A Spade, A Hoe & A Piece of Fertile Ground

Following from my previous post "One Billion Trees" I thought I'd really ought to take my own advice and start planting. No point preaching something if I wasn't prepared to do it myself.
The slight hitch is that I live in an apartment and there are only are two 2.5 m by 1.7 m balconies. Not a lot of space for a tree. Sorry, let me rephrase that, not enough space for ANOTHER tree.

With a faithful & sturdy four-foot something Privet standing solidly out on the back balcony and a graceful weeping Japanese Maple ( just budding and about to sprout leaves) on the front balcony, I think we were close to hitting our weight quota. So I've decided the best thing to do is to plant grasses and flowers instead.


You know, one of the most wonderful things about living in a place with four seasons is the pace of things. That you get to see things change quickly. You see plants grow from tiny pinhead sized seeds to five-foot tall Honeysuckle climbers with coral orange flowers. Then, in a few months, they fruit and you get to harvest the seeds. To start all over again next year.
Can't really do this within the time frame of a year in the tropics. But, I digress....

The thing I can do at this time and in this space, is to plant grasses and flowers. To grow green leaves to help feed the planet with oxygen whilst taking away the carbon dioxide and to feed the human spirit with the bursting colour and beauty of flower and foliage. And then plant trees wherever I can, whenever I can.

Last year, I'd harvested the seeds of sunny Californian Poppies, blood red Poppies, purple Geraniums, Vanilla scented Heliotropes and really tall grasses, whose species I don't know. But they looked so densely bushy with those tall gorgeous flower heads, I couldn't help but pick up the seeds from the paths during an autumn walk at the The Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver.

Let us hope they grow up and grow well.
And as they sprout and grow, I will water them, feed them, hope for enough sun and clement weather. And I'll take heart from a song I remember John Denver singing on Sesame Street so many years ago. It's called The Garden Song and I believe it goes like this...(click on this link to hear the melody)

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

Pulling weeds and pickin' stones
Man is made from dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
'Cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature's chain
To my body and my brain
To the music from the land

Plant your rows straight and long
Thicker than with pray'r and song
Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her love and care
Old crow watchin' hungrily
From his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I'm as free
As that feathered thief up there

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

'Til the rain comes tumbling down

Going Green Bananas

Funny how life moves in cycles. About 15 years ago I started a little eco company in Singapore called Green Bananas that made a paper making kit for people to recycle their own paper at home. Green because I wanted people to know it's environmental bent but more likely because I was totally green to the cutthroat world of business and Bananas because everyone thought I was crazy to give up a good and stable job for what? An unlikely little paper making kit that may not even have a market.

We did sell about 1,000 kits during the 2 or so years the little Green Bananas was out there doing paper making demos; giving magazine, TV & paper interviews encouraging people to start recycling paper in their own homes (in those days, Singapore had no recycling system for anything. Things have changed now though) and even holding a handmade paper art exhibition called, you guess it, Paper * People * Planet.






Back then I had quit my well-paying
job as a writer for a Interior design magazine and put all my meagre savings into designing, manufacturing and marketing a simple paper making kit that made A4 paper.

It had everything you needed to make paper (apart from the blender) and packaged, quite charmingly in a jute bag.

How I managed to wrangle my friends & family to help out in it's publicity and sales I have no idea. I just stand in

grateful awe that they did. We had quite a ride with it. I am willing to bet that at least 50 friends and family still remember how to make their own paper today. And if they've forgotten and would like to teach their children, the next post will help them along their way.

And this is was the purposely unintimadating instruction leaflet that came with the kit.

And now, here I sit years later, writing a blog on the beautiful diversity of handmade & recycled paper. On how people can use this humble medium of paper to help make this planet a bit better, by art & by recycling, for those who live in it now. And also for the children who will come after.

Greening the earth seemed so possible then.

And so it it still is. It must be.

Because if not now, then WHEN?

And if not me, then WHO?