Fruit of our labours

This post was inspired by the upcoming Festival of Trees, which has fruit trees and orchards as a theme.

To mark the birth of my eldest son, I planted an apple tree. Well, it was so tiny that you could hardly call it a tree. It was nothing more than a stick with bare roots growing from one end, and two twigs bound with nurseryman's tape to the fork at the other. In all, it probably came to no more than a meter tall, but this was some six years ago and I have a bad memory for measurements and such.

What I can remember is how I came away from the heritage fruit varieties grafting day held by a core of dedicated gardeners at CERES Environment Park that cold August winter's day with great excitement and trepidation: could I get this precious package home okay? would I plant it in its pot correctly? did I have a big enough pot, and enough manure? and would the grafts ‘take’ and the tree survive?

The two tiny twigs – scions – were of two different heritage apple varieties that are uncommon in Australia – King of the Pippins (an excellent eating apple) and a Baldwin (reputed to be an American favourite for cider and cooking). They were grafted onto a dwarf-variety, agricultural quality, disease resistant rootstock. I wanted a dwarf variety because we lived in a rented home and, while being avid vegetable gardeners then, my partner and I didn't want to lose the apple tree if we had to leave that house and garden at some stage. We wanted to be able to take the tree with us if we moved.

I had been wanting to plant a tree to celebrate my son's birth for a some months after he was born. It struck me as a significant and enduring heritage that I could give him: a living thing that would grow as he grew, that he could learn about the cycle of living things through, and that would be not only beautiful, but also useful – productive, even. It didn't take long to settle on a potted fruit tree, rather than a gum tree or some other Australian native tree that would never survive a pot.

A potted heritage apple offered many attractions: fruit, portability, and being part of continuing varieties of apples whose species viability were threatened by the restricted varietal choices of commercial growers and supermarket chains, and the vagaries of industrialised agriculture. It also helped that we liked apples. I dreamed of one day having a whole backyard orchard of heritage fruit varieties.

Without going too much into the ins-and-outs, let’s just say that things did not go entirely to plan. Don’t get me wrong – the grafts took and the tree survives to this day. Only, with the vagaries of Australia’s longest-drought-on-record, harsh garden watering restrictions and the competing demands of work, family and home, gardening was given a back seat in our changing priorities and the apple tree has become the main casualty of our horticultural neglect.

But let’s just say that it never got the opportunity to thrive. Its flowering and fruiting have taken a battering from the shifting climate conditions, lack of water and poor feeding; and I haven’t learned to prune it. If this were the Day of the Triffids, the apple tree would murder me in my bed.

When we gave up the massive vegetable garden and weatherboard house (and the effort that came with their upkeep) and downscaled to a brick unit with a small courtyard, small herb and flower beds and potted plants three years ago, we brought the apple tree in its pot with us. But downsizing our gardening has not improved the attention the apple has received from us. In fact, it has failed to fruit properly two seasons in a row. Guild over how I’ve neglected the apple tree nags at me over time.

So, do you think I’ve learned my lesson? Well, no. My partner and I have been talking about planting a fruit tree to commemorate the birth of our second son! He turns two in May, and we hope to plant something to mark that time. We’ve decided on a citrus.

Concerned that son number two’s horticultural heritage should not be some impossible to eat lemon – you know, sour, bitter, tart, thorny, forbidding, and certainly not for eating off the tree – we’ve been discussing whether to plant an orange or a Tahitian lime for him and whether they would survive Melbourne’s winters. (I know, preferring a lime contradicts my concerns over lemons, but I think a lime has more zing, and so spark and life, and I love cooking with them!)

Will I learn to not keep trying to grow fruit? No. Because I will always aspire to be different, better, more attentive, when it comes to the fruit trees – especially those planted in our children’s honour. Mainly because they celebrate our children, but also because fruit trees hold some special place for me, and I’m sure many other people in Melbourne. Whenever I'm given pause to think of home grown fruit, I envy people whose fruit trees thrive in their suburban gardens.

Home-grown fruit signify self reliance, a love of good fruit, the joy of picking and eating ripe fruit straight off the tree, being in tune with the cycle of seasons and changes in weather and water, as well as having greater choice in fruit varieties and not being dictated to by supermarkets over what an apple (or pear, lemon, peach, or nectarine) should look, feel, and taste like. Home-grown fruit allow us to connect with where our food comes from, how it is grown and raised, how it gets from farms to our tables, and what food means to us as people. Contrary, even, to the growing chorus calling for Australians to abandon gardening to save watering, I would argue for these reasons that we continue to grow food – including fruit – albeit with judicious water use.

In this time of environmental crisis and challenges to our habits of consuming more than we can sustain, growing our own fruit trees – however small and humble the tree, and however great and difficult the challenge – offers us the chance to take powerful, though symbolic, action to reaffirm our hope for something different, for something better, for our selves and our children.

So, with my desire to grow another fruit tree for son number two has come the resolution to rescue the apple tree of son number one – to re-pot it and give it a good pruning this winter, and to feed and water it come spring and summer in the hope it will find its feet again. Promise.

[Image by me: these people have no problem looking after their fruit! A little apple tree in the front garden of a house in my neighbourhood]

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Freshwater lake flushed out to sea

Would you believe that the area in the picture used to be a lake? It is mind blowing to think that the water in this two-hectare sized lake disappeared in the space of two months. It just got flushed out into sea! All that fresh water lost due to global warming.

The lake is in the Magallanes region in the south of Chile. When rangers checked it in March, it was as normal. When they returned in May, "they found a huge dry crater and several stranded chunks of ice that used to float on the water". When the lake's disappearance was first reported in June, geologists were speculating that geological disturbances were responsible.

Now, the BBC reports that it was global warming:

Experts now say melting glaciers put pressure on an ice wall that acted as a dam, causing it to give way. … Water in the lake flowed out of the breach into a nearby fjord and then out to the sea.

According to glacier specialist Andres Rivera:

"On one side of the Bernardo glacier one can see a large hole or gap, and we believe that's where the water flowed through."

"This confirms that glaciers in the region are retreating and getting thinner."

"This would not be happening if the temperature had not increased."

Apparently, the lake now seems to be filling up again, most likely because the slabs of ice left on the lake bed are melting. You can compare the before and after images on the BBC website.

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Water theft

Someone I know, who lives in near a regional centre in Victoria's Goldfields district, had her water stolen recently.

How do you steal someone's water? Well, you use a large water tanker to steal the water from their water tank. Of course, it helps if you've targeted a regional or rural property that is a little secluded or distant from prying eyes, and you visit that property when the owners are away for a couple of days.

Alternatively, you may be masquerading as someone selling water – a booming business in these days of water shortages – and show up on the pretense that you're filling, rather than emptying, the water tank and fool the neighbours.

This person lost all the water in her 2,000 liter bladder water tank – which was under her back deck, suggesting they had 'thoroughly cased the joint' to know it was there. She was quite upset about it, and the police, who've indicated it is not an uncommon occurrence, haven't been able to do much. Apparently, the owners of a holiday house in the area also lost their water recently, but they don't know when the theft occured because of the time lag between their visits to their property.

I don't think this is a new problem, though it hasn't received much coverage outside the regional press and radio, but with the severity of the water shortages in rural areas and the drought making every drop of rain caught in rain-water tanks liquid gold, theft like this is excruciating, and unfortunately will grow increasingly common. Especially after recent good rainfall has filled the tanks.

Amongst the group of us who heard this story last week, there was speculation that the thieves were using it themselves for thirsty livestock and crops, or possibly selling the water to others. Which raises the spectre that there is a blackmarket for water amongst water carters. It seems there is always someone who wants to profit from misfortune – in this case, drought.

It's no wonder the NSW police have many suggestions for farmers and those living in rural areas to keep their properties secure, such as putting a padlock on your water tank and keeping track of its contents. And I thought country people took pride in being able to leave their doors unlocked.

Doesn't say very much of our reputation for observing the principles of the 'fair go', persevering in adversity and 'helping out' in the country. Sorry, 'rural and regional Australia'.

[Image of Australian water tanks by Georgie Sharp (cc) ]

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Wasting water, energy and money in the shower

ABC News reports that singing in the shower a 'waste of money':

Energy Australia has conducted research showing people are wasting money on hot water by singing and daydreaming in the shower.

Ouch! It is one of my big vices – is daydreaming! Not only does it waste money on our gas and water bills, it wastes water in our drought-struck land, and wastes energy – something our warming climate cannot afford. I've been trying to cut down my shower times – really. But, I still occasionaly wonder off into a daydream, and before I know it…

I will have to find some other outlet for my daydreaming, which is one of my powerful creative spaces for new ideas and initiatives. Ideas, anyone?

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Irrigation is the biggest water loser

WorldChanging has this excellent post on water and irrigation, Saving The World, Drip By Drip, with an interesting discussion in the comments about irrigation and water wastage. (I made a point about Australia's drought situation and cotton's water inefficiency, which I've posted on before.) The post's author, Jeremy Faludi, insists that:

inefficient irrigation wastes more water than all the people of the world use (efficiently or inefficiently) for all their drinking, bathing, manufacturing, and industry.

Sobering thought, considering my last spray about nuclear power and water missuse.

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Drought-struck Australia cannot afford nuclear power

Hah! I knew it! While I've been thinking and reading and blogging on why nuclear power is not the solution to global warming for a long time now, I've been growing more and more concerned about the issue of water – nuclear power's (and uranium mining's) reliance on abundant water.

This World Changing piece, Our Nuclear Summer, confirms my belief that nuclear power generation is far too reliant on water – a resource that is dwindling in our warming planet!

For all the arguments made by the opponents of nuclear power -- that it is uneconomical, unsafe, a potential boon to terrorists, poses waste-disposal issues, and all the rest -- nuclear's biggest threat may come from the one problem it is purported to address: climate change.

If, as many climatologists suggest, the heat waves in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere are an indication of shifts in global climate patterns, it could spell doom for nuclear power, whose viability is directly linked to the availability of adequate water supplies.

Consider what's happened lately on both sides of the Atlantic.

'The extended heat wave in July aggravated drought conditions across much of Europe, lowering water levels in the lakes and rivers that many nuclear plants depend on to cool their reactors,' reports the Christian Science Monitor…

Nuclear power generators in "France, Spain and Germany were forced to take some plants offline and reduce operations at others", while a U.S. utility had to cut the power at a plant because a heat wave affected cooling water supplies from the Missippi River valley.

While World Changing acknowledges these are short-term problems, they argue that global warming's threat to water supplies poses long-term dangers to nuclear power generation.

This must be considered in responding to Australia's growing fascination with nuclear power – we don't have the water to spare for it. It's also huge irony that nuclear power is touted as a saviour to Australia's water shortage – a way to provide the cheap energy needed by water desalination plants pomoted by some in New South Wales and Queensland.

Hah. Throwing good water after bad.

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Cotton – pulling the threads together (Part I)

It's official: cotton is one of the thirstiest crops in Australia – and that is something we can ill afford in drought stricken Australia.

The latest ABS statistics on water use by Australian farmers found that while farmers of other crops had reduced their water use in 2004–2005, that same year cotton farmers had increased their water irrigation use by 570 gigalitres from the previous year.

According to the Bureau of Statistics, "both the area irrigated and volume used [for cotton] increased by 46% on the previous year."

While rice farming remains the most water-intensive crop on average, rice farmers managed to cut their irrigation use, while cotton irrigation increased.

Why my preoccupation with cotton? I love cotton: I like wearing clothes made of cotton, preferring them over synthetic textiles most of the time. But, I'm bothered by the way cotton is grown, where it is processed and the cheap clothes manufactured with it. A shopping expedition these days reveals it is hard to find decent, good quality cotton clothing, or that isn't made by underpaid, highly repressed labour in China.

More significantly, I hate that cotton is the biggest genetically modified crop in Australia, making a lie out of some Australian states' claim to being free of GM-crops. And GM cotton allows a genetically modified food crop to enter our food-chain through a back door: GM cottonseed.

It is hard to imagine cotton as a food crop, but the seed is fed to cattle to supplement their diet. Meanwhile, when so much attention went to GM soy and canola in the debates of recent years, our fast-food outlets, supermarkets and other food processors had long been selling food cooked in GM cottonseed oil!

Not only is this highly industrialised, extremely thirsty, GM crop grown in Australia, it is grown in states – drought stricken New South Wales and Queensland – that I believe can ill-afford the water use. Queensland is in crisis, as its South-east has now reached Level 3 water restrictions, and the citizens of Toowoomba Shire are voting on whether to allow treated sewerage water to be pumped into their damns for domestic use.

In the next part of what will be a series on cotton, I will look at its history in economic and political terms, and start to think about organic cotton. If you have ideas on this or future parts, I welcome feedback.

[Image of by Tatum Shaw]

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