Oh, it is! I’ll prove it.
This is my very first attempt to grow a plant from a cutting. It’s a Rose Geranium which I’m assured grows like a weed and so should survive my attentions. I was offered the cutting by a friend recently and I hesitated. Propagating plants from cuttings - that’s serious gardening! I wasn’t sure I was up for it. Then I remembered I’d heard at an organic gardening workshop ages ago that cuttings can be grown in worm castings (vermipost) without needing hormone powder. Since I have heaps of vermipost sitting in my sad little worm farm I was pleased at the idea of not having to trot off to the garden centre to buy a product.
I decided to give it a try. It’s been about 3 weeks and while I can’t see if it has grown roots yet, it hasn’t died either. And as Melanie says about cuttings: “If they die, then they didn’t root, and if they stay alive, well they must have rooted.”
Simple! Even for me.
I actually have some numbers already. Not too sure about them, but they’re a start.
Using the Energywise fuel economy guide and the numbers I gave Nikki (see the comments on the First Things First post), I worked out that my car’s fuel economy is a staggeringly awful 17.1 litres per 100 km.
I really hope I’ve stuffed up my estimates of both how much petrol I put in it and how far I drive it because using that fuel economy number to calculate how much petrol we used last year gives a really high number of litres used last year.
Remember the rule:
Average American usage is 1892.705892 (let’s say we round up to 1900) Litres PER PERSON, PER YEAR. So this would be 7600 litres for my family of four. A 90 percent reduction would be 190 litres PER PERSON, PER YEAR or a total of 760 litres of petrol for the next 52 weeks.
So where are we right now?
Using an odometer reading taken tonight and my WOF records I worked out that over the last year we drove 9249.6 km which sounds about right to cover the about town trips and two family holidays which involved a lot of driving. That doesn’t sound too bad, right?
Well when I use the figure of 17.1 litres per 100 km to figure out how much petrol was used, look what happens:
9249.6 km divided by 100 then multiplied by 17.1 gives me 15816.816 litres of petrol.
Which simply can’t be right. Not when the average American usage is 7600 litres. Please someone tell me where I stuffed it up. I must have stuffed it up. There is a reason I did a degree in Classical Studies and not Mathematics you know ;>
So now, while I’m reeling from that little revelation I guess all I can do now is start keeping a detailed driving log and try and figure out more accurately what my car’s fuel economy is.
Oh, and of course try not to use more than 14.6 litres of petrol per week for the next year!
By the way, Nikki has already posted her audit in all the categories already!
1. Gasoline.Average American usage is 500 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR. A 90 percent reduction would be 50 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR.
* No reduction in emissions for ethanol or biodiesel.
* Public transportation and Waste Veggie Oil Fuel are deemed to get 100 mpg, and should be calculated accordingly.
(Quoted from the rules for the Riot for Austerity 90% Emissions Reduction Project)
1 Gallon = 3.785411784 Litres so 500 gallons = 1892.705892 Litres.
100 mpg = 160.934 4 kilometres per 3.785411784 Litres
But what is the average New Zealand usage? How many litres do we (personally) use at the moment? Is it better or worse than the average? How many kilometres does my car get out of a litre of petrol? Why are we still averaging the same kilometres a week despite several weeks of Car-Free Tuesdays?
I’m really going to focus on this for a while. Mostly because that last point is really bugging me. Despite my personal efforts to not use the car, as far as I can tell we ‘re still driving about the same distance.
So the next step is to answer those tough questions. And if you happen to stumble across any useful stats re the average NZ petrol usage, let me know!
By the way, this is a new, local site about global warming which has a very handy page about other stuff you can do to reduce your personal emissions as well as what you can do after you’ve sorted yourself out.
Nikki suggested to me that I needed to find something to focus on and this might be it.
If you read the same sites I link to, then you are probably already aware of the Riot for Austerity 90% Emissions Reduction Project (is it too soon to call it a movement?).
I think to make it relevant to me, all the targets would have to be translated into New Zealand averages. It’s a lot to think about.
If you’re intrigued, have a look at the rules.
Then if you’re still keen, maybe we can do it together?
My favourite gardening books are Urban Gardener by Elspeth Thompson (a collection of her columns from the Sunday Telegraph Magazine describing how she builds an inner city garden and tames an allotment plot) and Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Micheal Pollan (described on its cover as a “manifesto for rethinking our relationship with nature”).
I am a fairly useless person.
I grow nothing (well, nothing really useful at the moment. I have some herbs, late tomatoes and a chilli plant-hardly enough to feed myself or anyone else).
I make nothing (not including meals or my bed occasionally).
I produce nothing except waste and greenhouse gases.
Would buying nothing for a month (or a year) make up for this at all?
Ok, yes. I have been neglecting the garden. But it’s winter! I’m allowed to! In fact both of my favourite gardening books tell me so. I’m supposed to be lolling around in front of the heater reading back issues of the NZ Gardener and thinking about what I’m going to grow in August. I’ve also been pondering the seed catalogue at ecoseeds and planning what to plant as soon as the sun comes back.
We have decided that we’ll probably stay in this flat for another year at least so I can make some plans. My favourite idea at the moment is to take over the children’s sandpit (which got much better sun than my garden-a mere half a metre away-did), fill it with a mixture of compost, vermiculite and peat moss (”Mel’s Mix” from The New Square Foot Gardening ) and grow my summer garden there.
I think the children are probably going to fight me on that one, but I’m sure I can talk them round.
Most of the other gardening I’ve been doing has either been of the indoor variety or just watching what’s been happening outside. And actually, some pretty weird things have been happening outside. Well I think they’re weird, but I’m hardly an old hand at this gardening thing.
In New Zealand we’ve just had the warmest May in an awfully long time and at my place I not only still have tomato plants giving me fruit, I have new marigolds making an appearance all over the place. I expected the calendulas that are also popping up because I’d been told they go all year around here, but I thought that the marigolds are a strictly spring/summer thing. I’m just showing off my ignorance now! All I can do is to keep reading and watching what happens.
I just wanted to add to my previous post that I’m impressed that Patrick Quinton (the Car Free World guy) has children! Most of the blogs I’ve read where someone is taking personal action for the environment they seem to either have no children or children who are not old enough to argue.
I have children who are old enough to argue and it’s been a pain in the bum recently. It starts as soon as I suggest an outing:
#1 son: “Can we drive to Te Papa?”
me: ” No, we’ll walk down and get the train. It’ll be fun!”
#2 son: “No walk! no walk!”
#1 son: “But my legs huuuuuuuurt”
me: “But you don’t even have to walk, I’m going to be pushing you in the pram!”
#2 son: “Car! Please mama! Caaaaaaar!”
#1 son: “I don’t like taking the train anymore.”
#2 son: “No go on train, no go on train!”
(and so on, and so on…)
I don’t know why they’ve started arguing with me because once we’re out the door they usually enjoy themselves. #1 son magically recovers the use of his legs as soon as we’re on our way and runs down the hill to the crossing by the school with his brother running after him. And #2 son usually remembers that he loves trains by the time get down to the platform.
Walking up and down the bloody Wellington hills carrying the bag containing three changes of clothing for each person, the lunches and the library books, plus wrangling the pram on and off buses and trains is enough of an achievement I feel. I think I deserve a medal for wrangling the kids as well!
