Things still alive in my garden

This year i decided was a good year  to try growing vegetables. Something needed to be done with our front garden, and that was a good plan.

For a first go, I think I did OK. I had some carrots and onions, which were quite tasty. My garlic died and my broccoli is small but perfectly formed so I'm wondering if I should eat or leave to grow some more.

Herb wise, i have chives, angelica, tarragon and parsley still alive. One random pink flower: next year I'll buy slightly bigger fuchsias to make a tiny hedge. One currant and one blueberry fine but I should have planted more to begin with. Two rhubarb surviving, one dead. The big success is the chili, which is on its third crop! Even if it dies over winter as I'm expecting, we got a lot out of it and I'm glad the children talked me into it.

Ethical consumerism and how I explain it to the children.

I find this really, really hard, and I don't have a good answer. But it's like everything I do - I try and work out what I think and then say it just like that. From there, they ask questions to work out what they want to know.

The big one for us is chocolate, so I say, the people who grow that chocolate take children from their families and make them work instead of letting them be free and happy. Or similar. So we buy chocolate that lets people be free. Or for Nestle, the thing about water is what I normally say 'this company steal people's water and make them buy it back, but I think water is a basic human right'.

I want to protect my children as long as possible. But to a certain extent they just don't ask until they're old enough to hear the answer. Andreas knows that I'll say yes if it has the FairTrade symbol on, but doesn't really ask why it needs that, whereas Judith is more inclined to ask more details. But on the other hand, keeping them safe is a privelige and we owe it to our brethren who don't have that privilege to be upfront and honest both with ourselves and with our children. It's a balancing act.