If you look up how to reduce your carbon footprint online, you’ll find some common tips, such as flying less, eating less meat and shopping sustainably. However, growing your own food doesn’t usually reach the top list. Yet, I think that is one of the easiest ways to reduce our carbon emissions right now. Besides, growing our foods, aka gardening, brings many benefits to our physical and mental well-being.
Why people don’t grow their own foods?
The reasons could be:
- they THINK they don’t have the skills required
- they don’t have time to do so
- they don’t have time to do so
- they don’t have space for growing foods
I can totally relate to why some people think this way because I used to think like that, too. However, two years ago, one of my friends introduced me to gardening, and I came to learn how easy it could be!
Step #1 – Think small
First, forget all those professional gardeners or fancy gardens you’ve seen on TV. Your goal is to try growing your own foods to cut down your carbon/food footprint. You aren’t into this thing to try to compete in next year’s Chelsea flower show. Nor are you buying an allotment and growing all your vegetables so that you never need to buy fresh produce from supermarkets.
So, thinking on a much smaller scale will boost your willingness and confidence to try it!
Step #2 – Choose the easy one
If you’ve never done any gardening, starting with the easy veggies to grow for the first try, such as potatoes, courgettes/zucchinis, or spring onions, is vital. However, from my experience, nothing can be easier to grow than spring onions. What’s more? You don’t even need to buy any seeds to grow that! Let me show you how.
To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
Mahatma Gandhi
Step #3 – Use food scraps
In your next grocery shopping, look out for spring onions with roots. The longer the roots and healthier they look, the easier they can be regrown. I got mine with a cheap yellow sticker, i.e. reduced price – very little investment, indeed! 🙂
Next, remove the rubber bands from the spring onions. You don’t need to wash them. Instead, lay them on the chopping board and cut them two to three centimetres from the roots. If you don’t want to measure them, just cut the white bit and leave the green bit for your cooking later.
Step #4 – Choose a sunny day
Choose a sunny and warm day for your first try because gardening is much more enjoyable when the sun is out.
The weather in the UK usually starts to get warmer around mid-May, which is also a good time to try out this experience. In general, spring onions like to be in an open area with plenty of sunshine available. Other than that, they’re really easy to be taken care of.
Step #5 – Get the tools
Trust me, when I said get the tools, you basically need only two items: soil and garden pots. Optional: if you have garden gloves and a garden trowel, that’s great. If you don’t, just use your bare hands instead.
As for the soils, one bag will do. And if you can, please get peat-free soil/compost, which is much better for the climate.
I also like adding some manure to the soil/compost to improve soil texture and water-holding capacity. However, this is optional.
Step #6 – Time to plant
Fill your pots with soil until it reaches the rim of the container. Press the soil a bit so it can provide support for the plant’s roots
but not be compacted because we need water to be well-drained and air to be well-circulated in the pot.
Then use your finger to dig a hole, and stick a spring onion root in the hole. Fill in more soil but make sure a little bit of the stem remains visible. As you can see from the picture, there are two roots in a pot. In terms of how many of them you could have in a pot, it depends on how big your pot is. Just make sure to set each root at least a few centimetres apart.
Once you’re happy with how the roots are planted in the pot, water them gradually until you see the water flowing through the drainage hole at the bottom. NOW, pat yourself on the back because you just completed your first growing-your-own-food project and have started cutting down your carbon footprint. Hooray!
The stem should start growing very soon, especially in warm weather. Below are the ones that have been planted for around four weeks. And they’re ready to be harvested! Caution: don’t let them grow too long because they might start flowering. I usually harvest them when they reach a height of around 20 – 25 cm. Just cut the leaves part, and the stem will regrow new leaves soon.
Making a positive impact on our planet
Are you ready to give this a try? Not only are you going to harvest what you’ve grown for the whole summer but also actively and regularly cut down your carbon footprint – it’s like the saying: kill two birds with one stone! Moreover, once you get a taste of success, it’ll make you want to experience more and try to grow different kinds of vegetables/fruits. You’ll be continuously making a positive impact on our planet!
Growing your own food may be one of the most powerful steps you can take for the health of yourself, your family, and your planet.
Lindsay Oberst
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