Waste Free Week!

This does deserve a mention, as I've already said since our compost bin arrived the amount of rubbish we put out has been cut dramatically. Additionally since I finished my MSc and started planning meals and weighing portions there aren't even any leftovers! I'm being a bit braver with best before dates as well, I bought some delicious reduced sushi from Sainsburys on Wednesday, and it was fine yesterday as a starter with my tuna pasta. I also used an egg today which was a day out of date - i did check it with the water method first however.

All in all I have had a good practice week - the polystyrene from meat and fish does bother me however. I haven't used plastic bags for veg at the shops for donkeys years - if i need potatoes and they are really dirty i'll get a mushroom bag (those can be composted).

Heres the best solution I've found to plastic bags, this is my onya above, I got it at the Eden project in the summer. For veg I'm asking for one of these from Santa fotr Christmas - Onya Weigh Check the onyaside and onyaback bags too. Such a brilliant idea :) Still doesn't solve the issue of those plastic trays (other than go vegetarian again). I have also (it being waste free week) decided to make some morsbags http://www.morsbags.com/ as I want to get started with my sewing machine and this seems the perfect way to recycle some worn out sheets.

Ride, ride, ride your bike

gently up the hill - merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream. Especially when speeding past all the cars waiting in the queues, and when i ride home over the hill and watch the sun set over norwich. I only started last week and so far have been rained on once and almost frozen twice, however I am appreciating being outside and enjoying the freedom of cycling. Work and back is about 8 miles round trip every day and I'm hoping that it will lead to me getting rid of the car completely.

The only issue at the moment is getting food shopping so I'm investigating a cycle trailer or home delivery once a fortnight for all the heavy goods, and looking at a freezer for better meat and food surplus storage. Trying to weigh up the 'green' credentials of each option. I think that green living could be my next 'project'!

The veg patch has well and truly gone to ground for the summer, I'll spend this weekend on the last of the clearing up and digging in some good fertiliser. Our compost bin is doing really well and the amount that we are putting in the wastebin has dropped massively - the plastic seems to be the big issue - especially with meat. Not entirely certain how we are going to get around this - a friendly butcher putting things in containers for us mught be the answer but contamination week on week does worry me a little. Suggestions would be very welcome. At the moment I'm saving the plastic trays for planting next season.

Heres a reminder of the summer sun(flowers);

Jam Jam Jam

Well this was fun - oh so much fun!

Our mum has a glut of apples, they have done really well this year and my enterprising sister has exchanged lots with various farm shops in exchange for fruit and veg (most places in Norwich I've asked will do this). There is however many pounds worth left over. I was bought the amazing SelfSufficientish bible as a present and in it was a recipe for apple jam. Our father used to make themost amazing jam and every autumn when we were little our kitchen was converted into a jam factory, he used to make jams and jellies from greengages, plums, damsons, and some funny little round green things whose name i've forgotten. Mum used to make buckets of peach melba sauce which is in fact made only from raspberries.

So wondering if jam making is gnetic, yesterday my little sis and I got down to the very messy business of making apple and ginger jam, we did 8lbs of fruit and ended up with about 10/11lbs of jam. It took two of us 4 hours from start to finish and I think we'll be trying other fruit. Next weekend I'd like to make some beetroot chutney, and i think we might plan the veg patch around what we can and can't preserve. Our cousin gets hundreds of plums and next year we'll pounce on them and jam them. It does take time and effort, and the jam sugar is about £1.50 a Kg (about 2lbs). We got about 20 jam covers from Roys for about a pound, although these could be bought cheaper in bulk i'm sure. The really wacky thing is the variety of pots we found, ex tomato juice glass jars are superb, as are beetroot pots.

We're doing waste free week this week but not entirely certain how to avoid the packaging which meat (even the hapy organic chicken) come in. Ideas welcome. Our compost bin is no up and running, just in time to put all the cleared veg plants in. Tasty though the squash was, we only got one HUGE butternut, and one little one, I think next year we'll just stick to one plant and not four - they take up serious room! A colleague of mine grew his squash up a vine & it was a much better use of space.

Take a look at Rocket Gardens whose web site is great and they will happily answer questions quickly and clearly. Its a brilliant idea, we don't have the room to get plants started propoerly but Rocket Gardens get the plants started in their greenhouses and harden them off for ready planting. We were going to get the winter veg garden but in fact I'm going to put some fertilizer in the ground and get the soil better prepared for early planting next year. We're in two minds are to where to plant the onion - in seperate troughs or in eth soil with eth other veg. 'Him' is worried about mould.

Autumn Feast

Where to start.

Last Tuesday my sister asked if we had any veg to make soup with, our huge butternut fitted the bill completely and (as we were invited to dinner) we donated the squash and with it my sister made the most delicious soup. Not only did it feed 5 people that night, the leftovers were frozen and there was enough left to feed 3 people for lunch on Saturday when we went away this weekend to Suffolk. Completly changed my mind about soup - i always hated it!

The courgette plants are still going, but the other veg have almost finished. We got atrociously lazy about picking the green beans and so we are letting them go to seed. The sunflower heads are over and we are leaving half for the birds and will collect the other half for us. I did the same with the carrots as apparently the flowers can be useful to the garden wildlife.