Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The One Tonne Challenge


Welcome to my Contented life blog.


Spring weather is finally here although we did get some cold weather accompanied by some much welcomed rain, just after planting some seeds and seedlings. So thank you God for sending the rain at the right time.
Yesterday , I picked some young Broad beans and had them with our dinner lightly steamed. They were so nice. Broadbeans can be eaten straight from the pod. I am going to make some broad bean pies and my favourite Broad beans , garlic and parsley salad.
So far this season I have harvested some lemons and strawberries which I have made into Lemon curd and Strawberry jam. I am stockpiling it for my up coming exhibition to provide some yummy treats for people to buy.
You are probably wondering what the one tonne challenge is. Well I have set my self a challenge this season to harvest 1000kg of fruit and vegetables from our garden. Well I hope I can do it, but the gain and joy is in the ride and journey. So wish me luck and I am going to try my hardest to get there. I haven't been measuring much so far, but will start.
Last year We harvested close to 300 kg of fruit and vegetables.
To measure my progress I will update the total list on the right had side of my posts.
Send me a comment Would love to hear from you. What do you think. Am I mad, do you think I will be able to achieve it?
This weekend I am planting out all my capsicums and tomatoes. I have planted out all the Eggplants and sowed Watermelon and Zucchini seeds.
Happy gardening. May you reap what you sow.
Lina

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Another Good Reason to Grow your own Produce

Welcome to my Contented Life Blog.

I have spent the weekend in the garden and it has been lovely weather, the first nice weather this spring. It was perfect for being out door and getting your hands dirty and reconnecting with nature.



I planted some Egg plant, Baby Spinach, Capsican , Artichoke and
Zuchinni Seeds. I hope we dont get a frost. I have saved some seedlings incase we do.


We have been getting lots of beautiful strawberries from our green house. Slugs have been a problem and some of the best big juicy ones have been attacked. Why can't they choose the little ones? We have found this great organic pest control gadget to get them under some sort of control. It is a container ( will get picture soon) that you can pour beer into and the slugs are attracted to it and when they fall in they die.



I was reading an article about another reason to buy organic or grow your own . Apart form the pleasure of seeing the lovely fruit and vegetable develop and the wonderful flavour ,there is a lot of pesticides and chemicals that are used in commercially grown crops. Read the article here.


Perhaps if you can't grow much, you could grow the fruit and Vegies you eat then most of .


I made some wonderful strawberry jam with our own strawberries and lemons ( for pectin). I had some on my pancakes this morning it was delicious. I am going to make some lemon curd with our lemons soon.

Cheers and happy gardening

Lina