During the first lockdown in 2020 many of us found solace in our daily ‘walks of freedom’ in the green spaces of our town and surrounding farmland. The field margins were a delightful mix of wildflowers buzzing with bees. My ‘patch’ is on the northern edge of Letchworth with lovely views across to Stotfold and Radwell—for now anyway. Others took advantage of the Greenway to cycle or run around our Garden City.
Another delightful discovery for many people was a desire to start gardening, especially growing fruit and vegetables, as the rapid take-up of allotments last year will testify. It is hugely satisfying to harvest and eat what you have grown, not to mention the saving in food miles and the exercise involved.
This year we have seen some of our grass verges, parts of open green spaces and many front gardens follow the ‘no-mow May’ idea so that the flowering plants –weeds/wildflowers- can provide pollen for insects. They haven’t been abandoned and they will soon be mowed to rejuvenate them for the next flowering season. This is an important step in the fight against climate change, by increasing biodiversity. Weeds are on-trend! A gold medal was awarded at the RHS show at Tatton Park this year, to the United Utilities ‘Garden of Resilience’.
The sun, wind and rain are free and throughout history they have sustained us. Now with new technologies to harness their energies they form a large part of our life-line to combat climate change. Our weather is no longer so predictable, tending to be more extreme than we are used to so we are going to have to find ways to work with it. Our food supply depends on it.
Time is running out if we are going to prevent the situation getting worse and we must act quickly to do whatever we can to lessen our carbon footprints.