After Ana

In my travels this week, I stumbled upon Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s site River Cottage.

He makes an excellent argument as to why we should all get into permaculture at home. Here’s an excerpt..

…there is still an important sense in which the vegetables you grow yourself really are free. When your time is given freely, what you make with it is free in the best sense of the word. When you buy your vegetables, you are a slave - to the car that takes you to the shops; to the methods, good or bad, by which the vegetables are produced; to market forces, and the big bosses who fix the prices; to the shelf-stacking policies that determine the freshness, or otherwise, of the produce you buy. You have no say whatsoever in the means of production, no role in the quality of what becomes yours only when you hand over the cash.

Grow your own vegetables and all that changes. Choose the seeds, the growing site, the time to plant, to weed, to water, to feed, to harvest. What you then take to the kitchen is not just a vegetable. It’s a form of self-expression, an assertion of personal liberty. It’s a kind of opting out of the world as you’re told it must be in favour of the world as you’d like it to be. You may doubt the wisdom of loading something as ordinary as a carrot with such deep personal meaning. But try growing them yourself and you will find that carrots are far from ordinary. They are sleek, pointed orange miracles that come from nowhere to populate a bare patch of earth. And, almost astonishingly, you can eat them! The fact is, those who already grow their own vegetables for the kitchen need no converting to the cause. I have yet to meet a vegetable gardener who complained that ‘It’s hardly worth it, what with the choice available in the supermarket these days’, or ‘It’s too much time for too little reward, or ‘What’s the point, you can hardly taste the difference anyway?’ These quotations are the clichés of the uninitiated - those who do not yet know the prickly heat of a fat radish, freshly drawn from the earth, washed with a wipe on a dewy tuft of grass, and eaten without further ado; those who have not tasted the extra sugar dose in a pile of self-podded peas plunged into boiling water within an hour of being picked; those who have not marvelled at the unrepentant earthiness of freshly dug potatoes…

He has me convinced! I dug out and made a veggie patch a couple of years ago when we first moved into our house, and for the first six months it was amazing. We had loads of summer tomatoes, bunches and bunches or sweet basil, capsicum, salad greens, bok choy and buckets of crunchy sweet lebanese cucumbers (my mouth is watering at the memory) just to name a few. Where did I go wrong? It wasn’t the weeding, I did that every week. I think it was a combination of the hot summer sun, mosquitos, a fairly intense drought (buckets on alternate days only) and forgetting to replant as crops finished. I didn’t realise you had to KEEP planting. I had a strange idea you could plant it all and let it keep going on forever! (Slaps forehead)

When we set it up it looked so cute and perfect! Rows of crispy new vegetables, deliciously stretching towards the sun. I had pavers as edging and footpaths dividing the patch into four. It was only small about 3.5 metres long by 3 metres wide but we crammed in a lot of veggies, they quickly filled the space with lush foliage. SIGH.

So ‘Why grow vegetables?’ Because you can. Here’s my checklist: earth, seeds, sunshine and water. Check! So I am RESOLVED to get back into the habit once more. I try to buy all my fruit and veggies from the farmers’ markets (I ask if they are local and when they were harvested before I buy, even at these markets you can be tricked into buying refrigerated produce!) but how lovely to grow your own ‘free’ vegetables, putting time in down the back getting dirt under your nails and sun on your back! I’ve got potted herbs on my back verandah (next to my potted cactus collection) and I DID plant some potted salad greens until my dogs decided it would be fun to dig them up! To my great distress all that remained were a few limp stalks, crushed under their merciless paws. Unfortunately, beyond saving.

Another problem. The ‘patch’ aka ‘weed town’ has been ripped up in preparation landscaping. One of those I’ve-been-meaning-to-do tasks that hasn’t eventuated yet. So what should I do?? I was thinking of planting a little patch elevated away from the pups in some big pots side by side until the yard gets finished. Once that’s done I can have a ‘proper’ patch, like you see on Gardening Australia, all pretty with raised sleepers for edging, raised half a metre off the ground with crushed granite paths….. perhaps some lavender in drifts in the background. In front there’s a table set with a cheese platter for an alfresco afternoon snack, followed by a glass of iced peppermint tea…. Hmmm. Gotta get cracking on that.

Other news, I’m still doing the Warrior Diet, it seems to get easier each day. I’m weighing and measuring weekly, so I don’t obsess (old habits die hard), but the best thing about it is the freedom. I’m not being rigid about it, if I really want some breakfast or a snack I’ll have it, and I’m having one day off each week! Not bad foods (I mean, sugar or starches) but I’ll eat three meals that day, it really helps on weekends when most social situations revolve around food! I’ve got the energy to train, which is a lot of fun… especially boxing. Haha, SO great after a frustrating day at work, those target pads start looking like somebody! I’ve been training at least three times a week and walking most days for an hour. The more I do it, the easier it is! I’m getting to a point where I look forward to our sessions… looking forward to pain, lots of pain, there must be something wrong with me!

Since doing WD I’ve been flogging my crock pot. I love that thing. If you have any good quick recipes, PLEASE post them here, I’m always looking for new ideas. Here’s what I made last night. It was so good, I had two bowls! (Groans, clutches stomach) My husband jokes when I make recipes up myself that the meal is a-la-Wool. (Woolie was my childhood nickname, so a-la-Wool means Woolie’s creation, Wool-style. Sometimes my a-la-Wool dishes go horrible wrong, but they mostly work well!) He said he really liked this a-la-Wool and got some seconds as well!

Lou’s Beef and Prune Stew
Or if you want to be posh… Dried Plum Cassoulet… (a la Wool)

2kgs casserole steak
3 carrots
3 tomatoes
1 onion
2 cups red wine (I used cab sav)
1 cup of pitted prunes
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 large bay leaf
1/4 cup of water

Chop everything (except prunes) into chunks and chuck it in the crock pot.
Turn it on low when you leave for work and leave it on all day, it’s ready when you get home at six!

About the Author...

I've finally overcome my destructive eating habits by learning to accept myself, applying the WAPF nutritional principles daily. I'm now at a stable, healthy, slim weight, have lots of energy and no more guilt. I've been happily married for 7 years and am a graphic designer. In the near future I'm hoping to start a nutritional course and start practicing as a qualified nutritionist. At the moment it's all self education.