Sustainability Mondays: dryly

The elephant garlic was truly impressive

It's been drought-dry here lately, and we were supposed to have a big thunderstorm in the wee hours of this morning. So our whole weekend was planned around trying to take full advantage of the rain that was to come.

1. Plant Something -

• Lots. Lots and lots.
  
• Sowed the last of the bean seeds - runner beans, purple teepee, dwarf cannelini, Eva and Blauhilde climbing French beans. Sowed more kohl rabi turnips, swedes and radishes. Sowed spinach, radish and pak choi seeds in the home garden.
  
• planted out soya bean seedlings and some bell peppers in the allotment and potted on purple sprouting broccoli, white cprouting broccoli and chilli plants.
• Planted out the next lot of flower and herb seedlings into the mixed bed.
  

2. Harvest something -

• spinach
• new potatoes
• broad beans
• lots and lots and lots and lots! of garlic
  
• shallots
• onions and onion thinnings
  
• garlic scapes (probably the last now)
  
• lettuce and salad greens
• pak choi
  
• baby carrots
  
• lots and lots and lots of herbs
• strawberries
• morello cherries (almost the last
  
• zucchinis
• artichoke
  

3. Preserve something -

• Drying garlic to plait and store
• Preserved some more lemons
  

4. Waste Not (reducing wastage in all areas)

• The usual things
  
• Trucked water to the allotment to keep the greenhouse plants alive
• Prioritising eating the tofu before it hits its use-by date
• Used the end bits of various cheeses on pizza
• Keeping the brassicas in pots until the ground is more amenable for their reception
• Sorted the seeds, filing the ones I've done with for the year back in the month-by-month sowing box, and pulled out the ones for sowing now. Started to think about my autumn seed order.
  

5. Want Not (preparing for shortage situations)

• Started to lay in garlic and shallots for winter
• Priced more kilner jars with intent to buy soon
• Laid in 2 kg of wholewheat pasta while it was on special
  
• Froze the left-overs of last week's curry for a future meal
• I'm not buying much food for the store cupboard at the moment because we're not really eating much out of it.
  

6. Build Community Food Systems –

• The usual: blogging about it and talking about it obsessively to anyone who'll listen
  

7. Eat the Food –

• We were going to have broad bean and pesto pasta for dinner on Saturday night but after I'd made the pesto and shelled the beans we decided it was too late and we weren't really hungry. So I snacked on fresh broad beans dipped into fresh pesto - yum!
• lots and lots (and lots!) of garlic: in everything.
  
• pesto and the last of the garlic scapes on pizza
  
• Lots of green leaves in lots of salads and on rolls
• pak choi and other chinese greens with tofu in stir fries
  
• our fruit fresh as fruit salad or with yoghurt on muesli
  

8. What I bought:

• lots of fruit: pineapples, melons and grapes because they were on special and I love fruit. I've tried not to buy imported fruit but I end up buying a fruit salad in a plastic cup if I don't take some to work.
• avocado and lemons
  
• peppers because mine are still small and green

The rain? It didn't come. It's hit many parts of our region but not us. I'm really disappointed. :(

I've just looked through the list of jobs I set for myself for the weekend though, and I'm pleased that the only jobs on it I didn't do are the ones I've tactically chosen to put off so they can be done better.