The garden is (finally!) producing :-) - and we have tomatoes galore! Mostly yellow cherry toms, but enough red ones to make them into pasta sauce too.



A few hours in the oven with fresh herbs and garlic:



Roasted goodness to bottle up – YUM!

So I have been thinking about arrogance lately – I decided I had a problem with arrogant people – mostly myself!  Hmm, that was a bit of a shock so I looked up the definition of arrogance:

“offensive display of superiority or self-importance”.

The problem I had with myself was that I had an epiphany when I was putting plastic in the rubbish bag and I thought to myself “How arrogant you are to expect others to deal with your (unnecessary) waste!!”

So that was a bit of an eye-opener and has made me focus a bit again on being plastic-free.   Luckily I had a bit of an easy week to start my actioning - Michael was away so I could get-away-with very little food purchases, basically just enough fruit for the kids and I for the week and that was easy to choose from the loose piles and use my fabric bags.  Milk was use up what was left, then go to the UHT/powdered milk supplies; bread was keep on making our own – too easy; dinners were use up whatever was in the cupboard/fridge/freezer – no problems (we ate a lot of pasta ;-).

As soon as I planned to be plastic-free for the week I also had a bit of a think about being zero-waste.  Zero waste has a bit more of an all-encompassing ring to it I think – but when I thought about how I have read it is implemented as a life-style, a lot of it is making sure you recycle what you can – including plastics – so you have an absolute minimum in refuse.  Now plastics are getting easier to recycle – some supermarkets take back the plastic shopping bags and plastic food bags (did you know that – soft and crinkle plastics can be recycled?) – and our council has even implemented recycling of all ‘numbers’ of plastics into the recycling bins, so it really has got easier for us too.  But – and it is a big BUT to me – recycling plastics doesn’t stop you purchasing them in the first place now, does it?!!  So, for me, being plastic-free was actually a better way to think about being zero-waste than my interpretation of zero-waste.  Make sense – no? 

I am sure my interpretation of zero-waste was/is too simplistic and I probably missed the bit about it being plastic-free in the first place.   I think the intent in zero-waste is to purchase as ZERO waste, not just to switch your purchases to be “recyclable” waste.  That makes a lot more sense!!  Maybe the recycling bit is just to get people to take account of their waste – and then they can see what they purchase as waste – recyclable or not – and get it down to ZERO!  Wow, another epiphany folks – yay!   Ok, I need to think about this some more – what do we tend to buy that feels ok because it is in recyclable waste?  Are there any things that can be switched to zero-waste for these products?  

From my quick thinking, it would actually take a change in my cooking to change our “staple dinners” that I buy as recyclable waste.  Yes, I can buy zero-waste pasta from the bulk bins (ok, could probably even make my own – been meaning to give that a go), but buying pasta sauce is recyclable waste (glass jar) and non-recyclable lid (except for home re-use)!  Yes, I can and do make my own pasta sauce from our home-grown tomatoes – but this doesn’t last long (ie, at the end of summer we now only have 4 jars left) – we eat a lot of pasta - and we are not even Italian!  To zero-waste the pasta sauce situation – that would actually take finding someone else who would sell me masses of their home-made passata, or making up a year’s supply by purchasing in toms (and probably equipment) and having a passata day (this idea has merit! – maybe except for the bit about storing approx. 150 jars of pasta sauce – hooley dooley!) – or changing our menu!!  Arrgh – more thinking required!!

And this now brings me to my tangent of “Of course, traditional cultures are zero-waste because they eat locally sourced (wild) fresh food – and save on the washing up by cooking and eating from leaves!”  I think I will save that tangent for another time!!!

PS – I roasted up what will be close to our final batch of tomatoes on Friday – made another few jars of pasta sauce ;-)

It has been a busy week of preserving here J. 

I took the hard way to preserve the tomatoes and made paste instead of my usual pasta sauce.

 

      

 

It was all going great until I popped into the shops and the edges burnt…still there was plenty to save and I do hope it has the intense tomato flavour I am looking for – will let you know.

Then there was the cucumber overload – turned into pickles.  First time I have ever made them, so I used this recipe:

I do like the thought of eating these in a week or so when they are ready.  And I liked going down to our local health store and buying all organic spices – I figured if I was going to preserve our organically grown cucumbers, I might as well do the right thing.

I also crushed this weeks’ dried egg shells for our girls.

And we had fun opening the gate so the chooks can explore their new run – first across the line are Midnight and Sunset J but it didn’t take the others long to follow.  They especially seem to love sitting under that wattle on the left.

Our beautiful rooster starting crowing this week too - quietly is how he does it – which could well be all he does as the Brahmas are known for being quiet chookens.  Let’s hope so or decisions will have to be made…and we all love Rosey Roger!

And yesterday, I made ricotta – my very first cheese J.

It was very easy and tastes yum!  Will be trying mascarpone next, then feta (the one I really want to make!).  And like all good cheese makers, I need to find a use for all that whey…

And so that brings me to the current gardening lessons learned!

Being a southern gardener is quite a steep learning curve for me – and I have learned some good lessons these past few colder months (that I didn’t encounter last year). 

No1.  Don’t plant your potatoes in only half a bed ya dill!!  This is what it will get you – having to mound up half a bed, whilst trying to keep the other half low for the potatoes you put in a month later!!

 



 










It possibly doesn’t look that bad in this photo – but imagine how it looked last weekend, when the right hand side was only just above the tank edge and the left side was as high as it is now…

So it was just me and 4 wheelbarrow loads of mulch (straw, sifted sand and mumby magic) to mound up those right hand ones = hard work!!  And if anyone knows why these potatoes have grown this high let me know – they are about double the height of last year’s ones (yes, different variety this year and planted earlier – is that all it is?).

Lesson No2.  Don’t plant late tomatoes – as much as you have absolutely loved the summer-ripe, just-off-the-bush ones in your salads!!  These late ones have got to this stage as mostly bird food – the parrots just get in there and snack away – which is kinda ok with me, but I was looking forward to some toms myself…so I have now picked what I can (mostly green as most have fallen off the bush). 

 











And worst of all, these tomatoes seem to have gotten themselves blight – due to the humidity of rain I suspect – but not good as it is now in our soil for years to come…I have done something I have never done before and that is actually rip plants out and put them in the bin!  I am a compulsive composter so this was a form of torture to me but it needed to be done for the greater good!   And now I am praying that next summer’s tomatoes – when I will sensibly plant them nicely spaced out (to lower humidity) and as far from the affected area as possible – will survive the blight!!!

Now these might be obvious lessons to some, but I seemed to need to learn them the hard way ;-)

 

Seems almost sacrilege to cook up heirloom tomatoes – but there are too many for us to eat and I am sure it is worse to let them go into the compost (some already succumbed on the bushes…hope they resprout!  That is the thing I have learned about heritage tomatoes – they are ripe before they look it, but if you pick them when they have a little bit of ‘give’, they will last as good as ‘normal’ ones – and look prettier and taste better!!  Those yellow ones looked superb – I don’t think I have eaten one of them yet…).

 

















Everything in the pot was homegrown J!  A rainbow of tomatoes, leek, parsley, oregano, spinach and half a zucchini.

 



 









I think its colour will lend it to a nice curry base – I don’t’ think I could get away with pouring it over pasta.

And if you are needing some reading on food gardening – I found this one interesting today, “Why bother?”