Opinion: Erasing Carbon Footprints

Recently I asked my grown up daughter to tell me what she thought of when I said the words ‘carbon footprint’. She has studied both biology and ethics and is a very modern young woman in her thinking. But her answer surprised me. She said, “Mom, I don’t know if you are talking about carbon testing or if you are talking about cave art, but if you are talking about the mess our world is in, it’s already too late.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. The first 15 years of my life were lived so carefully, so frugally, and so within the bounds of sustainable living, I didn’t realize that my middle 40 years would be spent destroying the very things I held dear. But I’ll be the first to admit it, the mindless conveniences that came with the 70s and those years that followed, proved to be our downfall.  That was the era when my daughter grew up.

We got used to packaged foods, we drove fast cars, we couldn’t do without our microwaves or our cans of hairspray. We worked hard, we rewarded ourselves with dinners out; loud motors lined up side by side in our garages, speedboats took us there quickly and big box stores satisfied our every need.

Our homes had to be set to the most comfortable temps, our appliances were for our immediate convenience, and prepared foods filled our tummies. We had plastic bags for groceries, plastic bottles and aluminum cans for drinks; we paid our city workers to take away our unsorted trash, we never gave a thought to where it was dumped or if it could be recycled. That word was not a part of our vocabulary. We hired landscape designers to create our perfect lawns, to keep the bugs away, and to cure the black spot on our roses with harsh chemicals.

We left a lot of ugly footprints, and most of us didn’t even realize what we were doing.  But I disagree with my daughter. I don’t think it’s too late to make some changes.

Carbon footprints is a term used to indicate the amount of damage we are doing to our world:  air pollution, gas guzzling, wasting electricity, carelessly tossing plastic, aluminum and glass; using up energy and ignoring little things that might help fade some of those deep footprints that we really didn’t mean to make.  It means how much carbon goes into the air because of something done by people and not by nature.

We already know what we’ve done. What I want to talk about are those small things we can do to stop damaging our earth, to start erasing our our ugly footprints.

We love to garden.  Most of us have enough flowers in our yards to provide thousands of blooms. What if we turned half of our flower gardens into food gardens? And while we are gardening for food, what if we teach our children and grandchildren to do the same thing? And what if we grow food organically and depend on nature to monitor our soil and what grows in it? See, we can’t totally erase that footprint, but maybe we can fill in the ruts a little bit.

Plants are carbon offsets. They use up the carbon and replace it with oxygen. What if you don’t have an acre of yard space?  It really doesn’t matter, simply growing your own herbs in a windowsill is a step in the right direction.  But if you do have a yard, even a small one, grow something useful.  Grow vegetables and fruit trees. No room for trees? Then how about growing strawberries in a barrel or a couple of blueberry bushes or even a patch of rhubarb over in the corner?  How about grapevines?  There’s nothing prettier in summer than a grape arbor.

And grow organically. If you turn part of your yard into a vegetable or fruit garden, you don’t have to mow. Improve your soil with a worm farm. Make your own organic pesticides. Take a look at what you have and go from there. If you can grow a flower, you can grow lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, onions, squash, garlic and even spinach.  What more do you need? That's a full meal in itself. And if your yard is small, then grow vertically in tiered boxes.

Smaller means you won’t be able to milk Elsie the cow every morning, and you might not hear the crow of a rooster in your back yard, but you can grow enough vegetables and herbs to feed your family. Saving your seeds from year to year means you are also saving money, investing in the future.  Don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t grow your own food. All it takes is sun, soil, water and determination.

Now take a look at medicinal plants. There’s nothing better for your skin than salve or lotion made from comfrey.  Stuffy nose? Try steeping a sprig of rosemary and inhaling the steam. It works every time.  Can’t sleep?  Try munching on that celery from your garden. Celery is loaded with sedatives.  The list of medicinal plants is endless.

So is the list of edible flowers; you certainly don’t have to give up your flower garden.  Plant flowers that are edible as well as beautiful.  Daylilies are edible; rose hips make very nice jelly. Nasturtiums on a salad are as tasty as they are pretty. Plant flowers that can be companion plants to your vegetables; flowers bring in bees, bees pollinate your vegetables.  What you sow is what you also reap, so be sure what you reap is usable.

Each of us has no doubt left some pretty large carbon footprints. I think it’s time we stopped what we are doing wrong and start thinking about what we can do right.   We are all gardeners or we wouldn’t be on a gardening site, so let’s start with gardening.

I was taught to make do with what I had. I was taught to live off the land.  For a while I forgot my roots and all my learning, but it isn't too late to remember.

You need better soil? Take a look at this article. It’s all about worms.

You don’t know a thing about herbs? Look here and here.

You never heard of companion planting? Read this.

And seeds, look through this forum.

Permaculture, an amazing reunion between people and our earth; go here.

What else can we do - in addition to growing our own food - that will help reduce our carbon footprints?

*Plant native; if your plants are native to your area they’ll grow better and produce more.

*Share or sell your excess produce, or swap with like minded neighbors.

*If your tap water is safe for drinking, don’t buy bottled water, we don’t need the excess plastic or the packaging it comes in.

*Work in your garden for exercise; give up your gym membership, you won’t need it.

*Reuse, recycle, repurpose.

And let's remember the Victory Gardens. We could learn a lot from the actions of communities during the 40's. Here is the best explanation I can share with you about them and it comes from a site called 'Wessels Living History Farm, Farming in the 40's'.  The link is in the words "Victory Garden" in the first paragraph below:

As part of the war effort, the government rationed foods like sugar, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, coffee, meat and canned goods. Labor and transportation shortages made it hard to harvest and move fruits and vegetables to market. So, the government turned to its citizens and encouraged them to plant "Victory Gardens." They wanted individuals to provide their own fruits and vegetables.

Nearly 20 million Americans answered the call. They planted gardens in backyards, empty lots and even city rooftops. Neighbors pooled their resources, planted different kinds of foods and formed cooperatives, all in the name of patriotism.

Farm families, of course, had been planting gardens and preserving produce for generations. Now, their urban cousins got into the act. All in the name of patriotism.

The result of victory gardening? The US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted. Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables. So, the program made a difference.

It’s the little things that will make a big difference if we all do them.  I’m sure you have your own ideas about reducing our carbon footprints. I barely touched the surface here in this article. Why don’t you take a minute and share your thoughts in the threads that follow?

Since we are all gardeners anyway, no matter if it’s boxes on a balcony, strawberries in a barrel, roosters crowing on the fence post, or milking Elsie every morning, it can start with us. Let’s give it a try, it’s for sure we have nothing to lose.

~*~

All photos with the exception of the footprint, daylilies, appleblossom and rose hips are by courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons, GNU license. The Victory Gardens poster was done by an artist named Morley and was introduced in 1945.