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Due to overwhelming amounts of spam commenting, I have temporarily closed comments. I’ll open them as soon as possible.
I apologize if you’ve commented recently and your comment never appeared; it probably got lumped in with the bad stuff and deleted. Sorry.
Wishing you and your families a very happy holiday and all the best for the new year. Thank you for reading and contributing to Heavy Petal this year – I couldn’t have done it without you!
Love,
Andrea
Have you seen The Story of Stuff yet? You can watch a teaser below, but I urge you to watch the full version here.
What is it, you ask? It’s a 20-minute film that’s a provocative look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns; about “all our stuff–where it comes from and where it goes when we throw it away.”
If that sounds boring, it’s not. It’s really well-done, easy to understand, and in many places, eye-opening. Yes, it’s 20 minutes long – short for a film, but long to watch off the side of your desk – but I got so absorbed I wasn’t even tempted to shut it down. If you are, you can navigate through it so you don’t watch the whole thing. Or watch it on your lunch break.
It’s narrarated by Annie Leonard, an activist who has spent the past 10 years traveling the globe fighting environmental threats:
Leonard examines the real costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal, and she isolates the moment in history where she says the trend of consumption mania began. The Story of Stuff examines how economic policies of the post-World War II era ushered in notions of “planned obsolescence” and “perceived obsolescence” — and how these notions are still driving much of the U.S. and global economies today.
I try to practice sustainable principles in my daily life, but consuming less is a constant struggle for me. Hell, I have a category called “Retail Therapy”! The Story of Stuff is a great reminder that consuming comes with a cost beyond the check-out till.
 gDiapers: cute – and good for the earth.
In just four months, I’ll be contending with mountains of stinky diapers. It seems to be the one given in a postpartum world. I mean, there’s a chance the Lentil might take after his or her momma and sleep through the night from three weeks old (please, Holy Mary, please). Or there could be colic and irritability and general chaos (more likely). When it comes down to it, poop, it seems, is the one constant.
Until recently, I hadn’t given a whole lot of brain space to the diaper dilemma. I knew that I didn’t want to use traditional disposables for obvious reasons, but, while cloth diapers have come a long way since my butt was wrapped in them, the laundry requirements seem like they could be a little overwhelming – especially during those sleepless first months. So I thought I would go with a biodegradable disposable.
Then I read about gDiapers on Mighty Girl. gDiapers consist of a washable, cotton outer pant with an absorbent, plastic-free
flushable insert. You flush the poopy inserts but, if you wish, you can compost the wet ones. How cool is that? Hey, as the site notes, baby’s urine is a great source of nitrogen! I wonder, though, do diapers count as a “brown” (dry leaves, etc.) or a “green” (kitchen scraps, etc.)?
It’ll be a while before I can report back to you, but if anyone’s used these, or had success with other environmentally-friendly diapers, please let me know.
Have you been following the discussion over at Cold Climate Gardening on why more older gardeners don’t blog?
Makes for interesting reading, and links quite nicely into my own personal interest in why more younger people don’t garden. I’m not alone in this query. Hanna at This Garden Is Illegal responded to Katie at Garden Punks‘ comment, “Why aren’t people in younger generations interested in gardening?!” with a post of her own, in which she raises two important points (as summarized by yours truly):
• Younger generations do garden. They’re just not all as obsessed with it as many of us bloggers. That doesn’t mean they don’t “enjoy plants and the act of growing something.” Although…
• They’re not calling themselves gardeners – either because they feel they don’t have the right, or don’t want to be associated with the title. I understand this one – at least the former point. It took me a while to realize that just because I didn’t know a physalis from a podocarpus didn’t mean I wasn’t weeding and planting and harvesting and, well, gardening.
So there you have two arguments for the well-being of gardening amongst the younger generations, and I’ll add a few more. I tend to agree with Hanna: I don’t know what the stats are, but I think the assertion that fewer young people are gardening is somewhat misleading.
As a “younger” person (at least by gardening standards) who is also a gardening addict, I feel like I straddle the divide somewhat. I’m more into gardening than most people my age, but I’m less into a lot of the things that typically define “a gardener” than the generations of gardeners ahead of me.
If you think of “a gardener” in the traditional sense – as in, one who tends a garden – yes, fewer youngins are doing it. First of all, and this is obvious, but younger gardeners are less likely to have a yard or outdoor space in which to create said garden. So they may not have a garden, but that doesn’t mean they’re not gardening. This brings me (finally) to my first point.
• Younger generations do garden, but their gardens may not be recognized as such by those expecting lawns and perennial beds. Their gardens may be the pots of herbs on the patio, the rampant collection of houseplants, or the scattered seeds left at a bus stop. So yeah, I believe gardening is alive and well amongst my peers (the under-35 crowd, though I think it has more to do about life stage than age). It may just look different than our parents’ ideas of gardening.
We’re also getting into gardening for different reasons. Here’s what I think is driving interest in gardening among the younger generations:
• Interior design and, to a lesser degree, the DIY/craft movement, has gone mainstream, and that’s carrying over into the garden. Many people in their 20s and 30s are often looking to move away from college-style decor and create a great living space – their patio or garden space, should they have one – is part of that.
• They’re interested in building community, and gardening, through a community garden or otherwise, is a great way to do that. Xris called it “community through gardening” — I love that. Many of the gardeners I meet are through my guerrilla gardening and social activism networks, and a desire to create community is what we really have in common. Many of these people – young or not-so-young – wouldn’t necessarily call themselves gardeners. But they’re helping to build community gardens and throwing seedbombs — I say they’re gardening.
• Food security issues. This isn’t a new idea – many people in my grandparents’ generation gardened in order to provide their families with food – but it certainly wasn’t as prevalent in the subsequent generation. I see a resurgence of interest in growing your own food as a means of empowerment through self-reliance, often as a response to the issues surrounding peak oil and its effects on the global distribution of food.
• In a related way, environmental and sustainability concerns have also hit the mainstream, which has more young people realizing that gardening is a way to better their relationship with the earth. They’re reducing their production of waste through composting and they’re growing their own organic vegetables, for example.
If we expect to see younger people fitting neatly into the definition of a gardener as defined by mainstream media and marketing, of course we’ll see a decline. They’re not flocking to garden shows and botany lectures, or buying lawn fertilizers and fiberglass water features. But they’re out there. Slowly changing the definition of gardener forever.
 So, I have this rather sad, neglected Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) that has decided to bloom for me – in two different colours, no less! Just to be clear, this is the same plant producing blooms of different colours. Has anyone encountered this before? I’m not troubled by it – just curious as to why. Is this an example of reversion?
Ikea Hacker has a great post showcasing “hacked” Ikea products used to create planters and even a mini greenhouse.
I like the Asker utensil holder converted into a hanging planter, above, and the table, below, which utilizes three different Ikea products to make a table with built-in planter.
 And of course there’s the Heavy Petal hack: Fniss wastepaper basket into herb containers.
My husband has given me an ultimatum: get rid of my watering can. He’s
referring to my indoor watering can – an old, ugly mauve plastic job
that normally sits on the kitchen counter because there’s never any
room for it under the sink. So I can’t blame him for hating it, really.
But now I need a replacement. Something that will look good when it is
inevitably left out on the counter.
 So let’s get my fantasy watering cans out of the way first. Like the Zack Rocco Stainless Steel Watering Can, above. It’s $97.88, sure, but so lovely. I could definitely leave that out. Zack makes some other beautiful watering cans, like the Pianto and the Arco.
 I just adore the Rosenthal ‘Dumbo’ Watering Can, which is porcelain and probably heavy as hell. It’s $93.75.
 Moving down the price scale, the Blomus ‘Greens’ Watering Can in stainless steel is a sleek modern take on a traditional design. It’s $43.91.
 Speaking of modern classics, the Rumford Gardener Stainless Steel Watering Can isn’t bad either – and at $24.70 won’t break the bank.
 The OXO Good Grips Mini Pour and Store Watering Can isn’t for everyone, sure. I don’t know that my husband would want it on the counter, but it sure looks funky, and is ergonomically-designed to boot. It comes in several colours, including gray and white. It’s just $7.38
 Finally, there’s the Plastec Turquoise Stack Water Can - simple and cheap ($2.42). How can you lose?
Yesterday morning, we woke up to snow. As if the turning of the calendar page triggered Arctic chill. It seems snow has become more and more common in Vancouver over the past few years. I guess that’s part of the global warming/weird weather phenomenon. At this point, please allow me a short lecture, since I’ll be asked, anyway:
No, actually, Vancouver is quite mild. Snow is rare, though lately we’ve been getting it two or three times a year. It melts quickly though. No, I don’t live in an igloo or drive a dogsled (I swear to God I’ve been asked this more than once). In fact, I don’t own winter tires or a snow shovel, though today I wish I had a Crazy Carpet. Those were good times.
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