2015 in retrospect

Just before New Year last December, I told a friend that 2015 was going to be a good year. Yet I didn’t really believe it – in my heart I had a foreboding that things might actually be quite bad.

Now, I am sure that you are only too aware of terrible events that have been happening round the world, so giving a rundown here would serve no purpose. After all, I want this blog to be a message of hope, if nothing else.

I don’t think anything I do is going to mitigate climate change or bring world peace. However, I can make my world more resilient and that’s why I bother to move further away from consumerism, supermarkets and plastic.

For me, the biggest plus of 2015 has been finding my social niche. Permaculture may not be everyone’s cup of tea but through Leeds Permaculture Network and Old Sleningford Farm I have found togetherness and harmony.

Then of course there is the garden. There seems to be as much work as ever to do – it has not yet become the paradise I would like. At the same time, I now know what I am doing with it.

First and foremost, it’s a question of soil fertility. When I compare the beetroot from my local organic farm (how lucky am I to live so close to such an outlet!) with my own,

  
which might be pretty but the biggest of which is about a third of the size of a small beetroot from the aforementioned, I know it’s not my skill. Well, it could be that as well, going on the state my cauliflowers are in (I’ll leave those to your imagination), but hugel beds and manure are called for in tall order.

I’m trying to operate a closed loop, whereby I create my own compost without resorting to the bought kind. I don’t want to drive my car to a garden centre for something which has travelled from somewhere else and is contained in plastic (‘not currently recyclable’). Easier said than done.

Ah! But the piece de resistance is….. the bokashi bin. I love it, love it, love it. I just need to learn how to make my own probiotics for fermentation. Although at least the stuff I currently use comes from a family firm in recyclable bottles.

And my produce might weigh in at less than I would like right now but even in the heart of winter I’m still eating my own. Chillies, tomatoes, cabbage, garlic, coriander, fennel seeds, and yes cauliflower. That’s just the fresh stuff. 

I’ve also got four bags of phacelia flowers in the airing cupboard. What fun am I going to have with those in 2016?

In just under two weeks, I will embark on the first weekend of the Permaculture Design Course, which I am very excited about. I just hope the flood waters will have gone down by then so I can get there….

Whatever your plans, hopes and dreams for the coming year, I hope it’s a good one. Take care and have fun x