Own Grown Gardening

I find myself increasingly wondering what a Net-Zero future might look like. Is such a future even possible?  Here in the UK, the government has signed a commitment for this country " to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 ". From where I'm standing at this moment on the cusp of 2023, to achieve this target feels almost farcical while simultaneously imperative. Some look to Cuba as a model for how to adapt. " The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil " takes this view. On the one hand, I find this documentary quite inspiring. One of its key messages seems to be that overcoming adversity has the power to bring us together for positive long lasting change. A pleasant thought when contemplating how to minimise and even survive climate change. On the other hand, is this documentary's message too simplistically idyllic to the point of misleading? Hmmm... I fear it might be... Let's examine Cuba as a case study. What caused the cr...

  I was lucky enough to collect a windfall of medlar from a local tree a couple weeks ago. As you can see, they are an odd looking fruit that, due to there rather unfortunate shape, where known once as the open-arse.  Although not widely known today, in Medieval Europe, it was a prized fruit. So much so that Charlemagne , in 800AD, mandated that all his gardens grew them. The reason it was so loved is because of the season medlar ripen. The fruit are ready to harvest very late, at the end of November and into December. This is a time when little else sweet remains. Bizzarely, when you harvest them from the tree, they are still hard. Not edible at all. The windfall medlar I collected off the ground where the same. Rock hard. To ripen them, I layed them along a windowsill out of direct sunlight for a good couple weeks.  Medlar probably fell out of favour, and into downright obscurity, due to the strange way they ripen. Some liken it to rotting rather than ripening, which ...