Getting veg ready

So last weekend my wonderful dad picked me up in his campervan and took me to buy some planks of wood so we could make a homemade planter. We spent approx £32 and came home with 2x6ft planks, 4x8ft planks, 2x6ft posts and a pack of screws.

We came up with the design first so that we had a clear plan and then spent approx two hours sawing and building. I wanted something that would sit against our kitchen wall, in easy reach for grabbing veg to cook. Here is the finished article!

Super chuffed with how it’s come out and so much cheaper than buying one! Also got a lot of satisfaction out of making it ourselves.

This is going to home chilli plants, kale, radishes and spinach. Only a few weeks to go before I can start sowing the seeds!

Ecotricity

We’ve made the move and switched to an Eco electric and gas supplier. We decided to go with Ecotricity. During sign up we were offered £50 of John Lewis vouchers and then because we also did a recommend a friend through my sister, we also received £50 of vouchers for their Eco shop Ecotopia! Bonus!

On their website, Ecotricity describe themselves as the worlds first green energy supplier. They have a ‘bills into mills’ policy meaning that profits made are put into building wind farms and the like. I know there are always going to be arguments against how green things like wind farms are, but I feel a lot better being with this company than one of the other Big 6.

http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/

We’ve done our shop on Ecotopia today, the £50 has afforded us some bulk buys of Eco laundry detergent etc. so that’s been great.

In other news, the weekly bread making continues to go well, today’s loaf had the best consistency yet! And our courgettes have had a massive growth spurt, probably way to early but may have to plant them out in the next few weeks.

 

January update

Nearly half way through January and we’re making good progress on our plans for this year.

We’re successfully adhering to the reusing bags and have only taken two small plastic carrier bags this year (both from the butcher who seems to put the meat in without asking!)
I’ve been making homemade bread weekly, last week I actually made two as we found out the first one was not cooked inside when I sliced it open in the morning!

We started using reusable sandwich wraps for lunches each day a few months back and we’ve continued with that.
We’ve recycled as much waste as possible include food waste. Today was our first general waste bin day this year. I’m proud to say we only put out half a black bin liner. Much less than previous. Interestingly our recycling bin last week we so full we had to put an extra cardboard box full of recycling out as well as the bin!

As I had the day off today, I decided to take a trip to the garden centre (sold my car last week so took the local ‘car club’ car). We’re growing our own vegetables and herbs, but in the interest of minimising food waste we’re only growing the vegetables we know we eat a lot of. So, whilst some I can’t sow outside until March, I did plant some seeds indoors today.

So we have basil, chilli (mixed), rosemary and courgette. Seeds being sowed straight into the garden in March will be – kale, spinach, mixed leaf salad and tomatoes.

We have also been buying all food locally where possible, managing to find an excellent local butcher and greengrocer.

In an effort to only use eco friendly home cleaning products, last weekend we purchased Method shower spray and all surface cleaning spray. Now we are just waiting for confirmation from Ecotricity, our Eco energy supplier for both gas and electric, that we are officially signed up!

Finally, made some nice homemade crisps! Parsnip and sweet potato…and no packaging!

So far January, so good!

Whoops!

Oh what an epic fail! To not have blogged in so many months! Not that I think these are being read… But still.

Over the last 14 months me and my fiancé have been living with various family members saving for our new home. And last month we finally moved in! I’ve spent the time we’ve been living with family researching various Eco / zero waste / frugal living tips. Now we our in our home we can put so many into practice!

So 2016 objectives for life in our new home:

• Try and live as close to zero waste as possible
• Reuse bags, don’t get any more plastic
• Make homemade bread weekly
• Reduce use of cling film by using reusable sandwich wraps for lunches each day
• Recycle as much waste as possible include food waste
• Start composting and have composter in the garden
• Plant wild flowers for bees and butterflies
• Grow our own vegetables and herbs
• Buy all other food locally where possible and with minimal packaging
• Buy highly efficient energy rated appliances
• Only use eco friendly home cleaning products
• Get rid of car and join car club (to be used sparingly!)
• In turn, walk and cycle more
• Reduce clutter and recycle, donate or upcycle unwanted items
• Try to purchase less items in plastic packaging
• Move to Eco energy supplier for both gas and electric

I think that covers the majority of thing! Some we have already completed (energy efficient white goods, Eco energy supplier, recycling, bread making) and others are in progress. I’ll continue to document our progress, share any tips we find and keep going green in Norfolk!

Poor blogging

Ok, so I think I may have failed the first part of blogging, in that I haven’t blogged in ages. It’s been a pretty busy couple of months but plans for the Eco-wedding continue (venue now booked and the date is set for August 2016). 

My sister kindly bought me this book, so me and my fiancé are off to Cornwall for a week tomorrow so I’ll take the opportunity to have a read and see what other ideas we can come up with! 

  
I’ve also had a rethink on what I want to do career wise. Working in the financial sector doesn’t always feel morally great and I’d really like to spend the majority of my life feeling like I’m actually contributing something to the world, in terms of the environment and wildlife. I’ve just submitted an application for a volunteer position with the Norfolk wildlife trust, working at one of their reserves on weekends. Hopefully this can give me some good experience and help lead to a full time role in an area where I’m able to do some good for the planet. 

Over the last few weeks I’ve been speaking to my dad and he’s very much on board with me building a herb spiral in his garden, I think my sister might be up for me bulding one for her too! All will be a good practice for when me and David finally get our home.

So a few things planned and plenty to blog about, just need to make some effort to post a little more regularly!

How did I not think of this before?

As a new user of WordPress I’ve started to get to grips with finding other blogs I may enjoy and ‘liking’ them. I found one (journal of a greenie) and was looking back at her past blogs. I came across something so simple I can’t help but wonder why this wasn’t one of the first things I thought to change. The simple reusable coffee mug. Thank you journal of a greenie!

My office has a Costa coffee on the ground floor and at least once a day (twice if I’m extra tired), I will buy a regular skinny latte and it is given to me in a disposable cardboard mug. I assumed these cardboard cups were recyclable, we even have a specific bin for them at work. However researching them online brings up articles such as this –

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/04/five-of-the-best-reusable-coffee-cups

25,000 tonnes of waste a year. Incredible. Time to buy a reusable coffee cup.

In other news, our brand name washing up liquid ran out today, giving me the opportunity to buy some Ecover. 1 litre of lemon & aloe vera washing up liquid for £2 in Sainsburys supermarket. Happy with that.

Can we have an Eco-Wedding? Part 1

Whilst this journey is only just beginning, with these recent thoughts about going Green, I can’t help but wonder how that could impact on our wedding planning?
We’re in the early stages, having only just picked a venue. It’s an old barn that use to house fertiliser on a farm in the middle of nowhere, perfect! The owners of the farm have just started renting it out for weddings and it’s an absolute steal to hire. The best part is, they are completely ok with anything we want. Stocking our own booze, no corkage fee, fields available for campers, happy for us to have braziers etc.
Myself and David are looking to have a very non-traditional wedding, leaving out most of the normal traditions I.e. Wedding breakfasts, cutting the cake etc etc. This venue is the perfect blank canvas for us. The date is provisionally set for May 2016. Lots of time to put plans into action.
So onto making it Eco.
Current plans are for us to up cycle, reuse and recycle where possible. The venue doesn’t provide any cutlery, crockery or glassware. So we’re looking to source this for free and then pass it on to a charity shop afterwards. I’ve contacted a couple of local pubs where we are considered ‘regulars’ and asked them if we can have any glasses they would normal get rid of (they said they would normally recycle the glasses or pass onto a charity shop themselves). The first pub started us off with 14 pint glasses (the logos are a little worn, but they’re free) and have given us the promise of future glasses. It seems just one pub could get us to the amount we need.
For crockery and cutlery I’ve put ads out on Freecycle and Gumtree asking for anyone in the local area looking to get rid of items to consider donating them to us instead! We’ll wait and see if that is successful!
On to drink. A number of our friends are ale drinkers and have barrels and kegs for home brewing. One of our ideas is to ask a few Ale drinking friends to brew batches (we’ll provide the ingredients) of ale for our wedding. We’ll keep hold of used beer bottles, these can be reused to put the home brews in, and they can also be recycled afterwards. In addition, a couple of family members have wine making kits so more reusing, recycling and home brewing opportunities there too! And to add to this, an opportunity for some foraging for elderflowers and elderberries to make some wine and liqueurs.
Plan is for a hog roast for the daytime food with lots of locally sourced seasonal vegetables. Then in the evening, wooden boxes filled with homemade bread, Jams, cheese and butter. Again the jam will be made with foraged fruit where possible. Having a over a year to go gives plenty of time for picking and freezing!
With the option of camping, this offers free overnight accommodation for all of our guests and also means that our party can continue a little longer!
The barn doesn’t have heating, whilst I’m sure it will be fine in May, my plan is to buy some blankets (or again source some for free!) to offer some warmth and comfort to our guests!
Lighting will mainly be tea light candles in jam jars (I’ve already seen a number of ads for free jam jars on gumtree) or aluminium tins (kept from canned food) up cycled into lanterns. Currently looking into the greenest options for candles, looking like beeswax or vegetable Palm.
My sister has a number of artificial wedding-style flowers. She has stock which has already been used for a number of weddings and shows, this seems like the perfect opportunity to get yet another use out of these artificial flowers. Other than that, any other plant life would be herbs in pots that can be taken home and used afterwards.
This is just a start and at the moment, it’s just ideas. More research to be done, but already I’m feeling like this wedding could be a lot more ‘Eco’ than most I’ve been to.

Changing how I purchase products

So a way of starting this journey would be to change to way I buy products and the decisions I make in terms of which products to buy.

My good friend and role model, Lisa, has Ecover products in her home. If she uses them then they have to be good for the planet!

Researching them online, Ecover is a Belgium-based company that manufactures ecologically sound cleaning products (made from plant-based and mineral ingredients). If you visit their website uk.ecover.com there are some interesting articles on there about their plans to increase ocean plastic recycling etc.

So my first swap was to stop purchasing brand name laundry gel and switch this for Ecover laundry gel. Both products are of a similar size and price, Ecover can just be a little more difficult to source as their products aren’t widely available at big supermarkets (sad really). However their website has a great matrix showing who stocks what for them in the UK.

First two washes with the laundry gel have been completed, I opted for non bio so maybe some the stain removal hasn’t been quite as good as my prior product but other than that no issues so far!

So plans now are to swap out all household products for Ecover as and when the ones I currently have are used up. I’ve also noticed on their website that they do refills to avoid wasting packaging so I little more investigating required to find out how I can source these.

Hello world!

So, not only is this my first post but it’s also my first ever blog. Not 100% sure on how it all works and this is already my second attempt but fingers crossed!

So a bit of a set up first – I live with my fiancé (David), we’re saving for our own home and a wedding so at the moment we’re living in my sister’s house with her and her husband. Over the last month I’ve been thinking more and more about how I want me and David to live in our home. Having only a roomful of possessions in our current home has made me wonder how much of the stuff currently stored in boxes filling an entire garage is actually needed? How much is unnecessary waste? And what do we actually need to live a happy life together?

I’ve always been someone who recycles their paper and wine bottles and tries not to waste food, but I’m keen to take this to another level and really try to embrace a sustainable, environmentally friendly, fair trade, greener lifestyle. One of my best friends does a great job in living her life this way and she has set an example for me and it’s something I think I would enjoy being part of. I’d also like to know that I’m reducing the impact we would have on damaging this amazing planet we live on.

I started this this blog to help my document this journey and hopefully show me that I am making progress!

So currently I do things such as minimise food waste – freeze left overs and fresh veg/fruit before it goes out of date. Recycle where possible – card, glass, plastic, tin. Grow herbs and dry these instead of purchasing from supermarkets. Prior to moving I used to cycle to and from work each day (distance, poor public transport options and freezing conditions have temporarily got me back in a car, not great) and finally I will occasionally buy fair trade where it’s a noticeable option to me.

Plenty of areas to improve on and just by listing the things I do now, it really highlights for me how little it is and what more I could do. And so begins, my journey to a greener life!