My green ideas for the world

We’ve been feeling a little crowded lately, by all our stuff.

Stuff is everywhere, stuff we don’t use, stuff we don’t need. Stuff we should be living without.

Minimilism I know not much about, but I like the concept. I like the idea that we can live with less stuff, in fact only what we really need.

I look around my house and I’m somewhat a hoarder. Especially in the kitchen department. I have pickles and tupperware containers, along with many second hand food magazines on my cooking bookshelf. But I really need all this kitchen stuff.

We have boxes and boxes worth of stuff, around, in the way, for looks.

I’ve decided on a new rule. If I haven’t used anything since I came home (almost 2 years ago), its going to be given away. If I haven’t worn anything, its going to be given away. If I haven’t looked at anything – old journals, photos etc, its going into a box and into storage and outta this house.  

So we’re having a swaps party. But we don’t want anything in return, so I guess its a free stuff party. Come along and say hi, and take away our stuff.

Everyone should try it, without less stuff in our lives maybe we can all feel less stressed by all the stuff. And surely life will get cheaper, as we won’t need to replace any of it when its worn out.

yum!

Beetroot grows so well in the garden. You can eat the leaves as the root is maturing and eat both in a salad with carrot and feta cheese.

Beetroot Carrot Salad…

3 baby beetroot

1 carrot

feta – crumbled

white vinegarette (vinegar, oil, yoghurt, salt, pepper, sugar)

Grate beetroot and carrot on a plate. Add feta and vinegarette. Toss and devour immediately.  YUM.

The new chickens penelope and sinead are now laying, so I’ve two tiny eggs to collect daily. And they’re so fun to watch.

The sky is a divine colour tonight. Happy Christmas to you all.

I know its SO last year, but I am stoked that gardening is in fashion. And my garden is definitely deserved of some publicity…

I’ve got the most styly garden I’ve ever owned, and believe me – I own it! 

Rows are in vogue as opposed to sections this year. Bamboo widely compliments the rows - bringing the eye to the bamboo and then down to the vibrant colour of the plant. Yes, its fashion darling.

This year I’m growing tomatoes again, 3 rows of tomatoes: Roma, cherry, moneymaker (a few self seeded and transplanted from last year) and big beef. I’m also trying to get these Jack Cider heirlooms germinating, but have struggled to get any to juvenile stage. There’s two new seedlings just come through so will see how they get on.

I’m growing brassicas, cauliflower, purple and green brocolli, green and red cabbage (the red cabbage self seeded from last year).  I know they might go to seed – and that’s a risk you have to take, but I’m anticipating another cold snap and a general cooling down – which the plants will handle because they’re well established now. – It’s been such a crazy spring with no rain and hot, hot temperatures for Taupo.  Terrible for the farm, but great for my garden.

I’m growing sugar snap peas again, scarlet and blue lake runner beans up some wonderful looking support systems. We have strawberries in a big tractor tyre with a bamboo protection wigwam with bird netting, which doesn’t seem to work particularly well.

Theres onions which take about a million years to grow (240 days), leeks which I’ve not successfully grown before, and the staples:

- Rocket

- Beetroot (you can eat the leaves while they’re growing)

- Cos lettuce (much better than iceberg or fancy)

- Carrots (tedious to weed but so yummy and easy)

- Radishes (take less than 30 days from seed to eating) 

Rhubarb is still firing, silverbeet is so efficient and good for you.

I’ve got gherkins and zucchinis, chillis and sweet peppers, pumpkins and rockmelon and of course the silly potatoes that grow all through my garden.  Mulch with straw is the newest thing this year. And two litre milk containers with the bottoms cut off – dug into the ground and used to drip feed water into the soil – seems to be working well to kick drought ass…

Its in vogue, I know everyones doing it – but I’m proud to say I’m doing it well and certainly with style!

Its quite a green city really – for NZ. The council has some focus on recycling and rubbish; around the city there are a few recycling bins scattered around.

But spending time at the hospital, I’ve noticed there are absolutely NO recycling bins anywhere – even in the cafeteria. How hard is it to recycle cans and plastic bottles in an area where they’re sold? It takes one extra plastic bin, some signage and a little bit extra for the cleaning/rubbish staff.

So it got me thinking about how it works. I intend to write to the CEO of the Waikato District Health Board, but I really need to know how these things work first. So I’m planning to get friendly with the cleaning staff and then the rubbish staff.  I’m guessing a company has a contract to collect and dispose of the rubbish, but I doubt they’d sort the rubbish once it was bagged and trashed.

So here I am on a crusade once again, its a light hearted distraction from real life with baby almost 4 months old!

Sometimes in life you compromise all your beliefs when something else controls your existence.

In my situation I am contributing a major amount of waste to the world, but I’m not sure I have any other option.

It makes me feel sad and hypocritical to be in this situation, but unfortunately sometimes, your ethics have to become the least of your concerns.

I wish I could learn how to keep my ethics at the core of my daily life even when all is focussed on something so important it takes up all of your energy.

How do we keep our core values current and connected to situations when others are directly involved in the control of our circumstances?

I have been testing recipes! of the home-made cleaning variety and have found some are average and some are great. I have posted the great ones…

Laundry powder

1 cup Washing soda (you can get this at bin inn or supermarket)

1 cup baking soda

1 bar of soap – grated (I use sunlight soap)

Process in a food processor until crumbs and use one tablespoon per wash.

If you add a splash of white wine vinegar to the final rinse and line dry in the sun, stains lighten dramatically (like cow-poo)…

Window cleaner

1 part white vinegar

5 parts water

some whole mint leaves in the bottle to steep or a few drops of citronella

Mix and leave for a couple of days then spray and wipe off with whatever you please. I use rags as I hate using newspaper.

The mint leaves are an experimental idea to repel flies. In the country, flies drive me crazy and cleaning fly-poo off windows is doubly annoying.  Feedback on the mint idea is welcome.

Multi-purpose spray cleaner

1L hot water

grated sunlight soap or soap flakes (about 1tsp – no more)

1 tsp baking soda

few drops tea tree oil (or lavender, lemon, orange, citronella etc)

Add hot water and soap to spray bottle and shake well till disolved. Once cool add baking soda and essential oils. Spray to your hearts content.

Bathtub base cleaner

Add two tablespoons baking soda to a damp cloth

Add elbow grease and rub well, gets good results…

Notes

*You’ll need to buy Sunlight soap bars they are the best! They cost around $2 for a pack of 4 in the supermarket

*Tea tree oil is worth the investment, its a staple item in our first aid kit as its anti-bacterial

*I am trying to find bulk baking soda for the home but haven’t come across a good deal yet. The cheapest I’ve found is about $0.99 for 400gms, but I’m SURE it must be cheaper in bulk

*Washing soda has many other purposes in the home, but it needs to be kept airtight as it holds moisture if exposed

*Plant mint in your garden in a place you don’t care about. It should be sunny and get natural rainfall and you should be good to go after a month or so. You can also take cuttings of mint from someone elses plant, thats the cheap way…

• I still believe the earth is suffering with an ever increasing over-population of human beings (something I struggle with being a pregant woman!) 
• I still believe that peak oil is a huge issue with the world’s continued reliance on something so finite
• I still believe that water may become the worlds largest problem yet (even for NZ)
• I still believe that waste and waste management is a hugely underrated social issue 

It has been a terribly long time since I wrote. But I’ll put that down to Christmas and the holidays and an endless number of 8.30am – 7.30pm work days. It seemed it would never slow down, but now I feel it has.

As my belly has grown, as have the weeds and the zucchini! I’ve found it really hard to keep on top of the weeds - sometimes I think we should just have a weed garden instead of a vege one!

Garden success stories

Zucchini – grows like wildfire here. We harvest at least 4-6 fruit every 2 days. So much in fact that I’ve been giving lots away as well as us eating at least one a day. We have zucchini muffins, pasta, bread, scones, fritters, roasted, fried and of course it goes in with whatever meat. Seems like saute onion, add garlic, add meat has become saute onion, add garlic, add zucchini, add meat.  I have 5 plants and definitely only needed two.

Sugar snap peas – Seem to grow reasonably well although I’d need about 12 plants to feed us regularly and I only have 4. So they’re a treat, but I will grow them again.

Rocket – Went to seed very fast but we ate a lot of it. I need to rip it all out and sow some more.

Tomatoes – I am still perservering with them, feeding them. We have lots of green fruit which appears to be ripening slowly. We have had daily mid-afternoon thunderstorms for about a week and I have gotten off watering duties thanks to mother nature.

Basil – grows very well with our tomatoes but has gone to seed. Seems we could not eat it fast enough.

Lebanese Cucumbers – growing well and lots of flowers. Fruit seem slow to grow.

Garden difficulties

Brocolli – it does grow well and we have harvested a number of smaller ones from the same plants but I’m not sure its really value for effort/space. If we had a cramped garden I wouldn’t grow it again…

Lettuces – Iceberg, I really seemed to screw these up by watering on top of the heart instead of around the base of the plant. They all rotted to the core and were full of slugs. We did manage to save some outer leaves.

Runner beans – something ate the growing tips early on and I lost about half the crop. The remaining crop was very slow to grow and still has no flowers.

Capsicum (bell peppers) – I’ve been told I’m crazy for trying to grow them in our climate, but I still have a little faith. However the plants are still only 20cms high and have no flowers. I raised these ones from seed around 4 months ago so am reluctant to give up…

I still have faith in my garden, although not quite as much energy for weed control anymore!  I am waiting on the first ripe tomatoes with much anticipation…

Sustainability, self-suffiency, being green, eco-friendly… all these things really suit our lifestyle. Mainly because we have little money to spend and stingy = green. I mean surely you only have to look at the words economy and eco to see the connection!

Now we are patiently waiting for our veges to grow and our various seedlings to grow bigger for planting, our focus has turned to other things. There are many ways we can save money, packaging and the need to freight our bought goods and subsequent waste all around the world.

With me working 4 days a week, I have 3 wonderful days to work at home.  A change of attitude about my life has helped me make the most of my time away from work. I used to use my weekends to relax, unwind, drink and socialise. Now a more balanced life (and no booze thanks to my kicking tummy) means I don’t feel the need to escape when I’m away from work – I can simply work at home. I get my relaxation from weeding the garden and baking – the satisfaction is much better than a hangover and endless caffeine.

FOOD

- I have started baking oat based biscuits or slices instead of buying muesli bars. They are far cheaper and yummier and we eliminate plastic and cardboard packaging - and food miles. I like this recipe http://iwant2eat.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=puds&action=display&num=1121705430

- I have started working on my bread-making skills. A few dud loaves, but the first good quality loaf came last night (I’ve decided its all in the kneading)… I will now work on adding seeds and nuts and using wholemeal flour… It works out to be about 0.60 NZD a loaf, no packaging and the kneading is good for the soul (so I keep telling myself). I like this recipe – it explains why you’re doing what you’re doing: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/10857/basic+white+bread 

- Bagels  are my one vice… I’ve been buying them at over $4 NZ a bag of 4 bagels… add on the cream cheese and pesto and thats about $11 NZ for 4 breakfasts. Not so cheap. So I’m trying this recipe at a yield of 12 bagels for under 7 cups of flour (thats about a kg), which is about $2 NZ a batch. Its going to be worth it if they’re edible… http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bagels-II/Detail.aspx

- We are lucky enough to have milk from the farm and that saves us well over $5 a week, + packaging and food miles.

- I’m growing a mammoth number of tomatoes. The plants seem to vary in health but I’m looking forward to seeing the fruit when they appear. The plan is to blanch and freeze them for cooking to eliminate the need to buy canned tomatoes, saving us many food miles and waste cans.

One day when we’ve got everything else running well I want to churn butter, make cheese, pasta and chips. But maybe I’ll just work on what we’ve got and do that right first! I’ve also decided that all waste including recycling should be minimised as much as possible. Even recycling is waste and still takes much energy to process and transport!

My christmas presents are all baked goodies in 2nd hand baskets wrapped in recycled wrapping paper. Remember there is no need to throw foil wrapping  away – even if you don’t want to re-use it – someone else will.

Next time I will write about making my own cleaning products (including washing powder!) and my love for Bin Inn…

Small steps added together mean you finally feel like you’re getting somewhere.

We’ve been out here on the farm for around 3 weeks now (hence no writing – life is much busier!) and things are coming together in the garden and around the house.

The vege garden was overgrown with potatoes, celery and weeds so was ripped out and fertilised and turned by Sam, and turned again by me before planting. We’ve kept some of the potatoes, which must have been from the previous crop going to seed, but have planted them in tyres out of the garden. We also gave some away which felt good!

Lettuces – our iceberg are growing strong and we have planted garlic around the perimeter to deter rabbits – seems to be working well. Our rocket from seed is just coming through in front of the beans…

Beans – our runner beans have just come through looking fabulous. I planted the damp seeds on a bed of seaweed tea soaked newsprint in a 10cm trench in front of gates Sam constructed for them to climb.

Brocolli – 3 growing well, however 1 looks to be over fertilised with a sparse, loose head. Have many more as seedlings inside, waiting till they are 10cm tall to plant out.

Capsicum – the 3 survivors from town seem to be quite stunted in their growth. I’m sure its that its not warm enough yet for them. I have 12 more seedlings to go in the ground in our tunnel house (green house), when we get around to getting it ready for transplanting.

Carrots – ready to come up I am sure, might pull those soon… More seeds in the ground that have not come up yet. They are sown between the

Radishes – Cylinder radishes which are growing very well and are a very satisfying addition to the garden. Planting them between rows of slow germinating seeds they have now marked the rows. Need to be weeded, but I am worried about the other seeds being disturbed so will leave the weeds for now.

Silverbeet/Rainbow Chard – coming through nicely. Sowed 5 seeds 20 cms apart so will be interesting to see how they grow.

Leeks and Spring Onions – have not come through well at all. Thinking of re-sowing in different soil.

Sugar snap peas – Sowed 10 seeds and all but 2 have come through, as planned next to their 50cm stakes.

Zucchinis – two plants on mounds at the rear of the garden. Lots of growth since planting in the ground and flowers now appearing as well. Have not been watering the leaves to prevent too much leafy growth.

Lebanese cucumber – three coming through now. They are to live next to the sugar snaps.

Strawberries – waiting to go into their tractor tyre which is waiting to be filled with earth… another job to get to when its not raining!

The tomatoes – my babies. I have raised them from seed when all told me it was too early in our cold winter climate. They are all hardened now and relatively healthy looking plants to my untrained eye. We have been feeding them seaweed tea about once a week and have planted two in the ground – which seem to be happy. The rest are to be planted in the tunnel house when its ready. I have also planted some cherry tomatoe seeds and the seedlings are just coming through now… What good preparation for motherhood taking care of tomatoes!

Seedlings – Beetroot, corriander, capsicum, cherry tomatoes and brocolli at the moment. Many more to be planted.

I love our garden. I especially love when it rains and I get to watch mother nature do her share of the watering….

Thats all for now – tips gratefully accepted…