Even Sustainability Mondays are getting late!

But I do have an excuse, as I spent all day yesterday in a meeting. So, without further ado as it's been a quieter week for me, this week's summary:

1. Plant Something -

• spinach
• transplanted some gifted sweet corn and planted out the walking stick kale, assorted chinese greens, Romanesco broccoli and the last of the winter pumpkins
• potted on sprouting broccoli and pak choi seedlings.
  

2. Harvest something -

• spinach
• white radish
• red breakfast radish
  
• turnips (Rapa de bianca)
  
• new potatoes
• broad beans
• peas
  
• lots and lots and lots of garlic
  
• shallots
• the first onions, albeit a little early
• onion flower stalks
• garlic scapes
• sorrel
  
• lettuce and salad greens
• the first thinnings of carrots
  
• lots and lots and lots of herbs
• strawberries
• morello cherries
  
• Almost - almost! the first zucchini, but decided to leave them another couple of days
  

3. Preserve something -

• Nothing this week aside from drying garlic to plait and store
  

4. Waste Not (reducing wastage in all areas)

• Composting kitchen waste
• Feeding all green leaves from used veg plants to chickens

5. Want Not (preparing for shortage situations)

• Started to lay in garlic and shallots for winter
  

6. Build Community Food Systems –

• Blogging about it

7. Eat the Food –

• Gently wilted spinach, onion, garlic, tomato and chilli in Huevos Motulenos for brunch on the weekend (home-grown eggs, of course)
  
• broad beans, peas, new potatoes, garlic, sorrel and lots of herbs and salad greens in salad
• Lots of green leaves in lots of salads and on rolls
• Radish and turnips in chickpea, radish and turnip vindaloo
• Onions in a Sri Lankan sambal
• Caramelised garlic tart
• pak choi and other chinese greens in stir fry and a Thai soup
  

Eating seasonally from the garden really makes you think about what you cook. I've always been a pretty creative cook, but you have to be even more creative when what you have for dinner involves tofu, garlic, radish and turnips! Consequently from now on, I'm going to add another category. This one will be "What I bought", and will be an admission of failure of sorts. It will include groceries that I should have grown myself, but have given in and bought, whether I haven't enough or am buying out of season. I'm hoping it will shame prompt me to think more carefully about how I plan my planting and purchasing.

8. What I bought:

• 6 eggs from the man at the end of the street, because Lavender hasn't been laying them fast enough in the hot weather
• figs, mushrooms, lemons and tomatoes
• onions because I'd like to caramelise a big pile