I’m afraid our trip to the Farmers’ Market was a bit of a disaster as it wasn’t on when we got there. Never mind, but it’s making it very difficult for me to make a meal out of local produce exclusively. In view of what is, and isn’t available around here, I will be retrieving our last bag of locally grown (by us) prepared courgette from the freezer and making courgette soup for supper tonight, with some bread from the local bakery to go with it. I feel a little defeated not being able to prepare a fresh, organic local meal from seasonal produce, so I will be carrying this challenge forward and trying to source more local food. Of course, once we get to June/July and we can start harvesting our own vegetables from the allotment again, it will be the simplest thing to do.

Our goal of reducing packaging is going fine, our bin is a lot less full than the past few weeks, and I’m making a point of buying larger packs/bottles to reduce the quantity of packaging that we throw away.

We haven’t had our TV-free night yet, and as an avid Green Wing fan it won’t be happening tonight either. This has been our biggest sticking point this week, something to contemplate and consider.

We had a little whoops last night when Pete arrived home with a large slab of Fruit & Nut chocolate that we devoured while watching CSI on the telly. We’re going to have to amend our 3 non-essential purchases list to include something other than chocolate. I’ve given it some thought and have decided on books, a little obsession of mine. I can’t pass up a trip to the library without looking at the books for sale, nor can I pass a charity shop (and we have 4 in our village that I pass every day while walking to school) without going in and more often than not emerge with a few books under my arm. So I won’t buy any books this week, and will try to curb my habit in the future.

I have a visit to the Farmers’ Market planned for tomorrow morning, to buy the ingredients for my locally sourced organic meal that we are having tomorrow night as one of our Downshifting Week actions. I am going to try to visit the Farmers’ Market every month to continue this theme, and I’ll also be trying to use the farm shop in the next village, and the Country Markets instead of stopping at a supermarket so frequently.

As this week continues I realise that I’ve left the hardest actions for last, but I’m enjoying the personal challenge of making a difference to my life and the planet.

I’ve been doing a spot of shopping at Spirit of Nature this morning, they are one of my favourite all round eco-friendly shops, good for toys, toiletries and clothes.

I’ve “trialled” one of their eco-friendly toothbrushes for the past few months and I like them, so we are going to roll-out eco-friendly toothbrushes to the whole family. What makes these toothbrushes eco-friendly is that they have replaceable heads, so you’re only throwing away the head of the toothbrush, not the whole thing. They also sell eco-friendly toothbrushes for kids.

I’m going to be trying some Borage Cream for my daughter who has recently broken out in eczema, and have ordered the Borage Bath Foam too.

And we’ve also bought a tambourine and hand bells as a present for a friend.

I’m finding it hard to eliminate 3 unecessary purchases this week. The first item was easy to choose, meat. Deciding what else to cut out this week will be a bit harder.

I contemplated buying myself the new MOOM “leg-wax” kit from Spirit of Nature this morning when I was placing an order with them (for necessaties, of course), but thought better of it, so I’ll put that on the list of 3.

Ah! Chocolate, we’ll do without buying any chocolate this week. So that’s the third purchase, our list is complete.

This has been the hardest action so far this week, something that will be a challenge to fit into our lives more permanently.

Today I went through Ayrton and Piper’s clothes to root out clothes that they’ve grown out of and made up a bag to drop off at the charity shop tomorrow.

So far, so good on National Downshifting Week, and I’m enjoying the feeling of ticking off the actions and knowing that I’ve achieved my goal for the day. All three of the actions we’ve already done will be ongoing.

Piper and I handmade thank you cards today for all the presents that she received for her second birthday last weekend.  It was lots of fun for both of us.

We bought our new carpet today, although it won’t be laid until the end of June when we finish work to the house.  It is a 100% British Wool carpet that will be laid on top of an underlay made from 100% recycled old car tyres.  It will go in the entrance hall, on the stairs, and all of upstairs (except the bathroom).

Yesterday was the first day of National Downshifting Week, and Pete and I each cut up a credit card to mark our resolve to pay back our debts and start living debt-free.

I was talking about gardening with a good friend on the telephone tonight, and she told me that they are siphoning their children’s bath water out of the bath, through the window and into a drum on a wheelbarrow directly below.  They then wheelbarrow the water to wherever they want it, and it is enough water for their entire vegetable patch every day.  What a brilliant idea, we are going to give it a go ourselves.

We bought a washing machine about four years ago that had a built-in dryer because at the time we were living in London with very little space both indoor and out for hanging up washing.  I was working full-time and thought that a dryer would help me get my washing dry fast. The dryer timer button on the machine broke within a year, and instead of mending it, I’ve just left it that way to prevent myself from using it and so wasting more electricity.

Since moving out to Surrey, whenever the weather has allowed I’ve hung my washing up outside to take advantage of the free and sustainable sunshine and wind to dry my washing.  After a succession of cheap retractable washing lines fixed to walls and fences, we’ve finally succumbed to spending a bit more on a large and very sturdy rotary washing-line that collapses and can be put away in the shed when it’s not required. Wash-day (sometimes everyday when you have small children) is far more appealing when spending some time outside in the sunshine is included, and drying your washing outside is far better for the environment too.  And just think of the savings on the electric bill!

We will be taking part in National Downshifting Week (Saturday 22nd April to Friday 28th April 2006) and trying to make these changes to slow down and green up:

• Cut up a credit card
• Donate a bag of baby clothes to a charity shop
• Handmake thank-you cards for all the presents that Piper got for her birthday last weekend
• Eliminate three non-essential purchases this week
• Have a TV-free night to listen to the radio, play games and spend time together
• Cook a meal made up of locally sourced, organic ingredients
• Reduce our residual waste by buying products with less packaging

The idea is to try 7 actions in 7 days and see how you get on.  If you like the difference that the action has made to your life, whether allowing you more time with your family, reducing your waste or leaving you with a little extra money at the end of the week, then you can continue with the actions indefinitely.  We’ll be tracking our progress from Saturday and will let you know how we get on.

As the weather is warming up we are seeing more and more green at the allotment and at the home garden. 

This year’s allotment plan is to grow more of what we enjoy and leave out the crops that we either didn’t enjoy or didn’t fare very well for one reason or another.  Click here to see our full allotment planting plan.

In the home garden, the fruit trees are all sprouting leaves and blossoms are opening on the cherry tree and the pear tree.  I’m hoping for our first cherries and kiwi fruits this year.  We had a good number of apples from our two young trees last year, but they were all pretty small, so I will be reducing the numbers of fruit on the trees this year and hope for bigger juicier fruit.

We are growing organically because we believe it’s best for the environment and best for us.  It is an adventure where we are constantly learning about natural pest control, encouraging useful insects in the garden and how to beat diseases like rust, blight and club-root, all of which we encountered in 2005.  Knowing what preventative measures to take, and what to look out for is proving a valuable skill in helping us get more from our allotment and garden every year.

From looking around the other plots at our allotments, we aren’t the only ones who suffered badly from club root last summer.  It seems that the allotments are awash with the disease, and so we will be taking steps to get a few decent cabbages this season.

We have bought F1 "Kilaxy" cabbage seeds from Dobies, it is a club root resistant cabbage that was developed in Holland.  The seeds have come up in our cold frame and I’ve just trans-planted them into bigger pots to grow on.  They seem to be growing well and looking rather robust.

Instead of planting seeds straight into the beds where they will be growing on the allotment plot, we are going to grow our cold frame cabbages to a reasonable size before planting them out, and we have ordered plugs of calabrese and cauliflower.  I’ve heard that starting plants out in pots and allowing them to grow big and strong before planting into potentially infected soil will go some way to resisting the disease.

I’m also going to try liming, and of course we will be rotating to another bed for brassicas this season.   

About a month ago we signed up to A Year Of Living Generously, an online community that is now nearing 500 households working together to look after this planet.

The project started in September 2004, when 100 people tried to start living more generously.  The actions taken included switching off the tap while brushing your teeth, switching to an ethical bank or trying to shop locally.  At the end of the year, all 100 people wanted to continue living generously, and the project was extended to 300 households.

It didn’t take long to recruit the additional members, and there was a long waiting list, so A Year Of Living Generously decided to open the online project up to anyone and see what happened.

We signed up at this point and are enjoying receiving emails every week or so suggesting a new action for us to consider.  This week’s action was composting, something that we are already doing, so I could tick that off as done and look forward to the next challenge.

If you would like to join A Year Of Living Generously, apply here. 

When we decided to change our electricity supply to one made up of 100% renewable energy, we knew that we couldn’t afford to increase our bills substantially so we chose npower Juice, who could provide the energy at only £20 a year more that what we were currently paying.

In reality, npower Juice don’t supply 100% renewable energy directly to our electric plugs.  npower  matches every unit of normal electricity used by each Juice customer, and feeds the same amount, generated from renewable sources (mainly the North Hoyle Offshore Windfarm), into the electricity network.  The concept of Juice was brought about by an unusual partnership between npower and Greenpeace.

To decide who should be providing you with green energy you can check out:

Green Electricity Marketplace

Energy Lynx’s Renewable Energy Guide