sugo and three tins of tomatoes each week, using some of our anticipated tomato glut for preserving sound like it will keep our harvest working for us even longer.

Consider the chickens

Since reading the (food)magazine, from the Fairfax people who make the (sydney) magazine (known in our house as the (pretentious) magazine), I have been considering chickens. The purpose of the magazine, apart from creating ad opportunities for large retailers, was to promote the trend of creating your own food. Whether it's growing veggies, community gardening or producing eggs. They did an experiment where three chefs had rented chooks for a week. While everyone seemed to love the eggs, only one of the three families continued with the chooks.

I have fantasies about having a couple of chooks in our backyard. But I also have fantasies about backyard footy, a trampoline, more veggie garden beds, a hammock, expanding the deck, the list goes on. So I worry that chickens are not the most practical solution for our really quite small block.

On the upside, chickens would eat a lot of scraps and produce free fertilizer.

So I am still considering.

Strawberries in pots

At the beginning of spring I put four strawberry plants in pots and hung them along the front of the verandah, which faces north. I water the pots almost everyday and now we are starting to get a haul of delicious red berries. Four plants cost around $16 so we have to harvest quite a few berries (at $3 a punnet we need to get around 6 punnets' worth), and so far we have reaped about 2 punnets'worth. Usually they ripen one or two at a time, so they get eaten straight off the plant. Today I managed to harvest a whole bowl full. These guys taste so much better than those giant Queensland grown berries, but they are much softer and need to be eaten right away. So far that appears not to be a problem!

Nationalised oil to fund climate change effort

This morning a spoof of the NY Times newspaper was handed out at various train stations around the city. Dated 4 July 2009, the paper opens with the Iraq conflict ending. But may favourite headline is "Nationalised Oil to Fund Climate Change Efforts". What a lovely thought - if the US can nationalise the banks and insurers, why not the oil companies?

Growing tomatoes

Weeds are just plants that are growing in the wrong place. My fight against weeds usually sees me digging out annoying yellow flowering clover or onion weed. But in the past few weeks I have been pulling up unusual weeds like this:

Tomato seedlings sprouting up everywhere. They come from the worm castings I spread over the garden beds before mulching about a month ago. Obviously those castings were laced with tomato seeds and these little plants have been springing up all though my garden. I feel terrible about hauling them out and throwing them away, but I just don't have enough room to successfully grow this many tomatoes!

Some, like these, I am leaving to see how they go. But the rest are going on the compost heap, which seems a shame.

Now, if I could just get coriander to grow wild in my garden...