Houston, we have lift off...

... Yes, we have lift off! And a problem.

In my previous post about my fair test on rocket I was fairly disappointed with its rate of growth. Things have certainly changed within one week! Though the results are a confronting for a few reasons.

The mainstream is almost three times as big as the organic. The control is doing fairly well considering all I give it is water. Sadly, the organic is looking quite small and undeveloped.

It has really made me think about the demands we make upon the earth. Perhaps rocket should be growing at the pace and rate of the organic plant? I don't have an agriculture background so I am oblivious to what should be happening. This process has made me realise just how uneducated I am about how my food is grown, but it's also challenged me to find out more.

Also, while I've always known that the appearance and size of produce is not a measure of its nutritional value or natural health, the fact that organic can look quite underwhelming for what you are paying really hit home.. I believe that is one of the key reasons mainstream farming methods are preferred over organic and continue to be supported by the majority of food buyers.

I can really see how this would be a valuable inquiry experience for my future students - they will be the ones who will determine the future of food sustainability. Surely, education is one of the most powerful keys to finding a solution to this problem.

Discovering chives, nasturtiums and wild strawberries

Since our presentation last week I have made a number of lovely discoveries!

I spent some time in my backyard yesterday afternoon pruning and clearing and cultivating the produce in our vege boxes. I was busy planting some of the organic beans and cherry tomatoes (the same ones we handed out at our presentation) when I came across chives and wild strawberries.

Well, I initially thought that the chives was grass (whoops!) and that the wild strawbs were weeds (double whoops!). I realised that the chives couldn't possibly be grass with the roots they had (and they smelled quite strong) and my husband came to the rescue of the wild strawbs.

And while he was helping me identify the strawbs, he introduced me to nasturtiums, which to my surprise, he informed me, are edible!  

So we ate some nasturtiums from our garden, while I cleared some space for our chives and staked our wild strawbs with the hopes that they'll produce fruit. 


I also had to lengthen the supporting trellis for my organic pea as it had grown too tall for the original trellis! Very excited to see that growth. I'm going to have conniptions when they start to flower and pea pods spring up!

I'm also so very glad that my personal connections with this project are continuing beyond the life of our assessment :)

Sharing is caring

As part of our project we need to share our findings with our cohort at uni. Today we'll be telling them all the things we have been doing and sharing our blog with them for the first time. It's exciting and a little bit nerve wracking!

Yesterday we made a decision about exactly what our solution to the issue of food sustainability is. We decided that the most important thing is for people to experience a connect with where and how food is grown. So part of the solution is just to share our blog with as many people as possible. The other part is for people to have the same experience that we have had, particularly about growing their own food.

So today we will be handing out little packs of seeds from the Jane St Community Garden at West End. They are packaged in brown paper so everything is recycled and biodegradable. It also has a link to our blog so everyone can find out more about our journey and more importantly, food sustainability.

We'll be encouraging our fellow students to comment on our learning through the blog and share their own journey and connections with growing their food.

Fingers crossed it all goes well!

To Fair Trade or not to Fair Trade? That is the question...

If I was to tell you that just by the choice of product you buy you could ensure:

• no child labour 
• provision of a fair price for all farmers for their produce
• better health care for people in developing countries
• increased infrastructure in developing countries
• farming practices are improved to better look after the environment
• conservation of certain endangered animals
• improved educational outcomes for children and young people

You'd choose that product, wouldn't you? I would. Fair Trade products do promise all of these things and yet, I don't always buy them.

I've known about Fair Trade for a while now but really just a surface knowledge. I didn't really understand, until I started looking into it, just how much of a difference I can make to the lives of people on the other side of the planet by my choice of chocolate, coffee and tea. I guess I wasn't always doing my shopping in places where you can get Fair trade products, which until recently has been in health food and other specialty shops.

But, Fair trade is becoming more and more popular. Big companies like Cadburys are starting to realise the importance of fair trade practices because more and more customers are asking for it. So really, it's up to us. If we think that it is important that farmers are treated fairly, we need to let big companies know by asking for and buying fair trade products.
This morning, I needed to buy coffee because my Dad was coming over for a Father's Day morning tea. Instead of heading to my favourite coffee house to buy my usual, I actually went in search of Fair Trade coffee. So I guess this process of investigation about sustainable food practices is changing my behaviour!

Oh, and the coffee was delicious! 

The Journey of Chocolate - just how far does our food travel?

When I was in Grade 4 I had one of the most disappointing moments of my young life. Every year Grade 4s at Laburnum Primary School went on a tour of the Cadbury's chocolate factory. My brother had been the year before and had brought home a bag full of free Cadbury's products and stories of free chocolate samples as the tour progressed. I had been watching Willy Wonka for a few years by this and couldn't wait to see the magic of a chocolate factory in action. But alas, for some reason, the Cadbury tours stopped that year. It may have been because the school realised how hard it is to manage 60 children full of sugar. it may have been because Cadbury decided to stop school groups going through their Melbourne factory that year. For whatever reason it was, I was bitterly disappointed and from that day forward have not really thought about how one of my favourite foods is made, or where it comes from.

I had no idea that the cocoa bean is grown on the cocoa tree and that it only grows in tropical parts of the world. I also had no idea that because of this, the majority of the world's cocoa is grown by small family producers in some of the world's poorest nations.

I had no idea that for chocolate to make it to the shop where I buy it, it has to travel 11,464.3 kilometres from where the cocoa bean is grown, to the factory where it is processed. Then another 6,549.11 kilometres from that factory to another one where the chocolate is made. Then another 1,787.89 kilometres to the city where I buy it. That is a total of 19,801.3 kilometres for a block of chocolate that costs $4.

So, by buying a block of chocolate am I contributing to global warming? Should I be looking to buy and eat only food that is grown in my local area? One couple did this and documented their journey on their website the 100 mile diet. It's an interesting experiment and perhaps one that would help more of us realise exactly how our food is grown and how far it travels to get to us.