Posts Tagged ‘Green’

First the road, next the power…

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

We’re now the possessors of a level access road onto our land!

Okay, it doesn’t sound much but it’s definitely an improvement on driving on mud, especially given the amount of rain we’ve had recently. The weather here in Greece is definitely moving towards winter, and much wetter than it has been in recent years. Not only do we have a decent road on our land, we’ve had the agricultural track that leads to it levelled and given a top covering, so we no longer have to avoid the nasty rocks sticking up when we’re driving along.

It still amazes me that people can just dig up or resurface these country tracks without asking for permission. But then, who’s going to refuse when the outcome for them is a better road surface at no cost?

Not only did we surface the road, we laid a water pipe ready for connection from the mains, and this means we need to start planning what we’re going to do with the land. We don’t have a mains electricity supply, and this could be expensive to put in given the Greek systems. But we live in a land where the sun still shines most of the time, even if it’s becoming less predictable this time of year. Plus we get some sort of breeze most days, ranging from gentle to pretty strong.

Add this to our desire to use as many green elements as possible in our living solution, and our eagerness to be as involved as we can in whatever we decide to do and solar energy systems with complementary windmills become an obvious choice. We should be able to generate all the power we need from these renewable energy sources. And we’ve found that it’s nowhere near as complicated as we thought to really get involved and build your own solar panels and windmills.

Check out this video for a taster of what I mean:

If a 12 yr old can do it, surely we can!

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Hot and Sticky Musings

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

We’re now well into what is best described as the ‘sticky’ part of the year.

It’s that couple of months or so when, try as you might, you never really feel dry. Not even straight out of a refreshingly cool shower, as the humidity in the bathroom means you’re trying to dry yourself in a steamy atmosphere – a definite non-starter. Any achievements in the way of dryness are short-lived: move away from doors and windows that are valiantly trying to admit that tiny bit of breeze and it’s like climbing into an open oven. The heat is tangible and the humidity high.

The only comfortable place to be when the weather gets this hot and sticky

The only comfortable place to be when the weather gets this hot and sticky

Normal life becomes decidedly uncomfortable. Cooking offers the challenge of working out how to produce a decent meal using the minimum amount of heat, without resorting to salad every day. Linger near the cooker for even a few seconds and you break out in a sweat. I can’t imagine what it’s like working in a restaurant kitchen in this weather, and I have nothing but admiration for those people who work out of doors in the intense heat, day after day.

Then there’s dish washing. Even with water at the minimum acceptable heat to clean the dishes it still seems to give off a steady flow of hot, moist air. The best argument I’ve come across so far for getting a dishwasher!

In fact, the slightest physical exertion generates a noticeable amount of heat. Just a few movements and it begins. From the fitness angle, it’s gratifying to realise that your body does start to generate heat with so little effort. But when it’s the beginning of a series of stretches and lifts, whether for exercise or cleaning the bathroom, the end seems very far away, the light at the end of a sweaty, generally unpleasant tunnel. This is when you search out those items of clothing least likely to need ironing, or sport the crumpled look.

All the experts tell you that the time to stay out of the sun is between 11 am and 3 pm. But even at 8 am it’s too hot to stay out in the sun for longer than a few seconds. Walking down into town becomes a game of ‘spot the shadows’; narrow, shady alleyways becoming more attractive than the more open, easy roads. Clothes stick to you, creating eye-catching damp patches. Yes, we could take the car, but putting aside the unjustifiable use of fuel for such a short journey, it’s usually impossible to find a shady parking space. A hot body in a hot car means twice the stickiness.

At this time of year there are trade-offs needed constantly:

  • Use the car (quicker) or walk (in the heat for longer)
  • Use climate control in the car (increases fuel consumption) or try to keep cool by opening the windows (tangled hair and sometimes it’s a hot breeze).
  • Switch the computers off (can’t work) or use fans to keep them cool or even air con (both use extra electricity and air con isn’t that healthy).
  • Get up at 4 am, when it’s actually cool, then try to catch up on sleep later in the day when it’s hotter and noisier

We always try to take the greener option, but sometimes it’s a difficult call.

Last night around 9pm we walked down into Koroni – a band had been advertised as part of this year’s free entertainment. At first the atmosphere seemed better as the heat of the day was slowly fading, but after a little while I realized it was actually less comfortable than when the sun was out. The sun masks some of the humidity during the day, but at night there’s no getting away from it, and we have at least 50% humidity at present. By the time we completed the 10 minute walk to town my clothes felt clammy and uncomfortable. It was warmer on the seafront than up at the top of town, and even the slight breeze out on the pier made no difference.

To add the final topping, the band was dire. They seemed unable to play at anything other than slow and made a hash of Dylan’s ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ among others. Their lead singer didn’t have much of a voice either. But their audience applauded politely, even enthusiastically, at the end of each song, so maybe we just haven’t acquired the local taste yet!

But the heat doesn’t just affect us humans. Now is the time of year when fresh food can go off almost while you’re looking at it, which isn’t good when we’re getting produce from the garden more quickly than we can use it. Storage is a challenge as we only have limited fridge and freezer space in our apartment, and anything in a bottle that’s been opened needs to go into the fridge or it quickly sprouts a surface of mould.

We do, however, have the use of an ‘agrotiki’ – essentially a storage area of up to 15 square metres of additional space on top of what the planning regulations allow.

We hoped the agrotiki would give us somewhere relatively cool and dark to keep things fresh for a bit longer, but it’s not working out that way. The temperature in there is warmer than our apartment during the night, presumably due to the two water heaters that are housed there (a useful thing to remember when it gets cold in the winter), and cooler during the day. But it’s not really that much cooler, nor is it completely dark, thanks to our landlady deciding it needed a metal door with a window, and vegetables are quickly drying out or going mouldy. Strangely, grapefruit seem to keep well.

A couple of weeks ago, nurturing the idea of a potential bumper crop, our thoughts turned to long-term storage. Freezing or bottling seemed to be the two options, and with nowhere to put a freezer we thought we’d give bottling a try. First stop was to buy a pressure cooker, which we thought would be ideal for the job. Second stop was to read up on the techniques. Sadly, the wrong way round.

Our thoroughly modern pressure cooker, unlike the two old ones I discarded in England, only has one pressure setting: high. Apparently this isn’t unusual these days, and makes a lot of sense as most of the things you cook are done at high pressure. Unfortunately though, to use it for bottling, we need to be able to generate low pressure. So it looks like we’ll have to resort to one of the longer methods, which means using the cooker top or oven, not something that appeals in this weather.

We’ll still be able to enjoy stews, soups and especially rice pudding (if I can remember the recipe), and cut down on use of the cooker (and heat generation) at the time of year when it’s cooler anyway. Well that’s when I’ve managed to decipher the instructions, which are helpfully only in Turkish.

Still, it’s probably just as well. All the instructions for bottling tell you to keep your newly processed produce in a cool, dark place, and we’ve already established that we’re not going to have one of those for a few months. It would be very disappointing to go through all the rigmarole of bottling, only to have to throw the stuff away because it got too hot in storage and is likely to give us upset stomachs or worse.

So there’s another thing on the list for our own home: cool, dark place to store all our nice home-grown fruit and veggies, both fresh and bottled.

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Getting to the Root of the Carrots!

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

We’ve called time on one of our garden experiments: carrots.

We planted these before realising they’re cool weather crops which don’t fare well in the heat. It would have been better had we got them in the ground back in February, but then we were in the middle of the wettest winter in Greece for many years, so that probably wouldn’t have worked too well.

Although some plants died quite quickly, most had grown, with leaves reaching a good length. But the fact that many had root growth above the ground wasn’t a good sign. Still we persevered, to see what would happen.

What made us decide to call it a day was the wind. I’m coming to think that wind is the most unpleasant of weather situations. It’s definitely one that is unfriendly to vegetables. And when it’s a warm wind, as it has been these last few days, it just seems to leech all the vigour out of the crop.

But even though we knew we’d planted at the wrong time, in heavy soil, we weren’t prepared for what came out of the ground. If we’re lucky we may get one serving of edible carrots from the whole crop, but what they lack in volume, they make up for in humour.

Here are some examples:

Ouch!

Ouch!

You have to admit that this one really tried hard to get through that heavy soil

A fine example of determination to succeed against the odds

Just sitting around doing nothing

Just sitting around doing nothing

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Gardening Update

Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Almost a foot long in less than a week - and still growing fast!

Almost a foot long in less than a week - and still growing fast!

We seem to have hit the period of endless hot, dry days faster this year than last. One day it was cool, the next it was like a wall of heat, and it hasn’t eased up much since. There does seem to be more wind though, sometimes with a cool edge but at others a hot, dusty breeze that feels like we’re sitting in the path of a hairdryer. A couple of nights ago a strong wind – reminiscent of winter – started in the evening and continued through the night. But with it came lower temperatures and I gladly slept with the windows open. It was beautifully cool, the breeze wafting the bed sheet like fingers gently massaging my back.

My intention had been to get up around 6am the following morning to water the vegetable garden before the heat of the day kicked in (it can be uncomfortably hot by 8am), but as it was still windy I decided to give it a miss. Better to water the ground slowly later, I thought, than get myself thoroughly soaked as the wind whipped the spray everywhere. So at 8am I was out there, working slowly among the plant with the hosepipe, doing my best to water the soil and not the plants themselves.

For some reason I was preoccupied when I finished the task, and I forgot to turn off the water at the main tap. Unfortunately I didn’t discover this until around 12 hours later, as I put my foot down and sank quickly into the muddy ground along the side of the plot. Oops!

Despite these mishaps, our gardening experiment continues with mixed results.

On the positive side every type of vegetable we’ve planted is growing, although we’ve lost a few individual plants here and there. The speed of growth is surprising, and we’re already faced with dilemmas like what to do with 5 large cucumbers, all ready at the same time. But that’s where non-growing friends come in. So far we’ve harvested our own lettuce, French beans, cucumber, courgettes, strawberries and tomatoes.

Courgettes are also coming along well

Courgettes are also coming along well

The heat is taking its toll, and lettuce and carrots are protesting by bolting. A day is a long time in a sunny garden, and we’re learning the hard way about the need for regular feeding, as the water quickly dilutes the impact of the feed. We need to rig up some sort of shade – olive netting over some bamboo poles should do the trick – to try and give the plants some respite in the afternoons, otherwise I think we could lose more to the sapping heat.

The only times of day when manual work is comfortable are early morning (preferred by me) and late evening (preferred by Ken). The ground is so hard – a combination of heavy soil and lack of moisture – it’s difficult to dig down more than a few inches, and gardening tools can easily get damaged. The weeds are, obviously, comfortable in this environment and grow so fast that we need regular weeding sessions among the vegetables to keep ahead of the game.

Container growing seems to be a good idea, giving us more control over watering, feeding and shading options. We already have carrots, strawberries and potatoes in containers, and may have a go with a few lettuce and tomatoes.

Potatoes seem happier in containers where we can almost see them growing

Potatoes seem happier in containers where we can almost see them growing

Although we haven’t had particular pest problems (a few holey leaves is all) we’re also trying some companion planting, putting basil and oregano in amongst the crops. Basil is also finding a use as insect repellent (pots by windows and doors) and to treat insect bites. The oregano was collected from where it grows wild in the hills, in the company of our landlord’s mother. She’s 70, but put me to shame as she climbed up and down the steep slopes like a mountain goat, gathering bags full of herbs, most of which she apparently gives away.

As if caring for our own patch during the few comfortable hours of the day wasn’t enough, I seem to have become unofficial gardener for the rest of the site where we live. We had already offered to water the flower beds each night, which made sense as we were already out there watering our own stuff, and another 15 minutes or so would make no difference.  But then in casual conversation I said I was tempted to weed an enclosed bed where the flowers were fighting for space, and suddenly I was being given requests (I’d like that one moved somewhere else please, and these things in tubs need to go somewhere – put them wherever you want) and presented with new plants to incorporate into the beds!

Actually I don’t mind at all. It’s a good way to get some exercise, which is a rare thing these days, plus it means we get to learn more quickly about which plants will grow best in this climate. Another bonus is the opportunity to take whatever cuttings we want, which means we can start to build up stock for our own garden now, and without the expense of buying plants.

And it’s another example in Greek trust: our landlady gave us the keys to her pick-up yesterday, phoned ahead to the garden centre to say we were coming, and told us to go and get whatever we wanted – on her account.

It’s also confirmed for us that we don’t want extensive flower gardens ourselves. Lots of stuff in pots, and ground cover plants spilling onto gravelled areas makes much more sense – and much less work!

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Garden Update

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Our gardening endeavours are coming along but they’ve not been totally straightforward.

When we first prepared the plot we decided to put some seeds straight into the ground. The weather was mild so we thought they would stand a chance. Sadly, none of these took. Maybe it was because the soil wasn’t fine enough to allow tiny seeds to survive, or maybe it had something to do with the seeds being past their use-by date (we were given them by a friend). Whatever, after 2 or 3 weeks of watering, we finally decided that the only thing coming up was new weeds – and lots of them!

So we bought some fresh plants. Tomato, pepper and cucumber were the first to go in. About 10 days ago we supplemented these with aubergines and courgettes and all were settled and growing well. But then we got rain – a couple of days of fairly heavy rain with grey skies and a definite drop in temperature.

The surface of the plot had been covered in small lumps of soil. Small but hard, as my knees learned when I decided to weed the plot. The rain changed the surface completely, breaking the lumps down – something that daily watering wasn’t doing. When the sun came out this now-smooth surface set hard, and then began to crack as the upper layer dried out. It looked like a dried river bed that hadn’t seen water for years. Ken had to get back down there and weed again, an urgent job as the rain had really brought the weeds out in force.

Fortunately our fledgling plants survived the deluge without any damage.

French beans sprouted in just a few days

French beans sprouted in just a few days

We also decided to try seeds again, this time new stock bought from the local garden centre. We planted French beans, peas, and broccoli  – but this time in small containers filled with compost. And this is where you really notice the difference in climate here. Keeping the seeds watered and putting them out in the sun during the day but bringing them inside at night, I was amazed when the beans and peas started to sprout within just a couple of days. And once they’d started there was no stopping them. Each day we could see the difference as they grew into strong young plants. Today, only a week or so after they first sprouted, we’ve planted them out, and this time we’re confident they will produce food for us.

There were some vegetables we couldn’t find as seed or small plants, so I asked my sister to send them from England. Two of these, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, were put into compost  last Wednesday afternoon. Just 3 days later there were already several tiny shoots on the surface. For me it’s amazing that it can happen so quickly. We’re just hoping this quick growth spurt doesn’t mean we get weak, spindly plants.

And we’ve got strawberries. I split a single plant into 5 smaller ones, all of which have survived. Okay, so we’ve only had 4 strawberries ready for eating so far, but there are some more coming, and once the plants throw out runners we’ll be able to add to our stock.

Did I mention we’ve also planted potatoes, lettuce and red onions?

We know our timing may be wrong with some plants but for now we’re experimenting, learning the best way to do things, seeing what will happen as it gets hotter and drier, and how much attention we’ll have to give to our garden. But it’s really great having the time and space to grow our own food. Seeing it all happening is like becoming a child again, fascinated to see life evolving before my eyes.

I’ll probably become a gardening bore, but for now I’m still caught up in the novelty and excitement of it all. I hope it doesn’t wear off too soon.

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Settling Down and Digging In!

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

We’re likely to continue living in our rented apartment for some time, even after we buy land. But as the weather is warming up quickly now, our thoughts have turned to gardens.

Our landlady kindly offered us access to her garden, or rather, the ground between the olive trees, and a few days ago we finally started to do something with it. The ground here bakes hard in the summer, and is heavy and clay-like when wet. We’ve had quite a bit of rain, followed by some dryer, warmer weather so we were faced with a hard surface hiding heavy soil. Machinery was the answer, and we used a rotavator to break the surface and dig down several inches. It was hard work in the heavy soil. The land has recently been strimmed which has cleared the surface of weeds, but left lots of roots in the soil. Typically most of these are the type that break into sections, each tiny piece capable of regenerating into a whole new plant.

While Ken walked up and down the small plot with the machine, I slowly followed, crouched down, picking out as many roots and stones as I could spot. After turning the soil over a few times, we’re left with a plot that looks like it could grow something useful. Not to mention a whole stack of aches and pains in muscles we haven’t used for a long time. The plot we’ve chosen is by the roadside, and it seems that every vehicle that passes slows down to have a look at what we’re doing. Growing vegetables is hardly a novelty here, but I’d guess we’re probably using different methods and causing some amusement to the locals.

Some day soon we hope this patch of brown will be full of tasty veggies

Some day soon we hope this patch of brown will be full of tasty veggies

The next step isn’t that easy – we have to decide what to grow, how much, and when. Looking at vegetable gardens here it seems easy to get a good crop from whatever is planted, and that’s the challenge. We don’t want to grow food that we won’t eat, nor do we want to be overwhelmed with the variety of fresh vegetables, so we need to go slowly and thoughtfully. We can probably give some surplus crops to friends, but there will be a limit to that as well. Heavy cropping plants like tomatoes could turn out to be a waste if they all ripen together and we have no room to store or process the excess. We may find ourselves investing in a freezer to make best use of the anticipated crops all year round.

Another small challenge is that we’re not totally agreed on what to grow. Some things are okay with both of us: staples like potatoes, onions, French beans and carrots. But when it comes to other veggies we each have our favourites. I want broccoli, peppers, maybe sugar snap peas, none of which are particular favourites for Ken. And he’s talking about tomatoes, cabbage and cauliflower, all of which I think may give us too much surplus.

So far we’re starting small, just sowing a few French beans, carrots, courgettes and lettuce. As these are from seed they’ll take a while to grow, so we’re also planning to get some young plants from the local garden centre to give us some quicker returns – that’s as long as we can just buy 2 or 3 of those we want.

When we finally move to our own land we hope to grow fruit as well as vegetables. The same challenges are already being hinted at. Grapefruit is a must – I ate it most days for breakfast in England but it doesn’t seem that widely available in our part of Greece. Oranges, apples and lemons are also on the list. But we’re also thinking about pears, peaches, apricots, bananas (there are some growing locally), and strawberries, which is a whole lot of fruit and a significant change in our eating habits. And then there are pineapples which we’re just starting to experiment with. These apparently take a couple of years to grow, and you only get one fruit from each plant so unless we plant one every month for ever we won’t be overwhelmed by them.

At least we’ll have a chance to experiment, to learn the best way to grow the different crops in a hot climate, even if it is under the watchful eyes of our neighbours.

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Saving Water – a Missed Opportunity?

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

It would be fair to say that I’m not completely sold on the global warming issue. After all there are high profile scientists on both sides of the argument, and you can’t discount the fact that the world has warmed up and cooled down several times already, nor the effect of non-human sources of greenhouse gases. Paintings and stories about people skating on the river Thames in London are both compelling and fascinating.

That said, I am totally in favor of everyone doing what they can as far as  saving water is concerned. There’s no justification for making things worse or squandering scarce resources. One of the disappointing things about living in Greece is the general attitude to saving water.

We had no rain between mid April and late September. Many rivers dry up during this time and there are regular supply cuts or pressure drops. You’d think this would engender a spirit of conservation but not at all, in fact the opposite tends to apply. We regularly see people wasting precious water supplies hosing down their terraces and even the pavement outside their homes and offices. I can accept that dust is a problem, and yes, the water does reduce the dust for a while, but give it an hour or two and the sun will have removed all the effects anyway.

And when the rain does come there are few examples of saving this water for future use. It cascades off roofs straight into the gutter, without a water butt in sight. In fact many houses don’t have guttering or drain pipes, making it much more difficult to collect water. It just doesn’t seem to be a standard design feature over here. So much of a precious commodity going to waste.

The methods used by many farmers for watering food crops are recognized for their inefficiency. It’s not unusual to drive along a road which is being regularly drenched from a spraying device placed too close to the edge of the plot for example. People generally turn the hosepipe on their vegetable and flower gardens too, – using potable water today in case there’s a shortage tomorrow. It’s a simple job to take a bowl of dish washing water and pour it on the garden but it just doesn’t happen.

The apartment above where we first lived has air conditioning, a producer of water. A little forethought could have resulted in the outlet pipe being directed onto the nearby plants, giving them a regular drink through the summer. But sadly the pipe was very short, the water falling into an earthenware bowl. Once the bowl filled the water flowed all over the balcony and finally dripped down onto our terrace. We used it to water our own plants, rather than just letting it drain away: our own small contribution to saving water.

Apart from television commercials encouraging people to save water and partial hosepipe bans in some areas, which may not be rigorously enforced, there seems to be little in the way of real attempts to educate the people on the need to save water. This is disappointing in a country where, many years ago, most houses were built with cisterns specifically to collect rainwater each year. Sadly most of these were converted to storage or living accommodation when the country got used to mains water supplies.

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Time for recycling some ideas?

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Despite being heavy consumers of bottled water from plastic bottles, recycling isn’t a concept that has caught on quickly in Greece. Until recently we had to load several bags of recycling into the car each time we went shopping, and drop them off in the nearest bins, about 25 kilometers away. Then just a few months bright blue bins appeared in the village. Progress at last as they’d only been standing in a local depot for about the previous 3 months.

Prior to the latest arrivals there was one small blue recycling bin in the area, but it was emptied by the normal refuse collectors, who recycled it straight into the landfill! Now there is the opportunity for everyone to recycle as the blue bins sit next to the regular refuse bins. They’re often full – but it seems there’s still a need for education, as they aren’t necessarily full of recycled items. Despite the clear pictures on the side, showing what is and isn’t appropriate to recycle, some people appear to be putting their normal waste into these bins.

A newspaper article also highlighted school children who had photographed a blue bin being emptied into the normal refuse – slightly embarrassing for the authorities, but probably indicative of the general attitude towards recycling.

When we lived in England we had several different recycling bins and we were expected to sort our items into paper, glass, plastic, garden waste, aluminum etc. Here in Greece they’ve taken a different approach: you put everything in the same bin and it’s sorted by humans – kitted out in protective clothing and wearing masks they work their way through vast piles of mixed recyclables. Not work for the faint hearted.

Green waste just left to rot at the roadside

Green waste just left to rot at the roadside

The normal practice appears to be for green waste to be burnt rather than taking the opportunity of recycling it for composting. The extensive olive harvest produces lots of green waste. While the larger branches are taken for logs, the smaller branches and leaves are piled up and burnt, or sometimes thrown into the normal refuse bins. In a country which is still largely agricultural that’s a lot of burning.

Plant prunings are treated in the same way. Occasionally you see some cuttings left on the ground to rot, but there seems little awareness of the benefits of composting. Given the quality of the soil in some areas, a good layer of compost would probably be beneficial, and help to retain water as well.

Like all other countries Greece has targets to meet for recycling. Signs so far suggest they are struggling with these, and you can’t help but feel they aren’t doing themselves any favors in the way they’ve decided to approach the task. But we will carry on in our own small way, and look forward to becoming one of the majority rather than a select minority.

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