Pete’s 10 Green New Years’ Resolutions for 2008

Green guilt is racking the nation, we should be doing something, we know we should but we never get time. New Year is the time to make a plan, says naturalchoices editor Peter Shield. Here is my list of New Year’s resolutions to try and make 2008 more enjoyable and productive than 2007.

1. Make more plans. So much of what I don’t get done is because I don’t plan it well enough. DIY projects get halted because that crucial widget is sitting in a closed shop and then forgotten about, planting projects get held up for more research which never gets done. 2008 is the year for advanced planning, and finishing each project step by step.

2. Make time- so much of what I planned for 2007 didn’t happen not because of lack of intent but lack of space to do it. So this year I am determined to take time to make time- that requires a little planning, doing weekly or 10 day menus so that one trip to the organic co-op shop and the market every 10 days or so is sufficient.

3. Make more food. 2007 was the first year of the vegetable patch. In 2008 we are going to move into full production. The best way to eat seasonally is to grow your own. My copy of Charles Dowding’s, ‘Organic Gardening: The Natural No Dig Way’ is going to get a good hammering- as is my back doing all that digging getting the beds ready to be no dig in the future. A green gym and green food solution all in one.

4. Make more drinks. An early Christmas present this year was a juicer- partly inspired by reading Great Brands:innocent, a history of the innocent fruit drinks company. Already the pear and apple trees have been planted, a few kiwis need to be added to pump up that vitamin C level. Could I also grow ginger this year? Last year’s mint was a bit of disaster, this year I am going to pack the kitchen garden with a range of mints and herbs to dry and make tea.


5. Make more meals. Snacking and eating on the run is a lazy, wasteful, and no fun way to eat. So in 2008 its making soup for a week, make sure each meal feeds into the next, so cold potatoes left over from dinner are the base of the tortilla for tomorrow, the remaining veg are used to make a stock. Most importantly it is also about taking time to eat with friends and neighbours, solve the problems of the world and have a good laugh. The collective knowledge about the farm and what is possible is not held in books but in the experience of the neighbours, meals time is the ideal time to unlock those secrets.

6. Make more compost. Recycling is good, re-using is even better, this year it is time to experiment with more than the simple recipe of everything goes into one bin and rots. Grape must – the remains after the winemakers have finished weaving their magic, horse muck, and if Caroline gets her way as she will, maybe a couple of our own donkeys will all be added to the mix this year. Also as an ex media guy I still have an addiction to the printed media- so will also experiment with shredded news print and cardboard. The glossy newsprint of The Economist will have to remain as a fire lighter as all that coloured ink won’t decompose very well- there is something strangely satisfying about watching all that free –market nonsense going up in smoke anyway.

7. Make more water- well actually not even with the most advanced chemistry can I do this but what I can do is capture more water with guttering and butts, also 80% of the water that gets sprayed in the garden is lost to evaporation before it reaches the roots. So with some empty mineral water bottles and some good African knowledge picked up from the East African organic producers website I will be installing a system to get the water direct to the roots. (For those interested you put a pin prick hole in the bottle top, cut off the bottom to the required depth and then bury the bottle upside down in the beds, instead of watering the whole bed you just fill up the up turned bottle and let it drip through to the roots). In the house a new shower is going in with a aerating head to reduce the amount of water used in the shower, similar heads are going on the taps. Grey washing up water is reused with the high tech assistance of a bowl to flush the loo.

8. Make more brain cells- again a bit of a physical impossibility, but maybe make the ones I have work more. This greener lifestyle is very technology heavy, as well as biology heavy- whether it is understanding the way water works its way through soil to creating the perfect soil conditions for a wide range of plants, how solar and wind systems work, to pickling and preserving produce- and of course this year the alembic for making lavender oil. Even trees are incredibly complex things when it comes to maintaining a sustainable wood supply. This year will be the year to go on courses, from organic agriculture for the olive and lavender planting, to essential oil making, and the one I have been talking about for 12 months- how to make organic soaps.

9. Make more networks. No matter how I flog the limited matter between my ears there is always some one somewhere who has forgotten more this morning that I have ever learnt on any subject under the sun. The key is to know who they are, how to find them and then once they have been identified and located how to gently tease the necessary information out of them. Actics.com, the Ethical Business Network, Ethical Junction, the Green Building Forums, Google Groups, Ethical Directory, Permaculture magazine, the Soil Association, off-grid.net – the list of networks goes on and on. The key to successfully using networks however is to give as much as you ask, if not more. 2008 is the year for feeding all that has been learnt so far and taking advice from people who are much further along the road. To this end I promise to put useful things on my blog and not just great tracks from Youtube.

10. Make Do. This Christmas has really brought home how little extra I actually need- the most useful present I received was a strap on head lamp- means that I can read in bed until the Photo Voltaic system is up and running, and see where I am going when run away from wild boar leaving my hands free to wave in the air in a panicky manner. Seriously if I remember not to chain saw in my best clothes and cover them in oil soaked saw dust then there is very little outside of building and gardening materials I really need in 2008.

Peter Shield is the editor of NaturalChoices, he lives in the Languedoc and is busy trying to renovate an old domaine and 56 acres of land into an organic lavender farm with a small olive grove. He is hoping to launch ethicalreading.com as a book review site to run alongside www.naturalchoices.co.uk in 2008. He has been talking about launching Ethical Investment News as a website for 12 months, 2008 will see if anything actually happens on that front- don’t hold your breath.

His useless blog can be found at http://editor-naturalchoices.blogspot.com/