I'm on a mission to find out how I could live a more sustainable life I've
already looked at the ways I might be able to power my own community in future
and also at the future of food on a large industrial scale but it's not all
about food there must be other little things I can do inside my own home I
appreciate that I alone can't make changes that are going to affect climate
change on a global scale but I should be able to make tweaks in my own
environment so I've come to LA most eco village in Wales to see how they live at
the moment we are in one of your poly tunnels which is where you're growing a
lot of your food are you completely self-sufficient with your own food if
there was a zombie apocalypse next week yeah we wouldn't go hungry
but we'd bought be bored of turnips and Swedes and stuff like that do you find
that you're growing a larger variety of food here yes yes totally and and crops
that don't normally make it to the supermarket because they just don't
necessarily work I mean you know mizune is a really really good example you know
this is a fantastic green it's a lovely slight peppery flavor very easy to grow
but it doesn't mean hip yeah yeah just doesn't keep so if you were to pick that
and take it to the supermarket it would wilt it just wouldn't be presentable so
there's a lot of crops that people traditionally grew or people grow yeah
you don't find in the shops I'm gonna keep snacking on this you've had to do a
lot of work to make sure the soil is rich and nutritious how have you done
that here naturally through harvesting biomass and building compost you know
kind of moving things around just I take my recycled cardboard and then I mix it
with manure from the cows or the goats and then I mix it with garden weeds mix
it all up a narrator and then I build soil or compost so actually the animals
I'm just providing you with dairy and meat but there are huge parts of the
things you're growing as well in the grounds totally the main purpose of the
animals is to help me with the land management the goats cows they graze and
then bring the nutrients up to the barn where they produce the back gold for me
yeah I think the geese they crazy orchard keep the grass down in the
orchard that keeps the apple trees healthy the Ducks they roam the
vegetable garden eating the slugs and the snails and any other insects that
might damage my crops and how are you ensuring that you waste as little as
possible anything organic just just part of the becomes part of
the cycles right now you've got a full polytunnel worth of food if you were
living in the city you were living in an urban area like it is this possible is
this achievable it's totally achievable you just got a replicator on a small
scale you know anybody could be growing this in a window box just outside their
window you know or if you've got the garden just in a little cold frame or
you know a tiny little greenhouse anybody could be growing food
how do you manage your energy here well we have three systems we've got a solar
pallet panel on the roof and that runs the LEDs around the house and then we
have a hydro system which is constant that's always flowing as long as those
River at river water happening okay so if it rains a lot then that's going to
be busier and generate more electricity into we have more than enough
electricity we were so lucky the turbine was actually here before we moved here
enos so it's just a matter of hooking in and getting it moving again
and then we also have a solar rig as well so we have a one-and-a-half
kilowatt solar wreak I mean an interesting little meter that we have in
the house it's called an owl just like this little meter you plug it in or tune
it in to your electric consumption and it tells you at any given time how many
watts you're burning and both my kids are completely watt savvy I love this
idea of being what savvy the the fact that we should be aware of how much
energy we are personally consuming it's like going back to the old ways but as a
modern human being you know I think that's really really important because
so often the assumption is made that living off-grid or living with reduced
power means that I can't live a modern lifestyle it's just not true
the towel has shown us everything growing else on the veg pattern in the
poly tenormin this is the aftermath of everything so all of the food that you
grow gets stored in various places yeah what kind of things we got here so we've
got potatoes that's all our winter story got hazelnuts we've got pumpkins various
varieties onions green tea we've got our own tea bushes I know I didn't know that
green tea could grow here in climates like this absolutely green beans that
are frozen gooseberries raspberries and black
currants and then we can use those for crumbles and jams and stuff in the
winter was this so this this was mister togs this is our goat right I don't
actually eat goat meat I don't I find it quite strong but I do work with the skin
right and I make rawhide I make drums I make rattles I make also different
strange things but Thao loves it he loves goat meat and he's he eats meat we
eat meat what about he got bits and jars okay so I haven't actually got any
passata left so tomato passata which I'd normally have breaks off but we're we're
getting closer to spring now and by this sort of time of year most of the kind of
jarred stuff has been gobbled up by my family do you think you appreciate the
food more because of it because you're like yes we've got new tomatoes coming
my supermarket I'll go around the garden and it's like okay what we're gonna eat
okay so we're gonna go for spagbol all right so let's have a look what we got
so I go around I pick some oregano you pick some garlic pick some onions you
know and just pick the ingredients from my garden and that's what we're gonna
eat how do you deal with food waste what's what's your I guess your your
system for creating compost yeah we split it we basically have uncooked food
waste so that goes into one bin and then we have our cooked food another raw food
it goes onto a compost heap and then the worms do their thing they just turn it
into compost and then we can put it on the beds and of course then out of the
waste we grow more food so those natural decomposers are really useful yeah
totally worms oh queen
I don't have a polytunnel or even a garden so what are my options
I'm hoping that the team here at the center falter 'native technology in
Wales will be able to help me find something more manageable
Petra are worms a genuine real-life solution and to helping with waste
management at home yeah they're a big part of the process of composting
okay so anyone who has a fairly small space for a bin like this and curds get
worms to help them with their waste management okay so before worms we kind
of need to know the basics of composting let's do that first get your newspaper
yep and you just get it nice and soggy this is the first layer of my worm
trifle it's just sobbing like that it sort of helps with it not falling
through the holes all of it soggy base
and then this just keeps getting layered up so you've got the visual feeling some
more of that carbon many material
alkaline pH it's always good to add some eggshells okay and what is it about the
eggshells that helps towards a pH well they've got a calcium in the show I've
started using recently it's called diatomaceous earth and what's the point
of this this will really help to keep your eyes from developing okay because
flies tend to like decomposing materials so it's an insecticide it doesn't bother
the worms no not at all and I it's actually good for them and then Williams
just gonna cover this all with papers I'm just using paper that you'd have at
home and maybe not such big egg trays but you know the insides and kitchen
roll okay this is the start of compost yeah at what point can you put worms in
well that will do about now Susy start thinking down and that's why
as a friend can I take this one take it one night we've got a new home for you
yeah there we go oh that's a good bundle of loans yeah
yeah
so I can just put these guys straight in yeah Renan very happy you could start
your compost in something like this yeah so I could pop this in my kitchen it
would create a really nice fertilizer that I can use on my pot plants my herbs
that I can then use in my cooking and we start the full cycle again exactly yeah
so composting is all about cycles we're trying to think about waste in a
different way it's not something we want to get rid of it's something we want to
incorporate back into you know what
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