How to live sustainably in an apartment

At the 2016 Perth Eco Fair, apartment residents were shown how to live a cleaner, greener and more cost-efficient lifestyle by industry leaders in sustainability and conservation.

Speakers offered the following advice to apartment residents.

BALCONY GARDENS

Indira Naidoo has a 20sq m balcony on the 13th floor of an apartment block and produced 70kg of produce in the first year. She offered apartment residents the following tips to set up their own edible balcony garden.

• Start small with a few pots of herbs and try something hardy like rosemary.
• Plants need six to eight hours of direct sunlight a day so make sure pots are positioned accordingly.
• Once you have a feel for how much sunlight there is available and how much water is required, move to vegetables such as lettuce and spinach. Tomatoes are pretty resilient so are a good vegetable to try out.
• When you are really confident you can move onto root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots.
• When using pots, good drainage is important so free-draining bottoms are essential and you should put some pebbles at the bottom before the soil. Weight is also important and Ms Naidoo recommends fibre-glass pots. They are strong but very light and ideal for balconies.
• Some apartments have an optional upgrade for an outside tap but depending on the size of your garden, a watering can may suffice.
• On top of watering, vegetables and herbs require a lot of nutrients so start with a good quality organic potting mix and good manure or compost as fertiliser. 

HOW TO SAVE ON ENERGY AND WATER USE INSIDE AN APARTMENT

Chris Ferreira, Forever Project

You should use soil wetter for your edible balcony and communal garden to reduce consumption and therefore the cost of water. This will also ensure the nutrients you add go into the soil and not the storm water drain.

You can save water use by using Waterwise taps and showerheads. You can find a Waterwise plumber at www.watercorporation.com.au.

Water is often wasted when you wait for water from a tap to get hot, for example when running a shower or washing dishes. A water diverter can send this water to a small rainwater tank to use on the garden. It can also be used to divert the warm water you get after running the tap from hot to cold that is not suitable for drinking. Visit redwaterdiverter.net.au for more information.

Adapted from sister publication Residential West