Oxford is my world Your – Guide to saving the planet!

Food
Growing Vegetables

Recycling

Water Use

Climate Science Explanation

GROWING VEGETABLES

Growing plants is very popular hobby. Growing food that you can eat yourself or share adds an extra dimension to gardening. Its becoming increasingly popular. A bit of care is required to keep it sustainable so please don't hothouse pineapples. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

Very Easy

Sprouting seeds is very easy. Alfalfa, mung beans and cress are well known examples. The exact methods vary according to the plant but in most cases it’s a simple case of a container, and changing the water every so often. Examples here. Not only are sprouts tasty but they are a great deal cheaper than pre-shredded stir fry kits. As seeds must contain all the plant goodies needed to start a young plant in life the sprouts are full of nutrients like vitamins, trace elements and antioxidants.
Can’t grow yourself? You could offer up space in your garden or country estate in the Landshare programme
Watering plants accounts for 6% of our domestic water use. If you cut down on water by doing it at night less evaporates immediately and you are much more likely to sneak up pesky munching snails.
Avoid nitrogen-rich artificial fertilisers - they require large amounts of fossil fuel to make and emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than CO2

Fairly Easy

Don’t use peat! Peat bogs store twice as much carbon as the entire world's forest combined but every year an area of Eire ten times the size of Monaco is dug up. Well rotted compost works just as well.
Fit a basket to your bike and leave the car at home where possible.
Buy second-hand equipment. Daily Info and Gumtree have boards specifically for gardening equipment, get gardening work and to advertise your produce.
Getting a garden designed? Go Wild Landscapes Ltd tries to be wildlife friendly.
Go organic. That involves either put up a lost plant or two or controlling pests without pesticides. Garden Organic is a national charity and the Soil Association certifies commercial crops and provides a handy organic gardening calendar here. Gardenzone have written a guide for starting out.
Chillies and tomatoes work well on sunny windowsills. You wont need to stepout in any spring rains.

Not Quite So Easy

Allotments are increasingly popular. Oxford City council provides a Google map for you to locate sites near you. There can be a waiting list for popular sites so don’t delay
If you are planning a large growing space then you should consider drip irrigation rather than spraying water in excess. The Low Carbon Diet estimates it will reduce the time you spend watering the garden by about 90%.
Let nature do the work by learning about what edible plants grow around you. Find out exactly what you are doing and be very careful. You can discuss this topic the Selfsufficentish forum or simply search the internet: Here is a guide to early summer to get you started.

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