Saving the planet, one garden at a time
Nowadays, climate change has become part of our everyday vocabulary. We’re all encouraged to do something, anything. Not surprising, as the discourse has increasingly veered towards ‘saving the planet’, big businesses have jumped on to the bandwagon of the green movement.
One doesn’t have to look far to find corporations (often big polluters themselves) selling us products that are dubbed ‘environmentally-friendly’, ‘organic’, ‘up-cycled’, ‘recycled’, or ‘natural’ but which in reality may not be so.
Unfortunately, many well-meaning gardeners fall into this ‘trap’. Sadly, there is no official watchdog or certification system in Pakistan and most customers who do genuinely want to go green might face an uphill battle. But take heart, many organic products can be made at home — organic fertiliser for instance is very easy to make once you get the hang of it (see previous columns on this topic for more details).
We need to encourage our friends and families to make lifestyle changes and use eco-friendly products
While forests — along with the planting of indigenous trees in both smaller rural and urban areas — are urgently required to help purify the air we breathe, the focus should be on how we go about doing so.
Climate change is past the tipping point. We cannot stop extreme weather events that increasingly affect global population but we can — and must — change mindsets so that, in conjunction with living the ‘simpler’ life that so many of our mountain and village people still do, we begin to learn how to survive, peacefully, in the vastly altered world to come.
We need to make sure that we, as well as our families, make lifestyle changes and use eco-friendly products whenever possible. And we can all, as plant-lovers start by gardening as organically as possible.
To start off December and the upcoming year with a small carbon footprint and as ‘green’ as possible, here is a list of vegetables, herbs and flowers that you can grow.