carrots
There is currently a leap in my heart which the roaming cynic free radicals cannot quite squash. In my garden I have six carrot seedlings. I sowed the seed last month, just before the full moon, as today is also just before the full moon.
I've seen some terrific looking carrots in gardens around our small wet town lately. Our neighbours gave me some of their thinnings which were larger than any carrot I have ever produced since we moved to the West Coast. My friend Gaylene told me she sows Egmont Gold because that is what her mother has great success with. Yesterday I went to the garden shop and found Egmont Gold on the Yates seed stand. I grabbed it, together with some beetroot, calendula and coriander seed.
Today I weeded and sowed beetroot, coriander and calendula. The lunar garden guide from Holger Kohl which is published in the Organics NZ magazine advises me to sow all seeds today, and in a few days time, to sow spring carrots. My excitement knows little boundary - the moon will help me grow carrots. I have a space aside for them in a raised bed and I will mix some river sand in for improved drainage and nice straight carrots.
I also planted out three seedlings: celery, echinacea and lovage.
It being Sunday, it is also kitchen marathon day. I spent much of it either in the garden or at a friend's house (admiring her worm farm), but I did make something called 'impossible quiche' which turned out alright and some carrot & brazil nut muffins which were very nice. We have been enjoying our new juicer very much but until today, the chooks have received all the pulp. Today I used the pulp from the carrot/apple/ginger juices to make the muffins and also as part of the vegetable component of the 'impossible quiche'. Worked well on both experiments and I will try a carrot cake with the pulp sometime soon. I drained and added milk to my kefir. Yes, I have kefir going again! Thank you very much to Gilly and Melissa for the starter. This morning I mixed some carrot pulp with some kefir and rocket (which we finally have growing again) and it tasted very yummy. All good on the probiotic goodness then, apart from the eternal challenge of getting it into my children. I've got sourdough bread on the go. A useful thing about living where it isn't hugely hot is that the bread is very tolerant of me forgetting about it.
The budget project is going okay. Tomorrow the chimney sweep arrives and does the job which I fondly imagined I would do back in summer before the reality of my paid working life hit. I am meal planning about three days in advance. Any longer and it all falls out the window for me. Between my friend C and I, we cleaned out the fridge and now you can see what is in it and many ageing relatives of vegetables and cooked dishes have left their bar stools for the compost or the chooks. So leftovers are actually being eaten up within a reasonable distance from the date I first made them and the meals are being stretched that way also.
I am gutted, gutted gutted about Paula Bennett's new Future Terrible welfare 'reforms'. I've read a lot of excellent responses to her announcements both online and in New Zealand newspapers and I don't feel I have anything erudite to add, but I do want to register my disgust. It is so convenient to see people dependent on government handouts as non-people, but the corollary is a non-society (as in Maggie Thatcher's famous comment - she could see it and yet she still wanted it?!). There is an argument for unravelling the assumptions another layer and asking why anyone should be dependent on another person because they have sex with them. As a married woman, it is deemed perfectly respectable for me to be dependent on my husband, the father of my children, for financial support. Why should that be? Why is that a given?
I'm in need of some new energy blogging-wise. I still feel the desire to post, but what I post seems so much aimless drivel. Any suggestions for direction and feedback for improvement will be gratefully received. I've re-enabled anonymous comments.
I've seen some terrific looking carrots in gardens around our small wet town lately. Our neighbours gave me some of their thinnings which were larger than any carrot I have ever produced since we moved to the West Coast. My friend Gaylene told me she sows Egmont Gold because that is what her mother has great success with. Yesterday I went to the garden shop and found Egmont Gold on the Yates seed stand. I grabbed it, together with some beetroot, calendula and coriander seed.
Today I weeded and sowed beetroot, coriander and calendula. The lunar garden guide from Holger Kohl which is published in the Organics NZ magazine advises me to sow all seeds today, and in a few days time, to sow spring carrots. My excitement knows little boundary - the moon will help me grow carrots. I have a space aside for them in a raised bed and I will mix some river sand in for improved drainage and nice straight carrots.
I also planted out three seedlings: celery, echinacea and lovage.
It being Sunday, it is also kitchen marathon day. I spent much of it either in the garden or at a friend's house (admiring her worm farm), but I did make something called 'impossible quiche' which turned out alright and some carrot & brazil nut muffins which were very nice. We have been enjoying our new juicer very much but until today, the chooks have received all the pulp. Today I used the pulp from the carrot/apple/ginger juices to make the muffins and also as part of the vegetable component of the 'impossible quiche'. Worked well on both experiments and I will try a carrot cake with the pulp sometime soon. I drained and added milk to my kefir. Yes, I have kefir going again! Thank you very much to Gilly and Melissa for the starter. This morning I mixed some carrot pulp with some kefir and rocket (which we finally have growing again) and it tasted very yummy. All good on the probiotic goodness then, apart from the eternal challenge of getting it into my children. I've got sourdough bread on the go. A useful thing about living where it isn't hugely hot is that the bread is very tolerant of me forgetting about it.
The budget project is going okay. Tomorrow the chimney sweep arrives and does the job which I fondly imagined I would do back in summer before the reality of my paid working life hit. I am meal planning about three days in advance. Any longer and it all falls out the window for me. Between my friend C and I, we cleaned out the fridge and now you can see what is in it and many ageing relatives of vegetables and cooked dishes have left their bar stools for the compost or the chooks. So leftovers are actually being eaten up within a reasonable distance from the date I first made them and the meals are being stretched that way also.
I am gutted, gutted gutted about Paula Bennett's new Future Terrible welfare 'reforms'. I've read a lot of excellent responses to her announcements both online and in New Zealand newspapers and I don't feel I have anything erudite to add, but I do want to register my disgust. It is so convenient to see people dependent on government handouts as non-people, but the corollary is a non-society (as in Maggie Thatcher's famous comment - she could see it and yet she still wanted it?!). There is an argument for unravelling the assumptions another layer and asking why anyone should be dependent on another person because they have sex with them. As a married woman, it is deemed perfectly respectable for me to be dependent on my husband, the father of my children, for financial support. Why should that be? Why is that a given?
I'm in need of some new energy blogging-wise. I still feel the desire to post, but what I post seems so much aimless drivel. Any suggestions for direction and feedback for improvement will be gratefully received. I've re-enabled anonymous comments.
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