We Garden Organically

For several reasons

Why spend money on chemicals when we have lots of time to weed and pick off bugs compared to the amount of money we have?
Our dogs, cat and chickens use the garden how would we feel if they were poisoned
We enjoy the strange beetles, gorgeous butterflies, varied birds, slow worms, lizards, toads and the odd cheeky mouse that visit our garden.
How would we feel if we poisoned ourselves

Reduce

Surprisingly since we are ten miles away from the nearest town we have reduced our car use considerably. Not surprising though when you consider that we no longer spend at least two hours each weekday on the M62 motorway. So instead of at least ten hours each week in the car we probably drive round for a couple at most. This is reducing further as we find out where everything is. The distances we travel are greater here but the traffic is much lighter so no standing in traffic jams.

It helps that three times a week the baker's van stops outside the house and once a week the grocers. This is one advantage of a village house compared to splendid isolation. As we grow more of our food and it only travels as far as from garden to kitchen we will reduce our food miles further.

Our electricity supply is limited to 3 kilowatts so we can't run electrical appliances without a bit of thought so they don't get left on on standby. This is more due to inertia than good intentions as we could get it upgraded we just never get round to it.

Our water supply is metered and our waste water goes to a septic tank both sound financial reasons to not waste it.

Reuse

There are no plastic carrier bags free in the supermarkets in our part of France, actually we are not sure if this applies to the whole of France or not. So everyone uses re-usable carriers of some kind (baskets, cardboard boxes their arms). You soon get in the habit of having a shopping bag in the car when you have to pay a euro for another re-usable bag. The downside is no free bin liners.

Although most of the packaging can be recycled some is put aside for re-use

Jars for jams and preserves
Bottles (Grolsh type) for homebrew
Plastic cartons for mini propagators
Newspaper for lighting the fire and paper plant pots

All scrap wood goes on the stove.

Since skips are rare in France the rubble from building works has been used to form hardcore for paths.

Recycle

We have to admit we did this in fits and starts un the UK. We just never seemed to get it organised and when we did get to the recycle point there never seemed to be anywhere for plastic bottles and cans. Now whichever way we set off in the car there is a re-cycle point and not just a bottle bank. We can re-cycle bottles, papers, tins. plastic bottles, tetrapak cartons and the big bug bear the plastic containers that buns and veg comes in. In fact the only things the dustbin gets are cooked food waste, fats plastic wrappings and polystyrene. We only have a small bin now and it is never full when the bin man calls.

Of course organic waste is composted where possible and who knows a wormary could be on the cards for the cooked stuff.

So there you have it WE ARE GREEN (ish) by accident and circumstance. But now we've started who knows it could lead anywhere we might even become worthy and wear woolly hats and stripey jumpers and stuff.