Sustainability Mondays: back, if only briefly

I got back from the UK last week, after a wonderful week of seeing Mr G and doing the rounds of visiting friends and family. I have a week at home before leaving again, but the rare occasion of an entire weekend at home with no external plans (the first in months!) allowed me to make some steps forward on the grand plan. A week's absence really made a difference to my meagre little garden as well, with the summer garden starting to blush and show rewards.


1. Plant Something -

• I built an autumn veg garden! I used an existing framed-but-not-full garden bed, dug over the soil, lined the base with removalist's paper from the move, then filled with the contents of my two Bokashi buckets and topped with potting mix. I've planted this and four pots with eight punnets of veg seedlings bought from a local small-family herb growing business.
  
• Asian green seedling: tatsoi, bok choy, mizuna and mixed asian greens
• Lettuce, mixed pick-by-leaf varieties
• a mix of green-sprouting, purple sprouting and romanesco broccoli
• Purple violetta cauliflower
  

2. Harvest something - (including buying local food)

• Wild apples from the roadside near my place
• Nashi from a colleague's tree
• Lettuce leaves and spring onions from the summer garden
• tomatoes from the potted tomatoes
• Habaneros: about 10, from two plants in pots, and lots more ripening
• Curry leaves from my curry leaf tree (now ensconced in the bathroom)
  
• Lots of purchased locally-grown garlic
• Asian greens, spinach and courgettes bought from the local market gardeners.
  

3. Preserve something -

• I had plans to make a fruity HP-style sauce from the apples and pears but it hasn't happened yet. I might try to get to the during the week.
• Lots of sourdough bread baked and stored in the freezer
  

4. Waste Not (reducing wastage in all areas)

• Used the compost and spent tomato plants to make the fertile base of a garden bed.
• Recycled the tomato pots to plant asian greens into.
  

5. Want Not (preparing for shortage situations)

• Nothing this week.
  

6. Build Community Food Systems –

• Supporting local people who are growing food.
  

7. Eat the Food –

• With my own tomatoes and habaneros, lettuce and spring onions and locally grown fresh garlic, what else to eat but Mexican? I've made lots of fresh salsas and eaten that in various ways. With home-made sourdough tortillas and my own bread.
  

8. What I bought:

• Baking stone and pizza peel
• Plastic utility trug, to act as a washing basket/general tote
  
• A new computer: the old one has been increasingly unreliable and crashed on Saturday.