Remember the Good’s? A hapless couple of country converts willing to forgo their 9-5 for a chance to become self sufficient – cultivating small harvests on their suburban lot and crafting necessaries from bartered goods or items already on hand. Now it appears that this BBC series which introduced many to the concept of inner city farming in the mid 1970’s, appears to have provided a blueprint for innovative growers of today.
In one episode Tom Good experiments with generating his own source of electricity powered no less by materials from the pig pen. The methane producing energy to run Mr. Good’s lightbulb and little more, may not have supplied a surplus of power as required for modern means but the principle has helped inspire others to devise a system utilising spoiled goods to do just that.
British celebrity chef Gary Rhodes recently highlighted this practice in series one of the BBC programme ‘Great British Food Revival’ in which he investigated the use of rotting fruit and vegetables by tomato growers as an effective strategy for reducing the energy cost of heating a glasshouse.
In the UK it is necessary to heat the glasshouses in the winter and at night in the summer. To counter the effects of CO2 emissions green thumbs are generating power in evermore ingenious ways and putting waste to work as in the case of methane powered energy is just one. This has a two-fold effect for the environment, capturing harmful methane gases from an abundance of produce waste to generate power replacing CO2 producing energy sources.
Some other methods encapsulating the Good’s spirit include pollinating crops with the help of bumblebees as practised at the Eric Wall Nursery and piping hot water from corporate plants to heat glasshouses a strategy utilised by British Sugar.
So, here is to The Good Life, and growing more produce from green processes.
