02 Henry David Thoreau -...
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Come rain or shine, a greenhouse can provide you with a glorious garden escape where you can enjoy growing your own plants A If you are new to the green- house game, they can be an escape into a world of grow- ing wonder. It’s not just about using it as a tool, but as a place to escape as well. Your green- house becomes a room in which you can produce new growth, like an artist’s studio. It can be set up for qui- et reflection or provide the perfect space for production. Why build a greenhouse Greenhouses can be made in all shapes and sizes and are a sure-fire way for you to elevate your gardening to the next level. As a protected growing site, it also enables you to extend the grow- ing season, giving you access to the joys of gardening for more months out of the year. Moreover as it is shielded from the seasons, you have the oppor- tunity to grow seedlings, tender plants and vegetables, or even exotics, where you may not have before. How to set up a GREENHOUSE “What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Henry David Thoreau 02 ENVIRONMENT RECYCLE YOUR CLOTHES TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT: 1. Look for a nearby recy- cling station: You can do a simple Google search to locate a place or a shop that accepts old clothes for recycling purposes. Sometimes, even high-street labels organise recycling drives to help you get rid of unwanted clothes. 2. Donate your clothes: There are two advantages of recycling your clothes. One, you’ll be helping someone in need by donat- ing your clothes to them. Two, it’s a more sustainable way of recycling them. It means that the clothes you bought will be given up only after they have been fully utilised. NEWS Mexicans have created more than a hundred urban gardens, most of them in the capital Mexico City, in an attempt to attract hummingbirds that have seen their natural habitat gradually destroyed as cities sprawl. The country is home to 58 different species but half of its 13 endemic species are now at the risk of extinction as suitable habitats are shrinking because of human settlements and even climate change. The ‘Urban Gardens’ project has led to the cre- ation of 149 gardens. MEXICO FIGHTS HUMMINGBIRDS’ EXTINCTION Two cheetah cubs have been born through in-vitro fertili- sation and embryo transfer to a surrogate mother for the first time at an Ohio (US) zoo. The male and female cubs were born to three-year-old Izzy at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. A team observed the births through a remote camera and are continuing to monitor Izzy and the cubs. The biological mother of the cubs is six-year old Kibibi who has never reproduced and is too old to easily become pregnant naturally. WORLD’S FIRST IVF CHEETAH CUBS BORN AT US ZOO THE TYRANNY OF MICROPLASTICS This photo from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows a piece of microplastic foam debris found along the coast of Alaska, on a person's finger. Scientists are finding ‘microplastics’ — incredibly tiny bits of broken-down plastic smaller than a fraction of a grain of rice — everywhere in the environment, from ocean water to inside the guts of fish and even mixed in with the poop of sea otters and giant killer whales. TNN Pop Quiz ANSWERS IDENTIFY THESE SPECIES 1 2 4 5 3 1. Red panda 2. Squirrel monkey 3. African Land Snail 4. Partula snail 5. Red-ruffed lemur Built to protect the world’s food supplies, the global seed vault in Svalbard (Norway) now contains 1.05 million samples A vault in the Arctic built to preserve seeds for rice, wheat and other food sta- ples contains one million varieties with the addi- tion of specimens grown by Chero- kee Indians and the es- tate of Britain’s Prince Charles. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built on a mountain- side in 2008, was de- signed as a storage fa- cility to protect vital crop seeds against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or dis- ease and safeguard global food supplies. Dubbed the ‘dooms- day vault,’ the facility lies on the is- land of Spitsbergen in the archi- pelago of Svalbard, halfway between Norway and the North Pole, and is only opened a few times a year in order to preserve the seeds inside. Last week, 30 gene banks, in- cluding offerings from India, Mali and Peru, deposited seeds. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in Britain banked seeds har- vested from the meadows of Prince Charles’ private residence, High- grove. The vault also serves as a backup for plant breeders to devel- op new varieties of crops. The world used to cultivate around 7,000 different plants but experts say we now get about 60% of our calories from three main crops – maize, wheat and rice – making food sup- plies vulnerable if cli- mate change causes harvests to fail. “The seed vault is the backup in the global system of con- servation to secure food security on Earth,” Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust, the Bonn-based organisation that man- ages the vault. “We need to preserve this bio- diversity, crop diversity, to provide healthy diets and nutritious foods, and to give farmers, especially small- holders, with sustainable livelihoods so that they can adapt to new con- ditions.” AFP ARCTIC DOOMSDAY food vault welcomes millionth seed variety According to the United Nations’ World Food Programme, one in nine people go to bed hungry globally. And unfortunately, scien- tists have predicted that erratic weather patterns could reduce both the quality and quantity of food available. In 2015, researchers made a first withdrawal from the vault after Syria's civil war damaged a seed bank near the city of Aleppo. The seeds were grown and re-deposited at the Svalbard vault in 2017. SOMEONE GOES TO BED HUNGRY EVERY DAY DONATE, RESTYLE, REUSE R oses don’t seem like such a kind gesture when you think about them getting shipped to the city on cargo planes from Ecuador, or decomposing in landfills and converting to methane gas. In the US, the sharing economy has trickled down to the flower industry, with more companies committed to either extending the tem- porary joy flowers bring or to reusing or composting them more responsibly. A typical wedding or gala can produce up to 100 bags of flowers. So Liza Lubell created Garbage God- dess, which provides eco- cleanup services for events. Often, the company will do- nate event flowers to textile designers, who use the flow- ers to make natural dyes. Jennifer Grove’s Repeat Roses will pick up flowers af- ter an event, restyle them, and transport them to a women’s homeless shelter. When the flowers wilt, it will deliver them to a compost- ing facility. But people love flowers, so to cancel them is unreal- istic, said Jenny Flax, an event planner. “People want to use flowers, but you can help them see how the amount of waste is alarming and what they can do to help.” NYT NEWS SERVICE Flower firms are taking the recycle route Why let flowers go to waste after the party’s over? When you choose to re-purpose flowers, as many firms are doing, you can ensure they don’t wind up in landfills Sweden creates $1m prizes for sustainable food solutions A ccording to Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Insti- tute for Climate Research in Germany and co-chair of the prize jury, humanity needs a food system revolution or risk destabilising the planet. He said that the new Food Planet Prize is designed to contribute to this goal. The two Food Plan- et Prizes will be awarded an- nually. They categories are: 1. AMPLIFY & ACCELERATE: For ‘an existing scalable solution for sustainable foods’ 2. RETHINK & RESHAPE: For ‘innovative ini- tiatives that could transform the global food sector.’ WHY SUSTAINABLE FOOD SOLUTIONS The world’s population, cur- rently at 7.8 billion, is ex- pected to grow to close to 10 billion by 2050. Feeding a population of that size will be possible only through transforming eating habits, improving food production and reducing food waste, ex- perts say. HOW TO PARTICIPATE Are you interested in solving the world’s food problem? Log on to www.foodplanet- prize.org and click on ‘submit a nomina- tion.’ Fill the details as specified and ensure all the details you submit are correct. AFP Climate change threat- ens the world’s food sup- ply and a growing popu- lation requires sustain- able food systems. To counter this, Sweden has created two $1 million prizes for solutions to feed billions of people GARDENING CLUB Think about the location Where you build your greenhouse is impor- tant, but deciding where to site it will be de- termined by what you want to grow. Every garden is different – only you will know which parts of your plot receive full, morning or evening sun, and which are lacking them. Don’t forget that the sun’s position will change throughout the year too. Avoid placing it under trees: Not only is there shade, but also the risk of falling branches and bird waste. Go for the sun: Ideally, you should have the greenhouse’s longest side facing south for optimal sun. This will maximise ac- cess to sunlight when plants need it most. Accessibility: It is important to make sure that your greenhouse is located near to your home, or school. After all, what good is a per- fectly-sited greenhouse you never visit because it's too far down the garden path. Glassy is classy The glass panes in greenhouse help with growing through the diffusion of light and trapping the warmth of the sun, so keep them clean. Clean off any green algae and moss and disinfect the glass as you go. This is best done in winter before the grow- ing season starts. Double-glazing will give you about three times the protection from heat loss as single panes, but you can also do this yourself in the winter by following gardening tutorials available online. Greenhouse staging 1. Capillary mats (a mat made of an absorbent fabric) will help make sure pots don’t dry out and will keep a humid atmosphere around leaves. 2. Your potting station – a workbench used for small gardening tasks such as transplanting seedlings – should come with sides fitted specially to hold the compost in. Your workbench should be positioned at waist height; and shelving will maximise the space for your specific needs. All this makes pot- ting easy and enjoyable. DAILY MIRROR Accessories, as you please With any outdoor structure, you need to consider vary- ing temperature and ventilation needs throughout the year. For this, larger hard-standing greenhouses are easier to con- trol with openings for ventilation and heating. You can buy automatic window openers to vent your greenhouse on hot days. You can also set up partitions for sectioning off growing needs, and you can be quite clever with the internal fit to get an organised set up. HI, I’M GREENBOT! JOIN ME IN MY QUEST TO REDUCE WASTE IN DAILY LIFE The vault was built in Svalbard (Norway) because the Arctic’s cold climate meant its contents would stay cool even if the power fails
Transcript of 02 Henry David Thoreau -...
Come rain or shine, agreenhouse can provide youwith a glorious gardenescape where you can enjoygrowing your own plants
A If you are new to the green-house game, they can be anescape into a world of grow-ing wonder. It’s not justabout using it as a tool, but
as a place to escape as well. Your green-house becomes a room in which youcan produce new growth, like anartist’s studio. It can be set up for qui-et reflection or provide the perfectspace for production.
Why build a greenhouse Greenhouses can be made in all shapesand sizes and are a sure-fire way foryou to elevate your gardening to thenext level. As a protected growing site,it also enables you to extend the grow-ing season, giving you access to thejoys of gardening for more months outof the year. Moreover as it is shieldedfrom the seasons, you have the oppor-tunity to grow seedlings, tender plantsand vegetables, or even exotics, whereyou may not have before.
How to set up a GREENHOUSE
“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Henry David Thoreau 02 ENVIRONMENT
RECYCLE YOUR CLOTHES TO SAVE THE
ENVIRONMENT:1. Look for a nearby recy-cling station: You can do asimple Google search tolocate a place or a shopthat accepts old clothes forrecycling purposes.Sometimes, even high-streetlabels organise recyclingdrives to help you get rid ofunwanted clothes.
2. Donate yourclothes: There are two
advantagesof recyclingyour clothes.
One, you’ll behelpingsomeonein need
bydonat-
ing yourclothes tothem. Two,it’s a more
sustainable wayof recyclingthem. It means
that the clothesyou bought will begiven up only afterthey have been fully
utilised.
NEWS
Mexicans have created more than a hundred urban gardens,most of them in the capital Mexico City, in an attempt toattract hummingbirds that have seen their natural habitatgradually destroyed as cities sprawl. The country is hometo 58 different species but half of its 13 endemic speciesare now at the risk of extinction as suitable habitats areshrinking because of human settlements and even climatechange. The ‘Urban Gardens’ project has led to the cre-ation of 149 gardens.
MEXICO FIGHTS HUMMINGBIRDS’ EXTINCTION
Two cheetah cubs have been born through in-vitro fertili-sation and embryo transfer to a surrogate mother for thefirst time at an Ohio (US) zoo. The male and female cubswere born to three-year-old Izzy at the Columbus Zoo andAquarium. A team observed the births through a remotecamera and are continuing to monitor Izzy and the cubs.The biological mother of the cubs is six-year old Kibibiwho has never reproduced and is too old to easily becomepregnant naturally.
WORLD’S FIRST IVF CHEETAHCUBS BORN AT US ZOO
THE TYRANNY OF MICROPLASTICS
This photo from the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA) shows a piece of microplastic foamdebris found along the coast of Alaska, on a person's finger.Scientists are finding ‘microplastics’ — incredibly tiny bitsof broken-down plastic smaller than a fraction of a grain ofrice — everywhere in the environment, from ocean water toinside the guts of fish and even mixed in with the poop ofsea otters and giant killer whales. TNN
Pop Quiz
ANSWERS
IDENTIFY THESESPECIES
1 2
4 5
3
1. Red panda2. Squirrel monkey3. African Land Snail 4. Partula snail5. Red-ruffed lemur
Built to protect the world’s food supplies, the global seed vault in Svalbard(Norway) now contains 1.05 million samples A vault in the Arctic built
to preserve seeds for rice,wheat and other food sta-ples contains one millionvarieties with the addi-
tion of specimens grown by Chero-kee Indians and the es-tate of Britain’s PrinceCharles.
The SvalbardGlobal Seed Vault,built on a mountain-side in 2008, was de-signed as a storage fa-cility to protect vitalcrop seeds against theworst cataclysms ofnuclear war or dis-ease and safeguardglobal food supplies.
Dubbed the ‘dooms-day vault,’ the facility lies on the is-land of Spitsbergen in the archi-pelago of Svalbard, halfway betweenNorway and the North Pole, and isonly opened a few times a year inorder to preserve the seeds inside.
Last week, 30 gene banks, in-cluding offerings from India, Maliand Peru, deposited seeds.
The Royal Botanical Gardens atKew in Britain banked seeds har-
vested from the meadows of PrinceCharles’ private residence, High-grove. The vault also serves as abackup for plant breeders to devel-op new varieties of crops.
The world used to cultivatearound 7,000 differentplants but experts saywe now get about 60%of our calories fromthree main crops –maize, wheat and rice– making food sup-plies vulnerable if cli-mate change causesharvests to fail.
“The seed vault isthe backup in theglobal system of con-servation to securefood security on
Earth,” Stefan Schmitz, executivedirector of the Crop Trust, theBonn-based organisation that man-ages the vault.
“We need to preserve this bio-diversity, crop diversity, to providehealthy diets and nutritious foods,and to give farmers, especially small-holders, with sustainable livelihoodsso that they can adapt to new con-ditions.” AFP
ARCTIC DOOMSDAYfood vault welcomesmillionth seed variety
According to the United Nations’ World FoodProgramme, one in nine people go to bedhungry globally. And unfortunately, scien-tists have predicted that erratic weather patterns could reduce both the quality andquantity of food available. In 2015, researchers made a firstwithdrawal from the vault after Syria's civil war damaged aseed bank near the city of Aleppo. The seeds were grownand re-deposited at the Svalbard vault in 2017.
SOMEONE GOES TO BED HUNGRY EVERY DAY
DONATE, RESTYLE, REUSE
R oses don’t seem likesuch a kind gesturewhen you think about
them getting shipped to thecity on cargo planes fromEcuador, or decomposing inlandfills and converting tomethane gas.
In the US, the sharingeconomy has trickled downto the flower industry, withmore companies committedto either extending the tem-porary joy flowers bring orto reusing or compostingthem more responsibly.
A typical wedding orgala can produce up to 100
bags of flowers. So LizaLubell created Garbage God-dess, which provides eco-cleanup services for events.Often, the company will do-nate event flowers to textiledesigners, who use the flow-ers to make natural dyes.
Jennifer Grove’s RepeatRoses will pick up flowers af-ter an event, restyle them,and transport them to awomen’s homeless shelter.When the flowers wilt, it willdeliver them to a compost-ing facility.
But people love flowers,so to cancel them is unreal-istic, said Jenny Flax, an event planner. “Peoplewant to use flowers, but you can help them see howthe amount of waste isalarming and what they cando to help.”
NYT NEWS SERVICE
Flower firms are takingthe recycle route
Why let flowers go towaste after the party’sover? When you chooseto re-purpose flowers,as many firms are doing,you can ensure theydon’t wind up in landfills
Sweden creates $1m prizes forsustainable food solutions
According toJ o h a nRockstrom,
director of the Potsdam Insti-tute for Climate Research inGermany and co-chair of theprize jury, humanity needs afood system revolution or riskdestabilising the planet. Hesaid that the new Food PlanetPrize is designed to contributeto this goal. The two Food Plan-et Prizes will be awarded an-nually. They categories are:
1. AMPLIFY & ACCELERATE: For ‘an existingscalable solution for sustainable foods’2. RETHINK & RESHAPE: For ‘innovative ini-tiatives that could transform the global foodsector.’
WHY SUSTAINABLEFOOD SOLUTIONSThe world’s population, cur-rently at 7.8 billion, is ex-pected to grow to close to 10billion by 2050. Feeding apopulation of that size willbe possible only throughtransforming eating habits,improving food productionand reducing food waste, ex-perts say.
HOW TO PARTICIPATEAre you interested in solving the world’sfood problem? Log on to www.foodplanet-prize.org and click on ‘submit a nomina-tion.’ Fill the details as specified and ensure all the details you submit are correct. AFP
Climate change threat-ens the world’s food sup-ply and a growing popu-lation requires sustain-able food systems. To
counter this, Sweden hascreated two $1 millionprizes for solutions tofeed billions of people
GARDENING CLUB
Think about the locationWhere you build your greenhouse is impor-tant, but deciding where to site it will be de-termined by what you want to grow. Everygarden is different – only you will knowwhich parts of your plot receive full,morning or evening sun, andwhich are lacking them. Don’tforget that the sun’s position willchange throughout the year too.
Avoid placing it under trees:Not only is there shade, but alsothe risk of falling branches andbird waste. Go for the sun: Ideally, you shouldhave the greenhouse’s longest side facingsouth for optimal sun. This will maximise ac-cess to sunlight when plants need it most. Accessibility: It is important to make surethat your greenhouse is located near to yourhome, or school. After all, what good is a per-fectly-sited greenhouse you never visit becauseit's too far down the garden path.
Glassy is classyThe glass panes in greenhouse helpwith growing through the diffusionof light and trapping the warmth ofthe sun, so keep them clean.
Clean off any green algae and mossand disinfect the glass as you go. Thisis best done in winter before the grow-ing season starts.
Double-glazing will give you aboutthree times the protectionfrom heat loss as singlepanes, but you can alsodo this yourself in thewinter by followinggardening tutorialsavailable online.
Greenhouse staging1. Capillary mats (a mat made of an absorbent
fabric) will help make sure pots don’t dryout and will keep a humid atmosphere around leaves.2. Your potting station – a workbench used for smallgardening tasks such as transplanting seedlings –should come with sides fitted specially to hold thecompost in. Your workbench should be positionedat waist height; and shelving will maximise thespace for your specific needs. All this makes pot-ting easy and enjoyable. DAILY MIRROR
Accessories, as you please With any outdoor structure, you need to consider vary-ing temperature and ventilation needs throughout theyear. For this, larger hard-standing greenhouses are easier to con-
trol with openings for ventilation and heating. You can buyautomatic window openers to vent your greenhouse on
hot days. You can also set up partitions for sectioningoff growing needs, and you can be quite clever withthe internal fit to get an organised set up.
HI,I’M GREENBOT!
JOIN ME IN MY QUESTTO REDUCE WASTE IN
DAILY LIFE
The vault wasbuilt in Svalbard
(Norway) becausethe Arctic’s coldclimate meant itscontents would
stay cool even ifthe power fails
