Early last year my friend Matt began his journey into the mythical world of growing garlic. Towards the end of last year I was able to sample some of his delicious and potent little cloves of garlicky goodness.

According to Matt, late February to early April is the best time for planting garlic in Sydney.

Taking Matt’s advice, I’ve held onto my bulbs from him until now - although I did eat about half … yum. I finally planted them today. My son helped by stuffing a clove into each hole I made in the soil. He then used his little watering can to moisten the soil.

Being 29 weeks pregnant, my belly and bad back are beginning to hamper my gardening abilities. Therefore, I’m winding up most of my garden beds for winter by heavily mulching them over and letting them rest.

However, I figure garlic will be pretty easy to grow over these months and won’t need much care or labour. The garlic now lives in the sunniest sections (during winter) of my garden.

Matt has kindly provided another update on his garlic expeditions - no doubt he has just planted some more garlic in his own garden. Read on for Matt’s update. (more…)

This Saturday (March 29) at 8pm don’t forget to turn off all your lights and unused appliances at the switch to show your support for Earth Hour.

The event, organised by WWF, began last year in Sydney where over 2.2 million residents and over 2,100 businesses turned off lights and appliances for one hour to help reduce the city’s greenhouse gas pollution. WWF says that this lead to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city.

This year the event has gone global with another 23 world cities formally signing up.

With 24 global cities on board for Earth Hour, WWF anticipates that more than 30 million people will be involved this year.

If you haven’t already, sign up for the event on the Earth Hour website. You don’t have to be in one of the 24 cities to show your support.

Not sure what I’ll be doing yet. I think another candle lit dinner with my family.

What are you planning? Or what did you do for Earth Hour?

This time of year is pumpkin eating time in my house.

It’s the time when I harvest my mini pumpkin vines and the little, knobby, round, orange vegetables lie happily around our kitchen and balcony.

They are really easy to grow and perfect for smaller gardens that don’t have a lot of space. I usually plant a few seeds and keep a couple of the strongest seedlings alive.

I let the vines ramble about my herb and vegetable patches, plus let them climb up the back fence trellises. They probably only get up to about five metres long so are quite manageable. (more…)

I love beer, especially now that I am pregnant and shouldn’t drink it

My husband brews a pretty good drop from our garage, which usually comes top of my list for taste.

But now there’s a new beer I’d like to try (when I can) and that’s Cascade Green, which Cascade claims is 100% carbon offset.

What does this mean? Well according to the Cascade brewery, all remaining greenhouse gas emissions from the beer are offset from the moment the company sources its hops to when the beer bottles are placed in recycling bins.

Cascade also says that it uses bio-degradable vegetable oil based inks in the beer’s packaging, and the carton is 100% recyclable.

Have you tried this beer? Let me know what you think.

Another good news solar story from Adelaide.

Work has finally begun on installing solar panels to Adelaide airport’s roof, producing the second-largest rooftop solar plant in Australia.

The panels will be attached to the airport’s Terminal roof 1, and will generate 160 megawatt hours of electricity a year, equivalent to the average electricity consumption of 30 houses. Read the full story on the Adelaide Now website.

Adelaide is one of my favourite Australian cities and recently I was lucky enough to travel there for a good friend’s wedding.

There are a lot of things I like about this city - good food and wine come top of mind plus a free city bus, but it also seems to be implementing some fantastic initiatives with solar energy.

One such initiative is the world’s first solar electric bus (also for free), which I saw driving around the city centre.

Yes, you heard it right -  world first!

Aptly named the Tindo (Kaurna Aboriginal name for sun), the bus is recharged using 100% solar energy. It also doesn’t have a combustion engine, which makes it a very quiet, zero emissions and carbon neutral vehicle.

It’s air-conditioned and can carry up to 42 passengers.

So if you are in Adelaide and you see a bright green bus called Tindo driving around, get on to check it out. Unfortunately, while I was in the city I kept missing it so I would love to hear what you think.

Trying to find products made from sustainably harvested wood can be tricky in Australia.

To help consumers do just this Greenpeace has releases its online Good Wood guide.

The guide lets you search for furniture and materials made of timber from ecologically responsible sources, as well as find out the eco status of certain timber species and find alternatives.