I won’t be blogging for the next few weeks because I’m taking a break. See you soon. Any tips about good places to visit in NZ, especially with a sustainable angle, please let me know.

In the meantime, check out the story of stuff to learn more about the underside of our production and consumption patterns.

Last year I was tortured by tomatoes. This year I’ve found a solution - cherry tomatoes.

Since cherry tomatoes are so small they grow and ripen quickly, leaving less time for disease and pests to set in.

My vines have just finished producing but during the past couple of months I harvested a good handful of small, deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes every day.

They are excellent in salads, and make a great fresh pasta sauce with home grown basil. Or you can eat them straight from the garden, which my son loves.

To keep my sanity, I will keep to cherry tomatoes from now on.

Has anyone else got any great tips for growing tomatoes?

The Greenwashing index is an interesting website where people can submit advertisements that they think are greenwashing a product.

You can upload an ad or watch other ads that have been uploaded, and then add your comment. The site aims to educate people about greenwashing and how to be aware of a product that’s being greenwashed.

The site provides a good definition of greenwashing: it’s greenwashing when a company or organisation spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimise environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.

The site is very US focused but it seems to be open to ads from all over the world. So if you know of a good example of greenwashing - upload your ad.

Closer to home (Australia), Environment Victoria runs the annual DUMP Awards where people can nominate products that are unnecessarily over packaged. I couldn’t find any information about the upcoming 2008 awards on the organisation’s site, but you can read the results from the 2007 awards (PDF report).

Eight years ago I travelled to Sweden and was impressed with how the supermarkets did not provide free plastic bags to shoppers. Instead, shoppers could buy durable, biodegradable brown paper bags or bring their own.

A few years later I lived in the Netherlands and the supermarkets there provided durable plastic bags but for a price. These bags lasted forever and encouraged shoppers to bring their own bags. No one batted an eyelid; it was just the “done thing”.

I think the recent decision by Australian environment minister Peter Garrett to ban plastic bags, or impose a levy on each them, is a move in the right direction.

Plastic bags are made from polluting petrochemicals, detrimental to landfill and can be deadly to wildlife.

Already, many Australians are using recycled bags for their shopping but I think if we are charged for plastic bags then many more people will make sure they recycle.

Welcome back to 2008. I hope you all had a good break over the Christmas/New Year period. So far this year (and the last few months of 2007) has been great for our garden. Sydney has had so much rain.

My garden is thriving. Our space saver pumpkins have taken off as well as my cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, rocket, herbs, jalapeno peppers, sunflowers, carrots and leeks. My fruit trees are also looking pretty good - mandarin, lime, lemon, bush lime, fig, mango, olive, avocado, mulberry and guava. Although my chocolate sapote got an attack of black soot and never quite recovered.

The rain has also been extra kind to our lawn. I know lawns get a bad rap these days but we put a small patch in during spring. It replaced a very weedy section of our garden and some broken pavers. Originally we wanted to grow a native grass but couldn’t find one that resembled a tough lawn that could deal with a lot of wear and tear.

We chose Sir Walter, which claims to be a hardy, shade and sun tolerant variety of grass, as well as being very water wise. The excessive amounts of rain means that the grass is now well established and thriving, without us having to use the hose. Although, sometimes I put the grey water run off from our washing machine on to the lawn.

Although I would have loved to turn the lawned area into vegetable patches, we decided to lawn it for our son. He really needed somewhere to play outside and the lawn has really done the trick. No more scraped knees on the pavement as he slides down his slippery slide ;-0.

The other thing I love about the lawn is the constant supply of mulch I have. I thin layer of grass clippings over the garden beds really helps suppress weeds plus reduce water evaporation from the soil. I don’t have to buy sugar cane mulch anymore. The clippings also heat up quickly in my compost bins, which helps everything to quickly break down.