Hugel Kultur, Raised Garden Beds, and Good Renewable News

Autumn is well and truly here in Melbourne, Australia so it seems a good time to start planning some action in the garden, for the spring/summer. Am in the process of building a Hugel Kultur which combines to be a Tree Composter, Food Producer,  Carbon Sink,  Soil Improver, and Wicking Bed all in one.  What is there - not to like  - about this wonderful home spun eco-system.  This is the baby of my idea to form the 'Carbon Gardeners' campaign and possibly leading in to a business idea.  Here is a photo (courtesy of permaculture.co.uk) of the amazing Hugel Kultur or Raised Garden Bed which is constructed of logs, branches, compost, soil, and just about anything you can scrounge together from the garden (except the banana lounge!) - provided it doesn't exceed one metre in height - under most Planning Permit regulations in our city. 

I have just collected some unwanted tree material from the side of a road, and been offered my very first 4 rotten logs to commence building and prepared the other materials for building up the Hugel - which is German for mound or hill. 

So on the topic of good news for the garden, which a H.K certainly is - it seems timely to mention some other environmentally friendly - Good News. Us greenies are learning to be the bringers of good tidings rather as well as being the harbinger of bad news. 

Here are some good news grabs to research further  - many of whom are sourced from our recent Facebook posts - bearing in mind these facts do change on a daily basis, so these grabs are not intended to be definitive statements of the current state of play!  

Fresh off the press - the latest Phone App is out for scanning of Australian products to detect palm oil (palmolein that is not of a sustainable source) in products via PalmOilInvestigations.Org. 

Paris is said to be banning Diesel cars 

A Cash for Containers scheme with refundable deposits on return of containers, has been introduced in NSW, Australia. 

And Beijing is set to shut the last of its coal power plants. 

Victoria and NSW have recorded their lowest electricity consumption for summer since 2001 according to AEMO on twitter.  

South Australia achieved around 40% electricity generation from renewables, in recent times. 

In New Zealand 80 % of electricity was sourced from renewables last year.

The largest solar farm in Australia is being established in Queensland with the potential for 2 gigawatts of power - equal to 1/5 of Australia's renewable energy target. 
Porta Rico is performing extremely well with 100%  electricity generated from renewables. 

Scotland achieved a record use of wind power in recent months, with wind energy sources generating some 126 percent of the energy needed to power every home in Scotland.   More good news in the comments boxes as this blog is not saving changes. 

Of course  the readers' reaction may be - the only countries worthwhile studying are the top emitters namely U.S, Australia, Canada and these nations are still not achieving anything akin to truly climate stabilising targets, namely the goal of limiting the average global surface temperature increases to 2 degrees Celcius as compared with the pre-industrial average. 

Nevertheless, the aim for today is to take our mind off the immediate doom and gloom aspects of our campaigns, and to open up topics for study of a more heart-warming topic.   I hope the reader is feeling slightly warmed and heartened as a result of reading this post.  One feels that the material can become more appealing to know, the less gloomy it is. Well, that's at least the blog writer's opinion. 

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