Step Ten, Growing your own

Sure I wouldn’t be a green if I didn’t advocate growing your own. Even when I lived in a flat in the city centre, I kept a few window boxes going that supplied tomatoes and fresh herbs for several months of the year.

These days with a small garden we get pears, apples, plums, spuds, beans, peas, courgettes, cabbages, rasberries, lettuce and herbs through the spring and well into the autumn.. It’s a great way of teaching the kids about how things grow.

I’m a fan of Irish Seed Savers in Scariff, Co. Clare who do amazing work in keeping ancient plant varieties on the go.

Green waste from the kitchen can be composted and dug into the soil once or twice a year. More ambitious recyclers might even consider a wormery, which is another efficient way of cutting down on waste.