Independence Days Challenge Update & Tricia's Competition Entry

It's Monday so it is time for another Independence Days update, but firstly, here's a photo for Tricia's Line Link Love competition : here's my clothes line in all it's overcast-winter's-day glory (ahem). See that Golden Cane palm in the background on the extreme left? It's the local council's green waste collection next week and the palm is getting cut down to let in more light, which means my clothes may actually dry one the line when it isn't raining!



Now onto the Independence Days update.

Read more about why I am participating in Sharon's Independence Days Challenge, here.

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Planted something - Chinese Cabbage, Bok Choy, Pak Choi, Mizuna, more thyme, coriander (cilantro), Cherry Tomatoes x 2 (ever the optimist - I planted them up against a north-facing rock wall), thyme and coriander. I cheated and bought punnets for the first time in ages: it was either that or look at the empty spaces where I pulled out the tomatoes for a month or so while I grew my own seedlings.


Harvested something - Turmeric, ginger, sweet potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, Chinese broad leaf celery, red mustard, one mandarin, lemons, starfruit.

I passed the "magic" 100 kilo mark for harvesting my own produce, half way through the year! Yay. I hope I can manage another 100 kilos in the remaining six months.


Preserved something - Nil last week. But I'm planning on starting to deal with the turmeric and ginger this week, plus a batch of candied lemon peels.


Reduced waste - I'm waiting on two bulk food deliveries today and tomorrow, otherwise nothing that we don't already do.


Preparation and Storage - I finally, finally got hold of a Butter Bell on from a local seller on eBay, which I hoping to pick up this afternoon. Since switching to real butter, we've had the usual digs-holes-in-fresh-bread issue with butter stored in the fridge. I can leave it out on the bench in winter, but in summer it gets way too hot to do that. The butter bell should allow us to store the butter out of the fridge to keep it soft and spreadable without it going rancid in summer - the concept is that you load the butter into the base of the cup-shaped lid, which is then inverted into a container of fresh water - the water seals the surface of the butter, preventing oxygen from reaching it and sending it rancid. It's a traditional French method I gather.

I've been searching high and low for one for at least 18 months - for some unknown reason, these don't seem to be imported into Australia and with the current exchange rate, getting one posted from the US was going to cost and arm and a leg - so I'm stoked to not only have gotten one that has never been used (the seller bought it when in the US apparently and then never used it), but that is a local pick-up as well, so no postage. Wheee!


Eat the Food - Boring staple food week last week, I just totally lost my cooking mojo and even we resorted to takeaway (eek!). At least yesterday's leftover BBQ chicken carcass is becoming tonight's chicken & vegetable soup. No excuses this week - it's school holidays so I don't have to do school runs each day, which theoretically = more time to cook.


Building Community - Nil again. Did chat to a couple of people in passing about growing fruit and veg (including inspiring the checkout chick who scanned my vegie punnets to start up her vegie garden again), but nothing significant.


Learned a New Skill - Also nada this week.

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