Hello there and welcome!
My name is Dan and I am the creator of Soulfully Green. The aim of Soulfully Green is to
teach people to grow and use their own healthy organic food in and around the home and live
a more sustainable life. I also want to connect with like-minded people, learn from others and
share my progress, my successes and most importantly, my failures.
This site is for you if you want to:
grow your own food
cut down on all forms of waste
live more sustainably and make better conscious choices
Soulfully Green is not set in stone and will likely change and expand as I go. Some things
I would like to experiment with in the future include foraging and fishing, starting an
online store and maybe even writing a book.
How Soulfully Green was created
Soulfully Green was created because of two reasons. The first being a need to fulfil a growing
hobby, gardening, and secondly a desire to live more sustainably than I currently am.
Before I started Soulfully Green I was constantly travelling the world with my girlfriend
and documenting my travels along the way through vlogging on the
wanderwalkers Youtube channel. In 2019 we made the decision to not travel in 2020, to have a
break and save money to buy a house. In hindsight, choosing not to travel in 2020 was
a great decision because the global Coronavirus pandemic kicked in. Because we weren’t travelling we decided it would be a good idea to incorporate lifestyle and sustainability topics into Wanderwalkers. After a few months of doing it, it didn’t quite feel right, it felt out of place and too far removed from the travel content we had gained a following from.
As 2020 went on I found myself immersing myself in my small garden more and more as Covid19 continued on and lockdowns came into effect. It was clear to me that gardening was becoming more than a hobby and becoming more of a passion and something I needed to pursue further. So, after a lot of debate, and many weeks of trying to find a suitable name that wasn’t already taken, Soulfully Green was born.
How I got into gardening
Growing up, my dad always had a veggie garden and compost heap out the back so it has always been there. However, I had absolutely no interest in plants and gardening until about 2016 when I moved nine hours away from home to Melbourne. I started to collect small house plants like succulents and cacti to give the space some colour. Those first few plants hooked me. After a year or so I expanded my horizons and started attempting to grow tomatoes, chillies, strawberries and herbs indoors. I failed miserably, they all died, but I was determined to continue on.
Since then I have learned a tremendous amount. I have spent countless hours watching Youtube videos, gardening tv shows like Gardening Australia, reading a lot of blogs, forums and gardening magazines, and following professional and hobbyist gardeners on Instagram.
Why growing food is important
Growing food is incredibly important to me and I believe it is one of the best ways to live more sustainably and waste less. By growing my own food I can support myself and my future family while also saving a lot of money. The onset of the Coronavirus in early 2020 also saw how reliant everyone, myself included, was on the major supermarkets for absolutely everything. There were multiple times during the worst of the pandemic when the shops were completely stripped of essential food items. By growing food and at least partially being self-sufficient means that I will be able to provide without the fear of empty shelves.
There’s a great quote that I am trying to live by.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
I want to live by this quote but with some slight modifications:
“Give a man a vegetable and you feed him for a day; teach a man to grow vegetables and you feed him for a lifetime”
Why living more sustainably is important
I have always considered myself a person who appreciated all life on earth and living sustainably, however after looking at my life, my habits and routines, I realised I wasn’t living as sustainably as I thought I was or wanted to be. Documentary series like ABC’s The War On Waste really changed my perspective and helped me open my eyes. I was contributing to plastic pollution killing wildlife, excessive use of fossil fuels contributing to climate change and consuming products which were not long-lasting that would eventually end up in a landfill somewhere.
I have come a long way in reducing my carbon footprint and waste output. I purchase less clothing, foods wrapped in plastic packaging, I compost and recycle where I can and I cook as often as I can and try not to waste food. I still have some way to go to living zero waste and being completely sustainable, but I am proud of how I have progressed. I want to continue reducing my waste output and document the entire process.
Join me on this journey
I would love for you to connect with Soulfully Green and help it to grow. Along with this blog, you can follow my journey on the various socials.