A Busy Week

Posted on September 8, 2013 by anthonypickering

Man what a busy week. After restarting blogging here and realizing that I was paralyzed by own my thought pattern I have found that the process of just getting into the blog has led to a burst in energy here doing the real stuff here in urban hippie land.

We have a function here in a week or so and (more on that next week) add to that A. has finally run out of patience at not being able to get into the car port for the last 12 months.

I have so many projects where I have all the parts and have just been in a state of ennui it will be a while before I need purchase anything which is a great situation to be in.

This weekends projects have been to get the back yard into a safe state for non-urban hippy children and adults. Our kids are not helicopter parented and they know about nails in old pallets and to stay away from the stinging nettle. Not all kids have had that well a developed level of self-preservation J or have made as many mistakes …

So the back yard was cleared up and looking pretty swish. Unlike other times I have made sure that it has not been a quick cleanup. Where possible I have finished projects rather than just dumping the items in the area where the shed will be moved to as a hidey spot. If I couldn’t I have grouped them into projects to be worked on later.

A number of things done will be posted in the week to come. Such as extending a chicken run getting the front garden bed started but the big one was the side path and clearing up the 1.5 cubic meters of road base that I have had in the drive way for the last year or so and was threating to get me into trouble with the non-hippie wife.

While cleaning up I found a large amount of snails and slugs and the girls have been very happy to help my getting rid of them 🙂

As you know I am great collector (read hoarder) of things and hold a great believe in the idea of not buying something new if you have something that will fill its place.

The side of the house in the coolest and least sunny part of the site. I store my mushroom logs there and have wasabi and other shade loving plants. It also provided access to the back of the house and it has been a bit of disaster with a lot of water coming down and a lot of weeds needing to be managed.

So the first order of the day was to get down some weed proof material. I could have purchased weed mat but I had a lot, and I mean a lot of the bags that I get my organic chicken food in. So why not utilize them? Why buy more stuff made from petro chemicals when I already have it here and have to purchase it for what I need?

So I laid them in an overlapping pattern and then piled on the blue metal road base and when I ran out of bags grabbed dome the old ripped tent tunnel cover I had that was not water tight enough for a wicking bed and used that. By the end of the weekend the base is down and the rest of the phase will be to compact it and then a thin layer of sand, and then lay second had bricks that I have been collecting (and using for garden beds) finally as nature abhors a vacuum I will supper seed the brick gaps with a mixture of herb seeds, roman chamomile and lots of dandelion seeds mixed with sand. Those spots in high usage area’s will remain clear the rest will produce for the bees and for us. As I go through the phases I will explain each one and why I am doing it this way.

Phase one is the road base, and it was chosen is for two reasons.

One. We have quite reactive soil and I have seen what it has done to concrete slabs in the back shed and the road base has a bit more flex in it. In a worst case scenario the bricks can be pulled up re-laid if they get too moved.

The second is embodied energy. While the breaking up and transporting the basalt for the road base is intensive it pales in comparison to the amount of energy for concrete. Don’t get me wrong we use concrete and will continue to. For some jobs it is the best and most effective product but where possible we limit its use.

I also got a wicking bed in a bath ready to go and this will hopefully be completed by the end of the week.

Time to get some sleep… need to go to work to get a rest tomorrow.

Didn’t plan it so going to have to wing it.

Posted on September 6, 2013 by anthonypickering

Last year a friend gave me some amazing Sicilian basil. Big leaves perfect on a slice of bread as it had a milder flavour and was large enough that two or three leaves covered a slice of A. sourdough.

Teamed up with good cheese it was awesome.

So at the end of summer it died back to a few twigs but a lot of seeds. I put the poor sad pot at the back door with plans to put a bag over it to collect the seeds for next year. But each time I walked past less seeds where there and I forgot or got busy. It would have taken me 5 minutes to do it but didn’t…

It is a luxury in this time we are in that I don’t have to stress about it as I can always go online and find some or ask the friend again. In the future we may not be so lucky in which case I would hope I am more disciplined or one of my neighbours is. Seed saving is a skill I am more intermittent at than good at. I is a skill that I have said I will work on this year along with better propagation techniques.

But I did have an idea that sad forlorn pot was still! There maybe, just maybe some of the seeds in it?

So I am going to do a bit of an experiment. I covered the pot with a light dusting of good potting mix and chucked it in a tub it allow the water to wick up. It went into my new propagation hot house. What is the worst that could happen? Some weeds grow? Chickens can eat those.

It got me thinking that now is the time to work on skills and experiment now, build for a future where at the very least everything we do will become much more expensive and learning very unusual skills harder as $200 flight to another city to do a course becomes a $500 train trip or $1000 plan ride.

It is a reason my garden beds are mostly made with recycled blue stone blocks or bricks they will last forever and can be reused over and over again with little to no additional fossil inputs.

So as i have said before go out there and skill up, But I add to that go out there and experiment as well!

Are we all making it easier to do nothing at all?

Posted on September 3, 2013 by anthonypickering

So I have been quiet again… nothing new there … (or NO news there 🙂 )

And have been contemplating why?

I had a think on father’s day as sick number 2 child was sleeping in the sun next to me and came to the conclusion I have been my own worst enemy in a number of ways recently. I have been looking at what I have been doing and going well that is not blog worthy, that is not environmental ‘enough’ and worst of all comparing. I think that other person is doing everything so much better than me. Look they are living in a yurt made of their own hair and fuelling it with their own dried dung while living entirely of raw foraged food…

Perfection is a dangerous, dangerous thing. It can easily paralyse us and make us look at what we are doing and says I can’t compete with that and simply give up. It is something those of us interested in a better world need to consider. Often near enough is a damn side better than not at all!

I think looking back on it that has been an issue with me over the last 6 or so months. Recently however I have had a couple of the shining examples that have held themselves out as the saviours of various parts of the world and I have been comparing myself to start to look not so perfect after all.

They don’t look bad, not even poor, quite good actually but not perfect.

It has made me consider that we all do what we can and judging yourself to harshly is counterproductive. I lost sight of why I am doing what “I” do and lost my own direction. So I am going to get back on the horse and live by the old motto below.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, when you can!

Now amusingly as we speak of full circles. Sunday was father’s day and strangely enough I had a ground hog moment when I realised that last father’s day I worked on my mini seed raising hot house and again I did the same thing this year.

The unit last year worked ok but had a few serious faults and lead to some losses so I wanted to do something a bit different and easier to use this year.

So it has had an upgrade with recycled windows replacing the builders plastic and it now has much better access as the two windows at the front are hinged which will mean I can see everything and easily access the seedlings to manage them and check on them (which is a major cause of failure last year).

I have moved it so it is not in the way but close enough and easy to get to keep an eye on it.(we live in this house it can’t just be my green playground)

I was lucky and have been harvesting the hard wast for a while and it made of repurposed material, an old shelf I found, some old shower screens for the ends, and windows I picked up as hard rubbish, even the boards are from a pallet I found. Only some of the screws are new.

In the end I like making stuff up from what others in our society perceive as no longer useful the environmental aspect is important but anyone using a cheap commercial mini hot house from Aldi or Bunning’s is still doing more for the environment than those who poo poo the purchases of such items on environmental grounds and do nothing.

Again do what you can with what you have! If I worked out all the environmental background noise of my cordless drill I used to build my mini hot house if I had only bought one for occasional use then the cheap plastic seed raising hot houses looks very good in comparison (no Congo gorilla parts for a start in the battery components or slave child labour to mine those materials)

To me not wasting that is the primary driver. Not spending $60 or $100 is a good thing as it allows me to utilise that money in a far more environmentally effective ways in the rest of my life style.

But as I don’t get to make stuff in my challenging white collar job it is kind of cool to make it myself which is as good a reason as any.

As you can see I still need to seal a few gaps and add some latches but it is a working unit now and will be for a number of years if I look after it.

Even without those steps I can now start to plant up some seeds and get into the doing what I can part for the coming spring.

A quick question. When was the last time you read about a complete failure on a blog by the blog poster? Something I need to rectify myself on this site from now on. I screw up recipes and other projects all the time and learn from them.

Expect to see some failures documented in the future. 🙂

A Big Pot of Organised Goodness

Posted on May 10, 2013 by anthonypickering

So as with most people our weeks are very busy. Both of us work and the kids are in full time crèche life is busy but with winter and with the sick season on its way we still like to ensure that we eat well at a decent price without breaking the world during winter.

One of the solutions we have found is to put together a big pot of soup for the week. The kids get a good lunch at crèche and A. and I often eat leftovers from meals and lots of fruit and veg during the day so hearty soup, salad and sandwiches works well in a busy rush home and get the kids ready for bed evening.

We have a good number of soups we regularly do. One that is always a favourite is the leek and potato soup with parmesan rind. Pretty damn good, kids love it we love it but not really a great source of the mix of vegetables that promotes immune system and general health over winter (damn).

Two others that we make regularly are pumpkin/vegetable soup and minestrone. A big pot of one of these two soups would be made most weeks for us and we would get 2 -3 nights worth of meals with sandwiches and salads from it.

Both soups are great as they use lots of in season vegetables and use what is local and are very easy to make and are both very cheap. The can be made quickly and easily even with kids running around and organising a week night .

I am lucky I have access to good veggies I grow and from my parents and farmers markets we also use cheap off cuts of meats, these tends to be a very small amount often coming from things like prosciutto rind, de skinned sausages, bacon and off cuts of ham from our local boutique smoke house vendor. So as I said even on a budget these are easy to make and generally pretty good for you.

Easy Minestrone (big soup)

Ingredients

Meat as discussed above
Large onion diced
3 Carrots cut into 5mm pieces
3 sticks of celery cut into 5mm pieces
4 -5 gloves of garlic crushed
3 bay leaves
Big handful of fresh picked parsley
Springs of thyme
1.5 litres of stock (I typically use chicken stock)
Dash of white wine optional)
Good handful of short pasta (I tend to use wholemeal or spelt pasta but any will do)
¼ of a cup of passatta sauce
Can of white or borlotti beans, or frozen peas or some green beans.

A lot of my soups, stews and casseroles start with a mirepoix which is a French term for a mix of the carrot, onion and celery which is sweated down in a pot with a little olive oil. The only real trick is to not turn up the heat to high and to leave the lid on when sweating the vegetables. Under no circumstances do you want to let the vegetables brown at all. I tend to leave it for around 15 minutes and about ½ way through I throw in the garlic and bay leaves and herbs. Once the base has been sweated add the stock, wine and the passatta sauce and bring to the boil then simmer for 20 – 30 minutes (good time to get the kids bathed and in their PJ’s)

After the simmer time add the pasta for another 10 minutes at a simmer then add the beans and simmer for another 5 minutes (if you use fresh green beans add them with the pasta)

Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with fresh herbs, some grated parmesan (or not) and drop of good olive oil. Freezes exceptionally well as lunches.

Pumpkin/Vegetable Soup.

This one takes a bit longer so best made on a Sunday or while making Mondays dinner and just get better as you reheat it.

For me the only difference between pumpkin and vegetable soup is that in pumpkin I use a lot more of the pumpkin where as in a vegetable soup I will use a greater mix of vegetables. The Veggie soup is great as a way touse up any leftover veggies you might have hanging around and again freezes well.

Ingredients

A piece of ham, bacon or smoked hock.
2 Large onion sliced
3 Carrots cut into 5mm pieces
3 sticks of celery cut into 5mm pieces
4 -5 gloves of garlic crushed
3 bay leaves
Big handful of fresh picked parsley
2 kg of pumpkin cubed
750 grams of potatoes
2 teaspoons of a good garam masala
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
Fresh ground pepper
Salt to taste

As with the other soup above this one starts with a mirepoix which is a French term for a mix of the carrot, onion and celery which is sweated down in a pot with a little olive oil. The only real trick is to not turn up the heat to high and to leave the lid on when sweating the vegetables. Under no circumstances do you want to let the vegetables to brown at all. I tend to leave it for around 15 minutes and about ½ way through I throw in the garlic and bay leaves and herbs. Once the base has finished add the cubed pumpkin and potato add water to just cover the veg and bring to the boil. Add a good amount of salt the garam masala, pepper and turmeric. Add your piece of ham, bacon or hock and simmer till the potatoes and pumpkin are soft.

Stick blend it til your desired consistency. Serve with sour cream or yogurt. I like to add in some fried sliced chorizo on top as well .

The kids love a good cheese toastie to go with it this and I have a few ways to make it and one of our favourite is to use the Lebanese flat bread, fill with grated cheddar cheese and a little mustard, butter both sides and put in a press grill. Comes out crispy and cheese filled for the kids (and big kids) to dip into the soup.

Happy International Permaculture Day (IPD)

Posted on May 6, 2013 by anthonypickering

I suppose I should post that I did something amazing on this day? Got my garden ready, visited some shining example of how someone has gone there already. Built something made something?

But no it was just another day for the urban hippie family. Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday party and we had good gaggle of local kids and their parents along. They ate, drank had a good time. Kids painted and ran around the back yard eyed of ducks and chickens and the bee hives. Parents and a few relatives commented on what I was doing and suggested they would like to try some of the ideas. So from that point of view some good came out of it. But basically the best thing was local people enjoying time with local people.

So today started a little quiet with A. needing a bit of a sleep in and my plans to do something for IPD didn’t quite work out but that is ok.

I got to watch the kids doing some painting , then go to their swimming class and then the rest of the day spent visiting family up country. All in all very enjoyable day. I came back with another couple of boxes of quinces from family and really need to get bottling this week. But that is about as far as a concrete outcome I could come up with.

It got me thinking about the IPD. A lot of people are blogging or commenting on the things they are doing. But shouldn’t IPD be every day? Permaculture being Permanent Culture then IPD should be like any other day. Getting up and doing the little things, feeding the chickens and ducks playing with the kids, time spent with community and family discussing ideas (as I did with one of my cousins) watching and observing making small changes. Interacting with family and the local community? Spending time with my kids in the garden (after all my kids are a primary driver of why I do this stuff)

So all in all I am happy with my IPD and could not think of a better way to spend it. Don’t get me wrong the ideas people have the events they have run are great and it is obvious that such a day is more for those outside the fold rather than in and very important at this junction in time.

So for me the day is like any birthday I have had in the last 20 years or New Year’s. It is a good chance to look at what has been done and needs to be done a time to get some inspiration and some perspective.

At the end of the day (pun intended) Permaculture will know when it has succeeded in getting permaculture to the masses. When we don’t need to celebrate an IPD as it would be like celebrating a Monday.

Writers Block… Yep got it that is for sure.

Posted on May 2, 2013 by anthonypickering

It is not that I have not had any idea’s or even had tales and items to write about but I just cont seem to get them down in words. A couple of times a day I have a good blog in my head and then when it comes to writing it get caught up in whatever else I let myself get distracted with.

I am now just going to sit down and start writing so if it comes out as junk some days so be it you guys can always unsubscribe if it gets that bad 🙂

The last three weeks have been busy and I will write about them as I can. I went on juice diet for 15 days. The diet is a detox diet based around the fat sick and nearly dead documentary. It was a success with me feeling great at the end of the diet. Lost a good bit of weight and my liver appears to be much happier. I have done this last year and had a similarly good experience in regards to weight loss and keeping it off but also in some other health aspects. I plan to also do a vegan diet in spring to get my body working again.

The thing about this sort of radical diet is that it is not that radical. It is in the modern world but in times not so distant fasting and hunger where a part of our lives we are designed for it. And the type of fasting on vegetables is particularly good for us as is gives us a nutrient burst that for times such as spring allow us to get our bodies functioning and on track.

I still cooked for my family and it is interesting once you are on this diet how you look at food and how our society deals with food differently.

I eat a lot of good food (one of the reasons I need to fast, one of the reasons most people need to fast once in a while) and most of it is seasonal and cooked from scratch where possible.

The thing that strikes you is the sheer volume of food available and the amount of advertising that goes with the food. It is everywhere and very pervasive and not eating and being aware of it you almost get to step outside the subliminal side of things and see why people are packing on so much weight.

I still did my gardening, did exercise and walked to and from public for work and I didn’t feel weak at all.

Not sure if I will do this diet later in the year. Think once a year about 12 days would be optimal but I am going to do a 21 day vegan diet in spring. This is both an idea that Chinese medicine and also the paleoarchaeology types who study us from a historical point of view recomentd. For both a good amount of bitter greens and a high nutrient low calorific diet in spring helps the liver get back in shape after a winter of stored food (typically comfort foods for us now)

I did get to add in a bit of urban hippieness into the diet. Green smoothee’s of Kale, dandelion leaf, nightshade leaf, mallow leaf, cleavers, nasturtium and even a few of my precious nettles (although they are being saved for soup, gnocchi and pasta) from my back yard made the diet cheaper and easier this time and allowed me a side line of interest to help keep me going.

I am adding more weeds all the time into our diet and this is working well, the kids love them and in our societies nutrient poor energy rich foods, the weeds being the opposite makes for something we should all be eating more off.

FYI the weed walk with Adam Grubb is on for those in Melbourne in a couple of weeks time. Check out the link and attend if you can it is a great walk well worth the money and time. You will never look at a grassy field the same ever again.

making it yourself

Posted on March 23, 2013 by anthonypickering

Why make it yourself?

This is often the question that I get asked?

It has been a busy, busy week. You know when the proverbial fertiliser has hit the wind displacement device when you have to do two weeks of work to be able to take a week off to go on holidays. To say my current work load is unsustainable is to state the bleeding obvious. This is a story for another day though.

Added to that I have had some issues with the second car and we are trialling having only one car and me using public and the bike as my mode of transport to and from work. this is working out well but means I have to be a bit more disciplined and means it requires more organisation.

So that has been the reason for no posts over the last weeks. We have however been trying to keep living the life and to a greater extent we have been.

I have cooked meals for friends and family and we have offered friends to stay in our house rather than paying for accommodation and keep the money go round going. We have carted our kids, and still grown our food and all this with a couple of people working far too long hour’s is it any wonder we need a holiday 🙂

I try to cook our meals as much as is possible from scratch that is not to say that I don’t use some items such as yellow curry, garam massala mixes and items like mustard (although I will be making my own mustard soon enough)

Last weekend I made up a porchetta with fresh herbs from my garden for dinner, pancakes with no mix. We ate veg and salads from our garden including a tomatoes and basil salad with 5 different types of tomato and3 types of basil. During the week we ate meals that we had cooked for lunches and I started the week with $45 in my pocket and ended the week with $43 in it and no sense of hunger or having missed out.

So why go to the trouble of making our own from scratch especially when we appear to be time poor? Well the cost is a major issue. We don’t work to work, we work to allow us to get ahead and in time. If we work long hours and just waste the money then we are going backwards.

I also like the challenge of doing things from scratch. I talk a lot on this blog about the developing of skills. Making it yourself makes you less of a slave to the system and ensures that if the time comes when you cannot easily buy the service you can always do it yourself.

It also means I know what the inputs into something are, especially useful with cooking and knowing what our bodies and the bodies of our children get put into them.

It gives a real sense of the cost of things to the world. Sometimes it is not cheaper such as the bacon I make. I can buy cheap bacon for much less than I can make. But that would factory farmed pork, in unsustainable practices to a large multinational taking the money of shore. And it does make you wonder what the final cost to the world of such an item really is when you realise it costs me twice as much to make it and I don’t even consider the labour involved.

So it makes you look at the world differently.

It makes you realise what real things should taste, feel and be like. Not the bland hand to mouth no thought I will buy more stuff to make me feel better lifestyle.

And the final reason is that it is interesting and fun. Which helps to keep me sane on the stupid go round that is the culture we often deal with.

As I have said a part of the week as been in seeing if we can cope with out the second car. Our kids love the simple joy of being carted by us in the bike trailer from crèche rather than by car and despite the organisation and discipline the time spent carting the kids has reacquainted me in an odd way with the world around me as I cart the kids or walk to and from the station I check out the herbs. See mallow and mallow cheese in abundance, edible nightshade, dandelion and other ‘weeds’. I also see some interesting things people. Guerrilla gardening, by putting plots in unused spaces, wild harvesting and gathering. Keep an eye out for items I can use later on and the huge waste of space that we have in the cities that could be used to solve a great many of the problems we have from homelessness to growing our own fuel and food to connecting as a community.

It is also feels a damn side more useful than a lot of people I see rushing home so they can change to go out to do some exercise…

So while busy the week has been good with more time in many ways than most to look at the world and enjoy the time with family and friends.

This week I am in Apollo bay for the week with family for a beach side holiday. Tomorrow we will catch up with Libby from libby cooks for a meal including quite a few foraged dishes and we will then explore the area, hopefully do a bit of foraging and just enjoy the time with family.

If I don’t post I will definitely have to come up with a new excuse other than work 🙂 wont I ?

Homemade Porchetta.

Butterfly a roast and lay flat on a chopping board. I left the roast in the fridge uncovered for 5 hours to allow the skin to dry out to get the best crackling prior to this step.

Dry toast 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds.

In mortar and pestle or the food processor in a pre apocalypse kitchen put together a selection of fresh herbs from the garden, lots of basil (or basil mint as I used in this case) and parsley are a must, as is garlic and some rosemary (not too much) other than that just use what you have. I used oregano, thyme and sage as well and could have added some French tarragon I had if I wanted to. A little bit of salt and pepper and some chilli to taste. Blend with as little olive oil as you can to make a smooth but not sloppy paste.

Spread over one side of the butterflied roast, grate a little lemon zest on the top and then roll and secure the roast with twine or wet skewers.

Liberally coat the skin olive oil and salt and fresh black pepper.

Pre heat an oven to 250 degree Celsius

Put roast in for 30 minutes and you should see the crackling start to blister. Drop the heat back t 150 degrees for 2 hours or so then ramp the temperature back up to 250 degrees for the last 20 minutes until the crackling is perfect.

Serve it? We had simple boiled Dutch cream potatoes and other vegetables to go with it.

Any leftover should be sliced thickly and eaten on sourdough for lunches 🙂

Photos of the making of porchetta below.

Cordial and Summer Days

Posted on March 10, 2013 by anthonypickering

This is another story of community as a bit of bad luck would lead me to. For those getting sick of this subject there is a nice recipe for a orange, lemon and honey cordial and you can bypass the rest of this post 🙂

So we decided to head up country for couple of days and visit my parents. Get out of the city and lets the kids spend a couple of days with their grandparents running around in nature.

Given the luck we have had with anything related to automobiles it was perhaps a given that we would have some trouble and sure enough about an hour from home and an hour from my parents place, we had a blow out that destroyed a tyre on the hired trailer and damaged the wheel arch very badly.

So what does one do on Sunday of a long weekend with a blown tyre and trailer on the side of the highway with an old bath in it for dad’s aqauponics system 65km from home and 65km from the destination?

Well I decided that no one was driving with that trailer any time soon so I made it safe on the verge of the road and headed to my parents home wondering how I was going to sort this all out.

Should have known to relax. Within an of hour of getting to my parents place my father had sourced 2 tyres of different sizes, tools for the removal and tools for the repair for the trailer. All in a town of 400 people on Sunday afternoon of a long weekend…

I probably couldn’t do this in Melbourne a city of 3.5 million and certainly not that fast.

Small towns are like that the neighbour who supplied me with a spare tyre said don’t worry use it for as long as you need it no rush. And we did need it as in the end it was the tyre that fitted. This is not a wealthy man but actually a person on a disability pension. This is what community looks like it is helping out each other knowing that they will be helped if needed. I remember this from when I was a kid and my mother had a bad accident and casseroles just appeared from neighbours to help out das when mum was in hospital for some time.

Animals just got locked up, fed watered all sorted while dad was away with mum. And in return dad has probably helped these people or people who have helped these people. And so the circle goes around and so it does up to and including today.

We have kidded ourselves that we can purchase the services we need. Operating as islands and purchasing being free of the commitments and we can get anything we want, which we probably can at a cost to ourselves but it does not replace that helping hand that we need and it disempowers us. We used to rely on each other and it is not always the people that fit in our click or we fit in who are the ones who help us.

So dad and I collected the trailer replaced the wheel, bashed out the wheel arch (a little knowledge of metals and their craft is a handy thing) and got home to find the kids having a ball with their nana.

The neighbour advised me that I could have the tyre for $20 as he has enough of them. But he will get a couple of six packs of good beer to go with it as well. That level of helpfulness can’t be bought off so cheaply, and is not ever expected but doesn’t need to be as in the end the gift of the beer is just part to of that circle we discussed.

The day finished with a simple meal in the cool evening outside in my parents orchard. Homemade passatta with lots of beans and fresh veg and small amount of meat and lots of pasta. A couple of beers and great evening had by all.

When we checked out dads triffid like sunflowers in his garden I noticed bees hard at work in them and was reminded I needed to post a recipe that I was going to post last night till the homebrew got to me.

So below is a very tasty and refreshing little cordial that takes a few minutes to make and works really well in the hot humid conditions we have at the moment.

Brew a batch and sit in the garden with family and friends and just enjoy life and remember that you are not an island and can’t be if you really want to be part of society.

Orange, Honey and Lemon Cordial

3 cups of freshly squeezed orange juice (or frozen home squeezed juice works as well)
2 cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice(or frozen home squeezed juice works as well)
2 cups of water
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of honey

Combine it all a stainless steel pot stirring in the honey so it dissolves properly

Bring to a gentle boil then drop the heat and simmer for 5 minutes stirring to make sure the sugar and honey are combined and not sticking to the pot.

Pour into sterilised bottles. Should keep in the bottles for up to a month but better stored in a fridge and if you open the bottles definitely put in a fridge. There is not the usual amount of sugar that preserves most cordial for long periods of time. You could also add some tartaric acid to help with preserving it but in our house hold this does not last long enough for that to be an issue 🙂

Serve with ice and mixed to your preferred strength.

A short post tonight as I need to get some sleep.

Posted on March 7, 2013 by anthonypickering

As I have stated on many an occasion one of the things we do regularly is cook up meals and lunches at the same time and tonight was no exception.

A quick meal of organic pasta with passata was tonights meal and tommorows lunchs.

It is staple for us with various combinations and permutations and allows me to cook up any excess vegies that happen to be in season and freezes and reheats well for lunches. At the moment we have a major excess of zucchini so I pile these in and they bulk out the meal. You need to use what is at hand no point in wasting it or buying something just to have the exact ingredients you need. Improvisation is the key to eating seasonally and having staples like passata gives you a lot of flexibility to go with it. It is again a skill to look at a pile of food and go I can make X with that and it will be solid but not necessarily blogable meal (or maybe it is 🙂 )

So tonight’s recipe was

500 grams of chicken mince (could be bacon, salami, sausages or any other type of meat, beans or none at all)
A lot of zucchini (in this case about 5 large zucchini)
Large onion
5 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Chilli to taste
Bottle of passata or a couple of jars/tins of tomato’s
2 table spoons of homemade pesto
Teaspoon of sugar.

Dice onion and brown, add meat and brown, crush garlic and add for a minute or two. Add the zucchini or other season vegetables and passata some water, salt and pepper to taste, chilli and sugar and cook for about 20 minutes giving it a good stir regularly

At the same time boil a lot of pasta. I did a full 750 gram bag of organic whole grain pasta tonight.

Once cooked down and vegies are soft. Turn off heat and add homemade basil pesto and stir through. As I said freezes well and makes a great and cheap lunch

Serve with a nice green side salad.

Making Olla

Posted on March 4, 2013 by anthonypickering

Making the Olla

I have commented on the olla bed in a previous post. The bed has worked well providing us with most of our salad greens over the last year and as I have just replanted it again this time with a different mix including some tomatoes.

With the prospect of a hotter dryer summer this year I will be adding in some more in other beds and thought this might be a good time to go over the process I used to make up the olla and beds.

The olla that form the core of the unit are simply an unglazed earthen ware container to hold water. The water will pass through the pores of the clay by the process of osmoses, being drawn into the soil and the plants roots will take up the moisture from the soil. It allows you to avoid watering every day and wastes a lot less water as the water is applied directly to the roots of the plants avoiding evaporation. I have also noted that while the planted seedlings did well weeds could not get going as there water is kept below the surface this reduced the weeding. The down side of this was that without extra watering vegetable seeds will not germinate effectively so you are best to used seedlings that you have grown in a hot house or warm bed.

I was lucky that I a friend of A.s mother had some old terracotta pipe pieces she was selling for $3 each and I had some old pot saucers I had got with some pots from Bunnings a few years ago.

The first step was to sand back the glaze from the pots inside and out. What these pipes where origonaly meant for which is to keeping water in is not what I am after. I am after a porous effect and sanding back the glaze helps this osmoses effect.

I then used some silicon to attach the bases and filled them with water to make sure that they (A). did not leak and (B) to see if over time the water started to move through the walls of the pipes as intended.

Two of them worked straight away and in an hour water could be seen beading on the outside of the pipes walls.

A quick extra sand and the last one filled and rechecked and all three were up and running.

All up they probably cost me about $5 each. In third world countries they cost around 25 cents each made locally and while this might sound cheap if you do the math’s 25 cents for person on a couple of dollars a day adds up to around $40 each if I purchased them here in Australia.

These olla can also be a great way to use up old terracotta pots joined together when they get old as the qualities that you need which is the breakdown of the glaze on the pots over time is why they are less useful now as pots and make great olla.

Shortly I will post on how I used them in a bathtub garden bed along with an integrated worm farm.

I am NOT an urban hippie

The rampant ramblings of someone trying to live a greenish life while seeing the world. From Melbourne Australia to the United Kingdom to the Netherlands this is a look at life as lived.

Category Archives: Gardening