Grow Your Own!

I spent last weekend sorting out my bananas.

The first of the bunches for this season were ready (about 60 or so bananas) and so I peeled and chopped them and froze them in individual portion sizes.  Yesterday I had my first smoothie from this crop, and it was delicious.  Creamy and rich and tasty.  Food that I’ve harvested myself always tastes so much better!

The weekend was also spent re-planting tomato plants.  Grown from seed, they were now ready to put into their “grown-up” pots – and I was delighted to find recycled plastic plant pots at the nursery (it’s sometimes difficult to find green products on this tiny island).  They’re growing with basil, borage, mint and marigold – all great companion plants, and necessary as I don’t use pesticides.

I remember my father growing tomatoes in the greenhouse at the bottom of our garden when I was a child.   There was such a special smell – a mixture of trapped heat and that lovely tomato smell.  They tasted so good, cut open, rubbed with salt and eaten on their own.

Because my tomatoes grow in the open, I need to get up close to smell the leaves, but the smell is similar.  Isn’t it amazing how clearly we can remember smells?

There’s no denying that growing organically is more time-consuming than growing with chemicals.  The daily checks for pests and diseases, removing weeds and making organic compost all need to be scheduled into busy days – although I was delighted to find certified organic compost at the nursery, another new product.  It’s more expensive but it can be very useful while you wait for your own to mature, or if you’re not keen on having a compost heap.

Growing fruit, vegetables and herbs here on this tiny island has been a learning process.  The nice thing is that you can plant most things at any time of year and they’ll grow.  Quickly.  On the down side, if you don’t water them, they won’t survive long in the heat, and there are a lot of Other Things waiting to eat them – you have to be quick!

Is the extra work worth it?  Absolutely!  Fresh veggies and herbs are simply delicious, transforming even the simplest meal into a delight.

Since moving here, I’ve been trying even harder to embrace an eco-friendly lifestyle.  I have massively simplified my life.  I used to live in the city, in a large house with lots of ‘stuff’.  Now I’m kind of out in the country, in a small house, and the stuff that’s here is genuinely important to me.  To my own surprise, I found I didn’t miss the old ‘stuff’, and I really appreciate the few possessions I brought with me.

Having reduced, I am more determined than ever not to accumulate again.  Before any purchase, I ask myself if I truly need it.  This is partly for practical reasons – there’s not a lot of space – but also because I feel so much better without clutter and things.  Lighter.  Easier.

Decreasing the chemicals inside the house – mainly cleaning materials – has made a difference to my health.   Eco-friendly methods work just as well, without the side-effects.

Summer takes up most of the year here; the other seasons are very short.  Although the temperature almost every day is over 100 degrees (38 C and higher), I only use the air conditioning during the short period when the humidity rockets to over 90%.  The rest of the time I just dress for the weather, use curtains , blinds and shutters to keep the heat out of the house during the day, and open up in the evenings.  I find it’s healthier for me to stay at a constant temperature, rather than be cool then hot then cool.  It took a little while to adapt to these conditions, but it’s worth it now.

Of course there’s a ton of other stuff that I do, like deliberately choosing items with less packaging, recycling, switching things off, making small daily choices which individually are tiny but all add up.  It’s amazing what you can do – easily – without even trying once it becomes a habit.

These are just some of the ways I try to minimise my impact on the environment, and harvesting my own produce got me thinking about what I do on a daily basis.  This blog was the result of those musings.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow!