3 Ways to Show the Planet Some Love this Valentines

Green gift ideas and activities for Valentines Day.

The cynics amongst us will scoff at Valentines Day as a marketing ploy to get people to buy more, consume more, spend more. Us healthy cynics, well unfortunately we are usually right. Out of season, worryingly cheap roses grown with untold chemicals and slave labour are wrapped in plastic and flown across the world. And don’t get me started on the crappy, unsustainable chocolates! But Valentines Day doesn’t have to be all about overconsumption, after all if it’s to be about love, let’s show our nearest and dearest (and the future generations to come) some love by taking care of our one and only, incredible planet Earth. Here are 3 easy ways to show the planet some love this Valentines Day.

1. Send A Card

Not just to your love interest, write to your local authority or TD and ask for positive, environmental change in your area. Write to your favourite brands and businesses and ask for positive change. Could they use more sustainable packaging? Could they source products or ingredients from closer to home? Put up cards in your community and get together to do litter picks, beach cleans, walk to school schemes, car shares etc. Start a food waste prevention club in your community or how about a composting club? Write to people and let them know you love the planet and your community, you never know when the feeling might be reciprocated.

2. Sustainable is Sexy

Consciously choose gifts, treats and sweets that have a lower impact on the planet. Look for organic, plastic free chocolates. Gift your loved ones a subscription to an organic veg box. Plant some trees? Start a vegetable garden together? How about sourcing second hand gifts to keep new products from being made needlessly and keep old products out of landfill? For the ultimate thoughtful gift, get a local cobbler or tailor to mend your partners favourite worn out boots or coat as a surprise.

3. Eco-Activities

Enjoy the great outdoors with your loved ones this Valentines. Head to your local woods, hike that mountain, go to the beach. Take care of the earth as you go. How about organising a beach clean or a local litter pick? And after all that fresh air? You should eat a really delicious meal together. Support a local restaurant or cook up a feast at home using local, organic ingredients for the lowest impact. We can help with that here.

We’d love to hear about what you are getting up to this Valentines in the comments. Keep it clean though folks!

I Am Angry

Have you ever felt you just do not fit in, you seem to be going against the grain, that you are different?

This thought struck me as I spotted a lonely white cabbage amidst a sea of black kale today.  Not too dissimilar to ourselves I thought, an outsider, not quite in the right place, definitely not fitting in, being different and not really caring what others think.

Of course, the cabbage is just being a cabbage (and probably not thinking a whole lot about anything, it would be wrong of me to suggest otherwise!), but it started me thinking.  

I continued on my crop walk through the fields and I spotted the most amazing intricate display of spider’s webs on one of our kale plants, it seemed that nature was vibrating and shouting look, look at me I’m doing my thing and I am beautiful.

Nature just works. And we have so little idea of how this amazing and complex interwoven web of life works.  All of the natural world links together and works, it just does, and it is truly amazing. Nothing is forced, it all flows, a natural cycle of life and death, always moving always flowing.

Who are we to impose our will and ideas on this beautiful planet without due consideration for all that we share it with? Who are we to extract all that we can by processes that are clearly exploitive, driven by profit? The price is simply too great and is not acceptable.

When will we realise that our habit of constant and increasing consumption are doing irrevocable damage? That our actions are taking away something beautiful, something we all need to be sane in an increasing insane world and only when it is gone will we notice and then sadly it will be too late.

Some days I get so angry, and I am past caring what people think (I guess age brings certain benefits.) But I am angry, and you too have a right to be angry too with the way we as human beings exploit this gentle and strong and beautiful energy that is our Earth.

We cannot compromise in our decisions, and to an extent this is why, even though I am inextricably linked to the world of business, I don’t have to like it.  Practising mindful, conscious, ethical business in a world that is driven by excessive consumption and low prices is difficult, but it is possible, and we do it. 

We have always committed to growing food in the most sustainable manner possible and only sourcing food from the most sustainable suppliers and paying them fairly.  We have always maintained that this is the only way to farm and to do business.

Like the cabbage in the field of kale we are most definitely outsiders, most definitely the underdog. We have a long way to go, we don’t always get it right, we struggle with the challenges but every day we try a little harder and face the challenges and pain head on.

So, for the sake of our planet let’s get a little angry together and make some changes.

Thanks for joining our movement, let us be the channel for your energy.

Kenneth

Let us deliver sustainably grown and sourced fruits, vegetables and groceries to your door if you feel angry too.