To know what living vegan is like, Jennifer decided to live vegan for three weeks and see what the difficulties are. Carmen guided Jennifer through this three weeks because she already lives vegan for a year.
At the beginning it was hard to get used to the new way of eating. During the three weeks it wasn't even that hard to not eat meat but it was very hard to not drink milk or consume other products of animals.
I would recommend trying to live vegan to everyone because I thinks it's a very exciting experience.
For our project we created a survey with different questions about other peoples eating habits. In total 35 people participated in our survey. We were very surprised that so many people look after the environment and eat ecological.
Below you can see the survey results:
If we are completly honest we had a lot of ups and downs during our project 'living vegan in the city'.
First, we had trouble finding a project we liked and that had something to do with the subject "city climat & city trees". Ms Sutter has told us to lay our focus on urban gardening but unfortunately an other team already had this subject, so we had to find a way around the others. When we finally had our subject "living vegan in the city" combined with urban gardening we were very happy.
We had a lot of fun creating the survey and analizing it. Also the interview with Carmen's aunt was very informative and exciting.
Unfortunately the colaboration with the teams from Antwerp didn't work out like we wanted, because theyr teacher never responded to our mail.
In the end I think Carmen and I were successfull because we learned new things about urban gardening and we had fun working at the project.
(picture taken by us)
In "Technology & Environment" Jennifer Bilang and Carmen Rakeseder dealt with the topic "Local Food". On "The Horse" they have published a post about which vegetables and fruits you should plant when, and where you can plant it even if you life in a small flat in Zurich. They have also created a list with all the local food markets in zurich so you can buy the food that you can't plant by yourself.
Because we don't have a lot of experience in this subject and how we would have to plant the vegetables and fruits we made an interview with Carmen's aunt, Angela. She plants her own vegetables and some fruits on her balcony.
Carmen: "Which vegetables do you plant every year?"
Angela: "Normally I plant different herbes, carrots, onions, pumpkins, different salads, potatoes, leeks and radies"
Carmen: "How many different vegetables do you plant?"
Angela: "about 12 different vegetables and a lot of herbes like chives, parsley, Basil and many more.
Carmen: "Which vegetable does grow the fastest?"
Angela: "It's definitely the salad. It only takes about nine weeks until you can harvest it."
Carmen: "Can you also grow fruits on your balcony?"
Angela: "Yes, of course. you can plant different varieties of berrys. If you have a enough space you can also grow a plum or apple tree in a pot.
Carmen: "Whats the easiest fruit or vegetable to plant?"
Angela: "I really think that growing a plum tree is very easy to plant if you have enough space."
Carmen: "What is important that a plant grows?"
Angela: "You have to look that you water your whole garden enough, so the plants and the soil around it don't dry out. Of course the plants also need a lot of sunshine and the clima has to be right. It is logical that you can't plant a pineapple or mango in switzerland because the clima is not the right one but you can't influence that."
Carmen: "How much effort do you have to put in?"
Angela: "In summer you have to water your garden everyday and you have to do some gardenwork at least once a week."
Carmen: "Do you taste any differences between self planted or buyed food?"
Angela: "Definitely. the taste of the self-planted food is much more taste intensive than the food you buy in the store."
Where can you plant your vegetables?
The best way to plant your vegetables, if you don't have a garden, is to grow it in a pot on your balcony. There are some great solutions if you don't have that much space on your balcony. You can buy railing pots, which you can easelly hang on your railing. There your plants always have fresh air and are in the sun. There are also some growing-tables especially created to grow your vegetables on an if you want to grow your plants in winter you can buy a little greenhouse. In a greenhouse your plants will safely survive winter without getting cold. (pictures below)
(https://diybook.ch/garten/gartenarbeiten/garten-gruenanlagen/urban-gardening-stadtmensch-trifft-natur)
(https://www.landi.ch/laden/aktuell/themen/garten/hochbeet)
You can also grow your plants indoors in a pot if you have enough space in your flat. For example you can grow some herbs in small pods in your kitchen or in a herb pot. A herb pot is great for indoor farming because it's an easy handling. It generates artificial sunlight and you just have to plug in the connector for the electricity, fill up the water tank an throw in the capsules filled with seeds so they can grow. (picture 2 below)
Which vegetables and herbes can you plant in which season?
Eventough you can grow many vegetables with the options mentionned above, there are also vegetables and fruits that don't grow in switzerland because of the clima. Another reason could be that you have to less space for some plants. (For example a pumpkin)
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https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/828943875148671975/
A list of all the local, economical stores and restaurants:
Restaurants to eat local & vegan:
- Tibits, Hiltl
- Restaurant Café Zähringer
- Motini Ayurveda
- Markthalle Les Halles
- Restaurant Tüfi
- Beetnut
Stores to buy local food:
- Reformhaus, https://reformhaus.ch/content/home/index_ger.html
- Alnatura, https://www.alnatura.ch/de.html
- Egli Bio Reform, https://eglibio.ch/content/home/index_ger.html
- Eva's Apples, https://www.evas-apples.ch/
- Hofladen Müller, https://www.mueller-steinmaur.ch/
- Hofladen im Seefeld, https://www.hofladen-seefeld.ch/
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