Carbon Neutral

I found a link to an interesting site which helps you calculate your carbon footprint. Once you’ve done that you can figure ways to reduce or offset your load. You can see by the little badge in my side bar that I am 0% carbon neutral which, according to begreennow.com, is the equivalent of planting 0.00 trees. Woohoo! We’ll see if my numbers change.

I do plant trees, 2 so far this year, but it looks like the site is geared more toward buying carbon credits. I’ll look into it.

Cheers,
christopher

Italy

I have just spent a few weeks in Italy for a wedding and vacation. We stayed in Rimini, a town on the Adriatic Sea. I saw many small kitchen gardens and some impressive farms. The trip from the airport in Bologne takes you passed orchards full of espaliered fruit trees. I may just have to try that in the back yard.

The photo shows a medium sized orchard in downtown Rimini, it has grape vines, a pomagranate tree, a nut tree or two, as well as some other trees. This garden is about 2 blocks from the beach. I did not have a chance to talk to the owner and that may be for the better since I do not speak Italian aside from “please”, “thank you” and “let’s go”. I was especially enamored of the gardens around San Leo and the small section of Tuscanny (near San Sofia). I have a photo of a particularly nice garden in a tiny town, but it is blurry and does not do the place justice.

I can see how such great food comes from Italy and why the Slow Food movement started here.

cheers,
christopher