Read more about why I am participating in Sharon's Independence Days Challenge, here.
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Planted something - Nil.
Harvested something - Sweet potatoes, broadleaf celery, mustard greens, a few green tomatoes, three blueberries, lettuce, snow peas, starfruit, mushrooms and rocket.
Preserved something - Juiced and froze yet more lemons; made chicken stock from a roasted chicken carcass, cooked up bulk brown rice and froze in portions for fried rice.
Reduced waste - Made laundry powder; Made yoghurt; Am investigating a local wholesale storage supplier for 30L food-grade storage drums and 4 litre glass screw-top jars, to store my bulk food orders in when they arrive.
Preparation and Storage - Made my first bulk foods orders: #1 = dried pulses, dried fruits, nuts and seeds, #2 = flours and baking goods and #3 a chemical/hormone-free, grass-fed beef hamper; Hubby took everything out of the pantry, sorted through it and repacked it with a vague hope of fitting some of the bulk orders in there; Stocked up on a dozen packets of dried organic pasta when my local stupormarket discontinued them and sold off the remaining packets for 99c each.
Eat the Food - Sweet potato soup is going down well with the family as are lots of baked vegies in the cold weather.
Building Community - Contributed to Miss Five's class 'vegetable discovery table'! They are doing a unit on farms at the moment and as part of it, her teacher wanted each child to bring in a vegetable for everyone to look at and touch. Part of me thinks it's tragic that five-year olds need to 'discover' vegetables at school, but the other part of me was pleased to be able to send in a display of semi-unusual vegetables for them to discover - including Yacon or Peruvian Ground Apple, sweet potatoes which are purple on the inside, Kumara (orange sweet potatoes) and even a green luffa/loofah. Miss Five is incredibly impressed that I can grow a sponge LOL, but I hope I get it back as I only managed to grow three this year!
Learned a New Skill - Nil this week - unless knitting with novelty yarn counts! What a nightmare when you drop a stitch... Sadly, I still haven't had time to play with roasting the coffee beans yet (maybe this week?!), nor have I had time to make any hard cheeses yet (sigh).
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8 comments:
Hi Julie. Is there a reason you are stocking up on dried goods? Are you just building up a stockpile?
Oh, and love the look of that soup. I am going to have to plant some sweet potatoes to see if they grown down here in sunny Melton!
Gav
Hi Julie, the soup looks terrific. I had a bad experience with sweet potatoes once, so I probably need to get some back into the garden. I dont have a lot of active garden space (maybe need to change that now) but do you recommend a sweet pot that doesn't take over the garden. Also, once day I'd like to know more about sponges too.
Hi Julie, An impressive list especially for the middle of winter. I hadn't thought of investigating wholesalers for food storage items. The packaging supplier for our shop may be just the ticket, thanks.
I've been knitting for nearly 50 years and even though I occasionally succumb, I'd warn you off novelty yarns. They are a nightmare if you knit one stitch wrong so you end up chucking half your yarn.
Cheers, Rose
Hi Gavin,
Yes, just stockpiling; a) it's cheaper to buy produce - especially organic! - in bulk, and b) it reduces waste through reduced volume of packaging (especially all those little packets of nuts & seeds I use in our muesli etc).
Hi Tamara,
I gather that all sweet potatoes are vines, so they will tend to run, but if you have the time (!) to prune them they can be contained easily.
Hi Rose,
Oh I wish someone had warned me before I bought all this yarn LOL! It was so cheap and soft and I thought it would make great scarves for the kids - it will but gee, what a nightmare to knit with... never again!
Cheers, Julie
Hi Julie
I hate novelty yarn too - although they can be pretty, I think if I have put the effort into knitting by hand I want to see the stitches.
Can you tell us from where you have ordered your bulk dry goods? We are trying to find sources.
Thanks in advance.
KB
Hi KB,
Yes, I agree about the yarn. Never again LOL. I haven't put the links to the bulk suppliers up yet as I have never used any of them before and I'm waiting to see what the quality and delivery is like? I don't want to link to a company that I doesn't provide quality goods, if that makes sense? Stay tuned though, I will definitely link to them when I have received their orders next week if I like them...
Cheers, Julie
Hi!
I would love to know where you do your shopping for your bulk organic items?? I have just moved to Australia from Canada and my town hardly carries anything at all which is really depressing. WE just moved into our own (rented) home and we are desperately trying to lay roots start gardening and get to baking again. Thanks for the wonderful blog I've been reading it for hours for 2 days now.. hehe.. Learning so very much!
Barb.
Hello Barbara,
No, sadly it can be hard to get anything organic, let alone in bulk, outside of the larger cities. I joined a Co-Op which does bulk orders direct from flour mills etc to save us money. I wonder if there is anything like that in your area? You can order some bulk goods online and have the delivered but the cost of freight is almost prohibitive for just one person's order, unfortunately. Could you ask around and see if anyone else would be interested in placing an order? Sorry I can't be of more help, as I'm not sure where you are located.
Cheers,
Julie
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