Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/670480
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 24 APRIL 2016 39 This Week Spiders are generally feared, abhorred, swatted and sprayed into oblivion (I know one particular arachnophobe who keeps a small blowtorch handy!). No amount of cute anecdotes will change most people's opinion. Still, spiders are an integral part of nature, so cover them we must. All spiders produce silk but they don't all spin webs. Rather than stay put and wait indolently for a fly to career into a web, some spiders prefer to roam and hunt. Among the most familiar of these are the jumping spiders (M: brimba qabbieża), so called because they often move about in small jumps rather than crawl. They are familiar because we get them in houses too, patrolling our walls for flies and mosquitoes, which they ambush, pounce on and rid us of. At no extra charge. To do this they need relatively good eyesight, hence the four large front-facing eyes (they have four more). Several species of jumping spiders occur in Malta and all follow the same general life style. Oh, and they're harmless to people, so go on, give that spray can a break! GREEN IDEA OF THE WEEK 406: BEE SURVEY: Please take a couple of minutes to fill out our short survey about bees and pollinators here! - http://www.foemalta.org/links/ bees Visit Friends of the Earth's website for more information about our work, as well as for information about how to join us. You can also support us by sending us a donation - www.foemalta.org/donate Text and photo Victor Falzon 503. JUMPING SPIDER You name it, you can grow it LIKE many cities or urban settlements around the world there is always a common challenge: space. How we use the little space available is always our choice, whether it is seats on a balcony or a barbecue on the roof- top. However in com- parison to many larger European cities, whenever I am in Malta I'm always delighted to see plant pots growing fresh herbs and small produce on balconies, court- yards and rooftops all over Malta. Food tastes so much better when using fresh food we have grown. So how can we utilise the smallest spaces in order to produce excellent produce for our table? There are numerous methods available, the most common being hanging baskets, window boxes and small pots lining the edges and fill- ing every corner of the space avail- able. All of these methods can be used to grow fantastic, tasty pro- duce which takes seconds to harvest and plate up. While I avoid using hanging bas- kets for herbs since they require regular watering and dry out very quickly, various varieties of thymes and creeping Rosemary do tolerate these drier conditions. Every now and then I mix in some Nasturtiums to provide colour and variety to my balcony and salads. My window-boxes hold a little more mois- ture so I tend to grow c u t - a n d - c o m e - a g a i n varieties to supply me with tasty fresh salad. These lettuce crops are one of the quickest and easiest to grow in a win- dow-box, and we have wonderful varieties to choose from. I tend to have a complete mix in mine, ranging from Rocket, mixed leaf lettuce and the oriental Mizuna. These should be ready for their first cut in 3-5 weeks. Be sure to leave 5cm stumps and another crop will be along quickly. As the plants begin to age or show slow growth simply remove and re-seed. Keep the win- dowbox watered, and you will soon have a very healthy crop. However there is one important space that always seems to be ig- nored and underused. The vertical walls of a courtyard or the rail- ing of a balcony can be quickly and eas- ily adapted to create a much larger growing area. I always favour this method, as it leaves me with space for tables and chairs while provid- ing colour and cover for bare walls. The varieties and size of vegeta- bles which can now be grown has opened up a new world of courtyard gardening. New 'Green Wall' systems which work on a semi-hydroponic system are now available, but can be expen- sive. I like to save my cash and get around that expense. By using simple wooden batons a frame or trellis can be easily fixed to the wall, up to any height. To this secure a sturdy wire mesh, which can be found at most builders mer- chants. Drill holes on the rim of the pots before planting and thread through galvanised or plastic coated wire. Plant the pots, placing smaller ones higher up for parsley, chilies and chives and the larger pots on the ground to support the climbers. Not only does this provide a wonderful and lush appearance, but also saves as much of the limited ground space available to you. In this way I have grown everything from basil and thyme to tomatoes, runner beans – you name it, you can grow it! Ian Lansley Things to know about Climate Change 1 – There really is a problem Picture this. Certain gases in the atmosphere act like a blanket around the planet, trapping heat. These stay around for many years and as the blanket thickens, the Earth warms. The key culprit is carbon dioxide (CO2), produced whenever we burn oil, coal or natural gas. Your neighbourhood may not feel like a disaster movie, but the effects of global warming are happening already – from spring arriving earlier, to fatal heatwaves across Europe. Look further and some of the world's poorest people are facing rising sea levels, drought and crop failures. The fact is the Earth is warming faster than it has for thousands of years. The 10 hottest years on record have happened since 1997. And the effects are profound. The climate that is essential to our food and farming, health and wellbeing is becoming more chaotic. The world today is around 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer than in 1751 – around the start of the industrial revolution. Experts predict that unless we take action, temperatures will average 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2050. And then it gets really scary. A rise of 2-3 degrees risks up to a third of all species becoming extinct. Already 300,000 people die each year as a result of climate change; as the world gets hotter, this number will only increase.