The Eden Project

Having celebrated its 10th birthday, and with over a million visitors last year, you may have already visited the Eden Project. If you haven't yet been, I can thoroughly recommend it. It's both fascinating and thought provoking.

Ambling around the Grow Zone:

should encourage people to grow their own:

especially with vegetables as pretty as this chard:

There's information about the Heritage Seed Library and demonstration plots of traditional varieties:

Inside the Rainforest Biome:

you can find out about life in the Humid Tropic Regions. You can see that chocolate does grow on trees:

and why peanuts are called ground nuts:

You can see spices like cardamon growing:

and find out how where you buy your coffee from can affect peoples lives and the planet:

I learnt that seven million people are employed world wide in the sugar industry:

In the 1300s we used around a teaspoon a year, now it's 35kg. Do we want diabetes, obesity and poor teeth, or should we use this crop for fuel?

It took a long time to walk around the Rainforest Biome, which makes the fact that man destroys an equivalent area of primary forest every 10 seconds all the more worrying...

There was a good choice for lunch! The Eden Project has teamed up with Town Mill Bakery in Lyme Regis to create the Eden Bakery:

I was tempted to go for a pizza, which you could see being made:

but chose a very tasty vegetable Frittata instead:

In the Mediterranean Biome:

there was a rather fine display of different varieties of chillies:

They were ranked by the number of Scoville heat units (SHU):

I'd give the Dorset Naga a wide berth if I were you!

I thought the WEEE man was awful:

and then found he was made from all the Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment that one person throws away in a lifetime (around 3.3 tonnes)!

On the way out there's a shop: