In spring 2022 we started growing our own vegetables and herbs in square-foot-garden-boxes. Since we are doing this for the first time, we see this as a transition year. First let’s see if we succeed. We do not yet know which vegetables you can grow in such boxes and especially how much you can harvest.
If all this goes well, by 2023, the data of our square-foot-garden results will be shown in the current graphs for vegetables and herbs. We have to see how the fruit production of our forestgarden will develop itself. It is the second year and the berries will sure deliver fruits. Maybe we will have some apples and plums too this year. For now we are still allowed to make many mistakes in nursing trees and plant and learn from them. But our goal is still to go for self sustainability.
It is sometimes creepy how consistent we are with our purchase of vegetables, fruits or herbs. The quantities differ very little over the years. It will be a result of the regular dishes we prepare and of course the season. In spring you can eat asparagus again and of course we don’t let that go unnoticed. It is more and more fun to eat things that you can only buy in a certain period. That keeps it interesting and tasty and there is so much during the year that it never gets boring.
Springtime is a transformation period and that means still a number of cold days where you like to eat potatoes. That is very clear in this graph. During spring we ate about 210 grams of vegetables a day in springtime. That is less then the health authorities advise you to eat. But when you grow older you eat less and also need less food.
The offer of fruits is still limited during spring and so it makes sense that the citrus fruits are high on the list. The apples and pears turn a little pale in taste, its time for some fresh seasonal fruits.
We are really waiting for new fresh herbs to be picked from our garden. Meanwhile we enjoyed a lot of mint tea which is now available year round.
In general, prices have become considerably higher due to the recent inflation. But fortunately, we were still able to purchase what we needed. This is reflected in the graphs of spring 2022. The variety of products did not suffer, luckily there are still plentiful products to buy in the biosupermarkets. This situation however makes you more aware of prices. Some products that are really ridiculously expensive such as eight euros for a kilo of Brussels sprouts. Despite the inflation, there is still plenty of good and healthy food on the market.
Even if we ate a lot of potatoes this season, their price is not high. Green asparagus is at the top. We took advantage this year that there were so many and good quality green asparagus for sale.
Now that fruit has become so expensive we pay close attention to where we buy it. Fruit at the local organic market is very good but also very expensive. So we try to buy everything from Odin who have a reasonable price.
When available, we buy herbplants. They deliver herbs over a longer period of time and are less expensive. Next year when the greenhouse is in place we will hopefully be able to grow herbs early in the year ourselves.
Supermarkets have to live up to their offerings, and to do that they depend on suppliers. Because there is such a wide variety of products in the supermarket, they come from all over the world. Even though they strive to buy as locally as possible, a product like oranges for example, must be imported from a warmer country because they do not grow in the Netherlands. This also determines which varieties we can grow ourselves. We can forget about bananas. The variety of products will be smaller than we are used to. Maybe later we can grow some more exotic vegetables in the greenhouse, but I don’t see us growing oranges in a greenhouse.
We managed to buy all vegetables produced within the EU but as much as possible from the Netherlands.
Sometimes we don‘t pay attention at Odin and suddenly you‘re home with a bag of pears from Argentina! Even though they are organically grown, transporting them over this long distance leaves too much of a footprint.
Another thing, a bag of coriander and dill from Israel and a bag of coriander from Morocco. Of course that is not acceptable. Ginger okay this doesn‘t grow here and you have no choice.
The unit of these numbers is the kilometer ton, which corresponds to the CO2 emissions to transport 1 ton of food over a distance of 1 km (Defra 2005).
Climate impact according to sustainablefootprint. org
The European Union is hard at work legislating our climate. They are looking into transport issues and are trying to find out in which year all freight transport must be electric. But transport by boat and plane is also affected. There are reports of planes and boats running on hydrogen. Ultimately it will have a positive effect on our climate and thus our living environment. Whether we will eat bananas again remains to be seen. Currently, we have stopped eating bananas. That is a pity and we miss them especially when we go for long walks.
The big differences in truck values are due to the use of different types of trucks. As a rule, larger trucks produce more CO2 than smaller trucks and refrigerated trucks more than non-refrigerated trucks.
With airplanes, the distance plays a major role as the largest CO2 is generated during take-off. As a result, short flights have a higher CO2 production per km ton than longer flights.
We bought 24 products from Spain this spring. This means 24 times 1553 kilometers is 37.272 kilometers. But limiting products to within the EU is the best we could do.
Unfortunately, we cannot say this about fruit transportation. That still remains far too high. So there is still work for us to improve this.
Despite all our hard work and good efforts, products still sneak in that are not organic. And because the Odin doesn’t have them, you sometimes buy something from the Albert Heijn against your will. We want to get rid of that this year. So we came up with a new rule. If a certain product is not available organically, you just leave it out. Then you adjust the recipe to your own liking.
Then we do not have to go to the Albert Heijn for a bag of herbs. You just adjust your recipe no problem. If we are going to grow our own herbs we will not have all the herbs available to us, so we will have to make concessions. It makes no sense to use a bag of parsley all the way from Israel to use it in your dish. Just use a different type of herb or leave it out.
Only a few exceptions of nonorganic products this spring. Typical products to find a better solution for next time.
The environmental score of vegetables, fruits or herbs indicates how environmentally friendly a product is, compared to other similar products. The division into scores A, B, C, D, E is based on the most common cultivation method, the most common mode of transport and the most used packaging material for that product from that country in that month. The national share of geothermal energy use and energy-efficient greenhouse horticulture has also been taken into account for the Dutch greenhouse vegetables tomato, pepper, cucumber and eggplant.
Environmental score explanation
We have again interpreted the fruit and vegetable calendar as accurately as possible.
Comes from the Netherlands, is in season, from a field (organic) and has a quality mark.
Comes from the Netherlands or Europe, is in season, from a field or a greenhouse (organic) and has a quality mark.
Comes from the Netherlands or Europe, is in season, from Dutch greenhouses (not organic) and has no quality mark.
Comes from countries such as Israel, Egypt, Morocco (about three thousand kilometers), is out of season, comes from Dutch greenhouses (not organic) and has no quality mark.
Comes from Africa, South America, Asia or New Zealand (about ten thousand kilometers), outside or within the season (it doesn’t matter), comes from Dutch greenhouses (not organic) and has no quality mark.
Environmental score chart
On the left side of the chart we listed the countries where the products come from. Products themselves are listed in the second column from the left. In addition, there are five columns with A, B, C, D and E. In those columns you find white small squares. The number of squares indicates how often we bought a product in spring with that particular classification. At the bottom of the graph, the total is again shown per column.
This is a very good result, all products find a place in the categories A or B. This means that the organic products were produced inside the EU.
With a little luck we can skip the categories D and E next season because we managed to stay inside the categories A, B and C for herbs as well.
During this season, many people were struggling to make ends meet due to sky-rocketing prices. All this was mostly caused by the economic malaise in the world and by the war in Ukraine. The transport of vegetables, fruits and spices from Spain and Italy also weighs heavily on prices due to high fuel prices. Fortunately, we are still doing well and we buy our foods as usual. We managed quite well to buy as few products as possible from distant countries. You can clearly see in the results the three main countries of origin, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
Spain is working hard to gain a substantial market at the European level. Most of our purchases come from Spain.
We hope that the Netherlands will grow these organic products locally so we can skip the transportation impact from Spain and Italy.
This year, the supermarkets where we bought groceries were reduced to two. We buy most of our groceries at the organic supermarket Odin. And a few products we still buy at Albert Heijn. The reason is that Odin doesn‘t offer them or that the products from Albert Heijn are better to our taste. It is usually not about vegetables, fruit or herbs but about toilet paper or beer from Belgium. We will keep on buying products at Kemphaan the local weekly market such as nuts, Italian specialties and fish and very occasionally some fruit.
Odin, Rosie’s apples and Warmonderhof are our favourite shops to buy organic products. We need to avoid Albert Heijn in the coming time even though we buy organic products there. They are part of a system that we don’t like to support.
