The weather has been delighful so far this Autumn… much better than our grey, miserable summer. We’ve still had a lot of rain, though, & the black taro is thriving in the back yard (though it doesn’t look quite as good as this stock pic yet!).
Having planted so much taro we thought we’d better try some, so we bought a tuber from the fruit and veg market. We roasted it in our usual pumpkin/potato/sweet potato combo, with olive oil, salt and pepper. It tasted good, & was super fluffy inside, but was very dry… the outside of the cubes toughened up while roasting, rather than crisping or caramelising like the other veggies. We speculate a sauce or gravy might be needed next time – though we’re still a long way off a harvest.
We also planted broccoli, collards, fennel, parsley, beetroot, coriander & leeks in seed trays; and more rocket, turnips & beetroot seed direct in the beds. So far the collards & broccoli are ramapging along, the rest is creeping along.
We sat down yesterday and planned our autumn plantings. We’re going to focus on our past successes, and on things we buy a lot. That means we’ll plant A Lot of beetroot, plus some broccoli, leeks, turnips, collards, taro, silverbeet, beans, snowpeas, and lots & lots of rocket.
This weekend has seen us undertake phase one: clearing out old buggy kale plants & replenishing the beds with lovely rotted soil/compost blend. We bought some beetroot seedlings to get things going, but will start seedlings next weekend.
In the clearout we harvested a couple of leeks, some beans, a ton of kale, some chillis and a pile of green cherry tomatoes (these cooked up beautifully in a veggo shepherd’s pie).
I planted more beans and rocket, and we also pulled out the encroaching grass from under the fruittrees, and mulched them with castings from my sister’s worm farm (we have mountains of her castings, but since her worms process dog poop we’re not putting it in the veg beds).
Filed under: about me, independence days, love & relationships, vegan eating | Tags: love and relationships, vegan eating
Well, I’m not doing the Independence Days Challenge this year. Work has already gotten crazy, and I’m trying to really take care of myself, so it’s first things first!
My personal priorities right now are:
Home & relationships I have a lot of travel this year, and I want to devote energy to MrB and our home & garden. That means having fun together, but also staying mindful of the household jobs that really niggle at him. I like Gala Darling’s take on keeping thing’s fresh.
Work This year I want to thrive, not just survive! This means planning ahead to manage my projects well, and making sure I delegate when I can. I currently have 4 staff, 2 who are pretty autonomous, another 2 who really only work on my projects… So I have to stay in a good place to supervise them properly and delegate (not dump) tasks appropriately. Plus I need to be in a good place to encourage and mentor them, so they can develop according to their own interests. That means preventing overwhelm by staying positive & forward looking, and focusing on eating well, and getting enough sleep & exercise.
Exercise I do 30 mins of walking most days, taking the dog for a stroll. I’ve added 3 x 20-40 minutes swimming or gym cardio per week, plus an additional 1-2 hours a week of yoga and pilates (using Gaim DVDs) , and at least a 1/2 an hour of dancing. I’ll be going to a day club to dance this afternoon. When I do it at home, I tend to do Gabrielle Roth’s Wave DVDs. I have her 3 DVD set – the Power Wave is my favourite. I’ve also started doing some arm work with light hand weights. I’m starting with 1.5 kilos, as my upper body strength is pretty ordinary.
Food I used the myfitnesspal app to keep a food & exercise diary for 6 weeks. I’ve stopped now, as I think I’ve learned appropriate portion sizes pretty well now… I’ll start again if I feel like I’m backsliding. I’m generally eating vegan with attention to getting some protein in all meals; minimising my intake of oil & processed foods (but getting plenty of plant fats in whole nuts & seeds); minimising flour products; and avoiding anything with added sugars, and limiting fruit to the equivalent of two small pieces a day.
According to the scales I didn’t lose kilos in the first 6 weeks, but my body has changed shape dramatically, and I’m fitting pants I haven’t worn for a while, so things are definately happening. I feel a lot stronger, and it’s much easier to climb stairs & hills.
Having said I’m not doing Independence Days, the truth is, we are still gardening, harvesting, cooking at home and buying in bulk. This week I did a big stockup on organic, fair trade coffee, bulk rice (from Honest to Goodness), and tinned tomatoes & beans (from Aldi).
I had a killer week at work, so did the bare minimum. But in keeping with this challenge, I’m counting my wins.
Plant something: no planting this week, but I’m doing some weeding & feeding.
Harvest something: green beans, purple king beans, cherry tomatoes, figs, lettuce, thyme, rosemary, basil
Preserve something: saved the overripe figs by making a fig sauce.
Waste not: froze the rest of the bread to avoid mould in the humidity. Usual composting & recycling.
Want not: no stockpiling or prep this week
Eat the food: used up frozen green vegetables that were getting old in a soup.
Build community food system: nothing really in this category.
Skill up: nothing here either… I eased into this challenge:)
It’s been a while since I visited Susan Voisin’s blog, but I’ve been browsing it a lot lately, as I’m trying to lose a couple of kilos. I’ve been tracking my food & exercise using the myfitnesspal app for about 3 weeks, and while I haven’t actually weighed myself yet, I am feeling stronger & a bit leaner, and I’ve lost a couple of centimetres from my hips & waist. Last week, though, there were a few days where I really over-snacked, and I’d like to cut back on that.
I discovered a couple of good tips on Susan’s blog; including her recommendation to make up a huge pot of veggie soup for snacking. I love soup, and we’re having a mild, wet summer, so there are lots of days where a cup of soup makes a good alternative to veggie sticks.
The other new feature on the site (which has probably been there a while, but is new to me), is the ‘Recipe Box’ function, where I can favourite the recipes I like while I’m browsing. So far the chickpea crackers and low fat version of Annie’s Goddess Dressing (a delicious, but very rich dressing, not actually sold here in Australia) are my faves.
Sharon Astyk is relaunching her Independence Days challenge, in a slightly amended form.
I like this challenge, because it’s all about acknowledging what you HAVE done, not beating yourself up over the things you skipped. The categories are:
Plant something
Harvest something
Preserve something
Waste not (ie using things up, deciding to cook from the pantry and freezer rather taking a run to the shops, composting and/or feeding scraps to animals)
Want not (building up stockpiles of food and other essentials ie soap)
Eat the food (trying new recipes, rotating your stockpile)
Build community food systems
And a new one: Skill up My big one in this category this year will be learning to drive.
I have participated in this challenge a couple of times, and while I tend to manage most items about once a week (except for the daily necessities of eating and composting), I have had trouble with ‘building community food systems’. So my (self-assigned) homework for next week will be working out what these categories mean to me.
We’ve had a cool grey summer, and the veggies have been struggling a little.
The Tuscan kale is still going nuts, and we have purple king beans just ready to pick. We’re still getting small but regular harvests of jalapenos, cos lettuce and cherry tomatoes; and we finally have flowers and fruit on the red passion fruit vine. We’ll get a few small figs but probably not many.
Last weekend we took advantage of the dark moon to pull out the rest of the broccoli ( which was getting pretty bug infested), and do some major pruning, mulching and feeding.
Today I planted beetroot, radish, baby cos lettuce & some rocket from our seed. The seed is from the astro rocket, which I think is the tastiest rocket we’ve grown. I’ll keep saving seed from it, as it’s really delicious. I also planted a few more ruby chard plants ( aka red veined silverbeet). The leaves are a bit more tender than regular silverbeet… they’re especially good in curries, I think.
Ms Betterhome 