Making a Difference from Bed

For instance, yesterday, I had a bit of a small setback with my injury, with my legs aching for most of the day. It was probably all the moving around I did over the weekend! However, the time that I needed in bed to recover was well spent. I finished of a few books from the library, being “Saving the Planet – 52 brilliant ideas for rescuing our world”, by Natalia Marshall, and “Outdoor Kids – A practical guide for kids in the garden”, by Jamie Durie.

The first book is one of those “how to” books of which I have read so many times. I really didn’t find anything new in it, but it would be a fantastic starter for anyone just beginning a green journey. I did find one fantastic quote that I will share;

The second book was so that I could get a few ideas on how to drag Ben away from his PC (besides turning it off), and get him to willingly volunteer to help in the garden. I got a few ideas, but will try them before writing about them. The one I did try during our winter planting, which works, was to get him to plant his favourite vegetable, broccoli, and help tend it for the season. That way, I noticed that he took an interest in its growth and helped keep the caterpillars off of them. But alas, I planted them too early and the aphids attacked them, so he lost interest in the other vegetables.

After I finished reading, Kim and I ordered our seeds from the Diggers club for our summer crop. We still had a fair bit of seed left over from last season, so I did a quick stock take of seed stock, and we ordered a few different things this year. Here is the list;

These seeds are not the only ones I will be planting. I will still sew most of what I did last year, especially the cucumbers, chilies, salad greens and different types of tomatoes, and of course the sweet corn that is now destined for the front yard. I also had a breakthrough yesterday. Kim is starting to go off the ornamental in the fruit tree side of the garden, so I am going to ask Adam to rip out one of the jasmine vines and we will prepare the soil for a couple of black passionfruit vines I have been nurturing for quite a while now. It will be great to see edibles growing, even though jasmine does look fantastic in the spring. But, we are starting to realise that if you can’t eat it, then we are just wasting our time, water, and money on a non-productive garden.

I also caught up on my blog reading and left quite a few comments on my usual reads, and found a few new green blogs. All good reading, and many thought provoking posts as usual.

I have managed to cook dinner two nights in a row now, without too much pain, both meals being simple, hearty fare. Last night, I added to the chicken stock I made on Sunday night from the leftovers from the normal roast chicken, to make our usual Monday night chicken soup. I added a little curry powder this time, and it was very delicious. Home made stock is definitely the best tasting stock I have ever tried. It beats that stuff you buy in a tetra pack or stock cubes any day! Tonight, I cooked up a very easy creamy mushroom sauce that I ladled over some ravioli. I bought the ravioli from NQR, and never again, as it was terrible. At least the sauce gave it some substance.

Tomorrow, our friends Phil (Wombat064) and Stacy are popping around for morning tea, so we can catch up and have a good chat about all thing environmental, and the recent WWOOF’ing (Willing Workers On Organic Farms), that Phil did for a few days locally. It should be a good catch up.

It is amazing the green things you can get up to in bed!