Education is what people need.

Due to having lived an "alternative" kind of lifestyle, I am actually quite out of touch with how the general population feels about environmental issues. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who don't really feel anything about it, despite the news and current fairly obvious situations going on in the world related to how people are damaging the planet.
However there is a good proportion of folk who do want to do something but don't really know just what they can do. It would be better if people could take on change as their own idea than be forced to when (if?) the governments of the world decide we'd better get serious and drastically cut our consumption of resources.
There are lots of small things that we can do and hopefully enough of us are doing it to show it makes a difference. Hopefully we also get to pass on our ideas to others in our families or circle of friends. Living a more environmentally friendly life makes me feel more positive about the future. Other people living a more envrironmentally friendly life would make me feel even more positive about the future!
Growing some herbs at home, catching a bus to work or school, turning lights off when you're not in the room..there are hundreds of small thing to reduce consumption of resources. They easily fit into or lives and may even save you some money in the short term, while helping the planet in the long.

It's been a while.

Learning chemistry at university has been getting the better of me lately and I've not had much of a chance to write. I don't actually get into the garden a great deal to be growing any vegetables. Some of the other interesting plants that I have are happy enoughafter another summer in Perth. The potted citrus are growing and a few of the grevilleas I put in last winter are still alive with very little care. A few of the native plants are coming along really well, hopefully some will flower this year.
The Chinese elm had been infested with aphids again recently and getting all sticky from the aphids' honey dew. The aphids have supplied a big supply of ladybirds which have bred to predate the aphids. Good old biological control! The birds have been feasting on ladybirds and their larvae too so it's a good little cycle, completed when the birds poop in the garden, leaving some of the nutrients back where they came from.

Packaging has been something that's bothering me lately. I've had a couple of conversations with people where they think the recycling bins should get emptied every week instead of every fortnight. It's an unfortunate side effect of our culture that people want trucks to drive around every week to collect all the daily crud we all produce just by buying stuff.

Ideally, by buying in bulk, buying fresh foods, such as fruit and vegetables and cooking from scratch (not just taking some processed junk out of the freezer and micro-waving it, we produce little in the way of wastes, recyclable or intractable. Food wastes can mostly be turned into compost. Electronic goods is the big baddy. Replacing any or all the electrical and electronic items in a house leaves electronic waste, termed e-waste, which cannot be recycled. Heavy metals and plastic compounds make this kind of waste as an environmental disaster in the making, as leachates from these products get out into the environment in the countries to which e-waste is shipped.

I'm not saying I'm a green angel. I do eat out at least once a week, sometimes two, but not at multinational fast-food places (have proudly not eaten any KFC, Muckdonalds or Hungry Jacks for 20 years). I try and avoid getting takeawy containers but if I do they get reused for packed lunches.

Algae biofuels.

This morning in the news on ABC Australia it was reported that Virgin has used biofuels during a test flight. This of course brings all the reactive responses from people that don't know what they are talking about.
I would just like to point out that there are biofuels that won't use arable land or 'steal food from Africans" and all that other dosh that people come up with. These fuels are called algae biofuels and not only do they not use productive or marginal land but they actually use waste products from industry.
There is an engineering movement that is trying to create Zero Emissions from industry, so people can still have their gadgets and all the mod cons but create less pollution in the production of these goods.
Algae photo bioreactors (APB's) use waste products from factories to feed algae, which is then processed fairly easily into an effective fuel. It is still being researched, but there are APB's up and running in many places.
http://www.apbe.com.au/science.html will give you a bit of background on these marvellous machines.

Perhaps people who spend their time reacting against positive news for the environment should spend that time actually looking into what can be done to help reduce our negative impacts on this little planet of ours.
There are many small things that can be done which will add up to a good thing.

Perth's summer heatwaves.

I haven't written anything for ages because it has been far too stinkin' hot to do anything in the garden.
This time of year I water as little as possible, just enough to keep important things alive; rarities in pots, a few herbs, the frog ponds and tubs all topped up and the occasional new seedling of something that wants summer heat to get started.
This is when the concept is handy of putting the propagation area both near a tap and somewhere that you will almost trip over it everyday so you are reminded to water the tender little dears. Start at the back door, so each time you go and look at the garden there are the plant babies in their small easy to let dry out pots.
This house has no reticulation or watering system, except the hose. I think retic systems make people too separate from the gardens making watering too easy and things happen in the garden that can be missed, like a pest or disease infestation.

Gardener's holiday.
Gardener's holiday, we call it. High summer. 35C highs for 4 or 5 days at a time. Too hot to bother being out there, except in the shade of the beautiful Gleditsia. Sure I could be growing lots of veges - though last year I found the capsicums didn't enjoy the extreme high temperatures anyway. if I had fruit trees they'd be happy, but it just takes forgetting to water a couple of times and your good work in small herbs and annual vege growing becomes dust and mulch.
It really brings out the fact that perennial plants are the way to go; you can get them established with the rain in winter and only need to look after them sporadically during the hot season. Deep soaks once in a while in summer can get the right things by.
Perennial veg' such as asparagus are good. Short term perennials such as silver-beet and chives are handy; long season crops like leeks and onions can grow throughout summer for use in winter, so there are things going on, they just don't get much of my attention.
The figs and grapes are happy though - again given little help but we have fruit from both.
A few of the native plants i put in are going well, many flowers will come in autumn, I am hoping.

It did actually rain the other day, quite well, not the disastrous flooding that is going on in Queensland. It was welcome relief after the consistent 30C plus days we'd had for most of 2 weeks previous.I was happy as it meant I didn't have to use any of Perth's tap water on my garden.
Tomorrow I am back at uni; currently a little nervous about starting chemistry...quite scared in fact. It is the maths fear.
When I am feeling stressed, it will be good to be able to look out the window at my low-water use garden and consider the eventual outcome of my learning fears and successes - to help restore degraded landscapes and encourage effective water use and reuse, using all the principles I have learned in permaculture and from just staring at the garden and thinking about it.

What's the right mulch to use?

In Perth for some reason there are people who promote the use of black mulch for their amenity gardens. This is not the recommended waterwise practice. It is better to use a chunky mulch, such as pine bark, which allows water to quickly soak through to the soil below. Many of the dark, fine mulches actually absorb the water. Not only this but I believe the dark colour is not going to keep the mulch as cool as a lighter coloured low-density mulch like chunky woodchips. Even pebbles would work well, having the added benefit of condensing water from the air in the wee hours of the morning, providing a little water in dry environments. However, many of these pebbles are sourced in a very unsustainable manner.
Vegetable gardens are treated differently as they use mulch more quickly, receiving more regular water. For vegetables use a layer of weed-free straw or hay (best being lucerne or pea-hay) if there are large gaps between plants or sprinkle manure or mulching compost on there occasionally during the growth season. It will get broken down by the higher level of biological activity. Ideally the whole of the soil surface is covered with some small herbs or low growing veges to protect the soil surface. It depends on whether you grow veges in tidy rows or untidy clumps. Both have their merits.