Muddling Through Motherhood » eco

One day gardening course

Kat — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:22:22 +0000

I am seriously considering going on a soil association beginners gardening course. I’m finding trying to wade through books a but disheartening so I am hoping that something like this will help me get started ready for next year.

David has decided that this is fine and that I am going to be the brains and he the brawn of our vegetable growing adventures. With this in mind he claims he will not argue with my choices. Hmmm, I wonder how long that will last!

Next week’s challenge – no meat for a week

Kat — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:32:02 +0000

Lots of good reasons to do this – save money, expand my cooking repertoire, eat less fat (if I don’t go overboard on the cheese dishes). I’m going to keep to some staples (mushroom risotto, cauli cheese, lentil curry, bean chilli) and pull out some old favourites that haven’t been aired in a while (stuffed vegetables, bean burgers, veg omlette/fritata)). It would be nice to try out some new stuff but I’m not very keen on most beans (don’t like the texture so they need to be small or mushed into something ) and nothing from my veggie cookbook has grabbed my attention. Suggestions welcome though

Adventures in Urban Foraging

Kat — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:04:17 +0000

Or ‘A bit of blackberry picking’

This afternoon, after Rowan’s epic nap and a hearty snack (he fell asleep before his lunch!) I decided the time was ripe (!) to go and investigate our local ‘fields’ and hedges for some blackberries, with Rowan in tow.

He got very excited when I suggested he might like to wear his wellies, and was happy to be going out for a walk (although he wasn’t too impressed to be walking away from the park). He loved being allowed to roam away from me (although I could pretty much always see him) as I was taking the opportunity to let him do a bit of discovering and he was, at times, vaguely interested in the blackberry picking

Things I learnt (I didn’t do all of these things wrong but was grateful for some of them, like long trousers)

Wear decent shoes for treading on nettles
Wear long trousers for avoiding nettles
Wear long sleeves for avoiding nettles and brambles (and maybe take some gloves to get to those delicious ‘hidden by nettle’ unpicked patches)
If you’re taking a baby or toddler think carefully about what sort of sling to use. We took a ring sling which was good in that Rowan could see what I was doing and eventually he joined in by popping the blackberries into the pot but had he been a bit grumpier he would have been better off on my back.
If you’re going somewhere suitable, take a ball to entertain older kids as I reckon their enthusiasm for picking lasts about as many minutes as they are years old. Perhaps a few more if they really like eating blackberries!

In the 45 minutes we were out we had plenty of fun and managed to get a pound and a half of blackberries, which added to those in my freezer should make at least a couple of pounds. I think they’ll all go in the freezer and jam making will be happening at the weekend.

Going a bit greener

Kat — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:07:41 +0000

I’ve been reading a bit lately about peak oil and climate change and that sort of thing. This is because I’ve found that having Rowan has made me worry about the future, and because we have friends who have managed to effectively (and not deliberately) make me sit up and notice. I’m a bit too scared to read the real doom and gloom ‘we’re all going to starve’ type stuff and have instead been focusing on more upbeat things about the small things we can do to help – both to reduce our impact on the world and to prepare ourselves in the event that things do get really bad.

To that end, while the enthusiasm remains I am going to, in the style of an excellent blog I have been reading, set myself one task each week. It might be introducing a new thing into our daily lives or it might be trying out something new, or doing something different for a week (I am liking Jo’s no meat for a week challenge this week). It might also be something a bit fun if I’m going for something every week. We’ll see.

This week I have decided to do one thing in two parts. I am going to make some jam – learning to preserve the things that we’re growing. However I only have a small blackberry patch at the moment (and bramble jelly is my favourite) so I am going to also do a bit of urban foraging - for something that I can definitely recognise and know when it is ripe

I shall undoubtedly blog about my jam making adventures later!