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Summer Produce

We are really reaping the benefit of all the effort put into improving our vegetable garden - produce coming out of our ears! It is a great feeling to be able to almost by-pass the fresh produce section of the supermarket and to be able to go out into the garden and pick fresh what will be needed for the evening meal.
Beautiful, pungent, glossy-fresh blackcurrants, destined to become blackcurrant jelly:

And aromatic, tangy, zesty tomatoes, so unlike the tasteless object known as a "tomato" that is available in stores. Store tomatoes only LOOK like tomatoes - in no way is the flavour the same as these home-grown beauties! These will be made into tomato relish. I have so many this summer that I should be able to bottle some and make sauce as well.

A Back-To-Basics Groundswell

I have always been interested in growing, making and doing as much as possible for myself and my family........everything from growing food to making clothes and furniture. With the busy-ness of life and earning a crust often intervening, it hasn't always been possible to devote the time that I would like to these pursuits. But in recent years I have noticed a real groundswell of interest from so many people who want to do these things in order to live more sustainable, meaningful lives where their attachment to the earth and how we come by it's bounty is a really tangible thing. This is not just a dippy-hippie flash in the pan thing, but a real grass roots change among ordinary, thoughtful people. In part, it is a reaction to going into the supermarket and only being able to buy Chinese garlic and carrots etc, when these things grow wonderfully here. It is ludicrous to be importing food halfway around the planet - people are voting with their spades!

 We ourselves have decided to devote more time and effort to our backyard food production.........we managed to eat all winter from our garden and we still have stored vegetables to last until new crops are ready. We have built this Greenhouse Hilton - a four-door poly-tunnel greenhouse already full of things popping through that should be ready to eat in a few weeks and put in new beds and started planting in the outside garden.

As a result, we expect a glut of vegetables and fruit this summer. Which brings me to a great series of classes that Tanya, who writes the Suburban Jubilee blog, is going to be offering in these parts soon. Called "Living Better With Less" she plans to cover such things as preserving your glut by bottling the excess, soapmaking, backyard poultry keeping and doing away with toxic cleansers around your house by using cheaper, safer alternatives. And she's hoping to keep the cost very minimal. You can read what she wrote about it in her blog. This is so timely for me and I am keen to learn more on all these topics, so I can't wait. If you are interested and live locally, you might like to check it out. See you there!

Oh, Humble Spud!

It's enough to warm the cockles of your Irish heart....................well, neither of us can claim to be actually Irish, but we both have Irish forbears, as attested to by our Irish surname. And the growing, harvesting, cooking and eating of potatoes certainly appeals to some deep racial memory in both of us........Potatoes - we love 'em!
We did go a bit overkill on potato planting last summer - three varieties and some heavy crops. Yesterday, Bob dug the last of them - around 40 kilos. That should see us through the winter! We grew Pink Firs (delicious and prolific), Pinkeyes (BIG!) and King Edwards (smooth, even, good bakers) To celebrate, last night we had potato soup and potato and rosemary pizza. As I said; enough to warm the cockles of your Irish heart! Come to think of it, potatoes figure strongly in Northern German cuisine, so I'm doubly doomed!

Random Thoughts On Doing It Yourself

I've always been a firm adherent of a kind of do-it-yourself, make-it-yourself, grow-it-yourself kind of philosophy as far as is humanly possible. I think that is why I am really attracted to the idea of making my living totally from what I can create with my own hands.

I am fairly anti fast food and I try not to buy much food that comes from a long way away. Having said that, I am not obssessed to the idea of total prohibition - I just like to keep my consumption as local as possible and as home-grown as possible. In the past I have kept goats (for meat, milk and hair), sheep (for meat and wool), chickens and ducks (for eggs) and may do so again in future, but at the moment we are growing a good array of vegetables in our home garden. I love being able to pile a plate up with home-grown goodies, that I know have had no pesticides or other nasties applied to them and which have been grown using only organic fertilizers. I also bake......bread, biscuits (the cookie kind) cakes etc.

Together, we also like to make things for our house ourselves from soft furnishings to furniture and we generate much of our electricity from a roof-installed solar collection panels - we have six and we will, in future, add six more. We also heat our hot water with a solar system.
Next plan is to start collecting rainwater.

At the moment, after an unusually wet summer, I am eyeing off the mini-plague of plump little bunnies that are hopping around our yard as bold as brass - a few of those in the freezer might be nice! (To my sensitive overseas readers, you need to understand that rabbits are an introduced pest species in Australia and eradicating them is actually a good thing, even though they are mighty cute!) They are safe at the moment - I have no means of catching them ;-)

OK - long story short - I have three days at home by myself and I decided to try and buy almost nothing and only eat what was fresh in the garden as a little challenge. Here's what I cooked up for myself last night for dinner - all screaming fresh from the garden. It was heavenly, flavoured with fresh herbs and I didn't miss having a hunk of meat on the plate - I think I could almost live without it, actually (bunnies notwithstanding!)