Food waste

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how much thin plastic was dominating my domestic, internal rubbish bin. I thought this was so peculiar and a significant burden on the landfill to which this rubbish was destined.

 (Source: Tree Hugger)

The second fact is still true, but as I washed my dinner dishes this evening I had a bit of a light bulb moment. At the time all this plastic was going into the bin I was doing a bit of a cook up. I perhaps might not have noticed the complete dominance of plastic in my rubbish bin if I had been mixing all this plastic with food waste as well. However, there is very little food waste that enters my traditional (in urban environment) rubbish stream.

Food waste in my house generally gets separated between the worm farm, the compost bin and the dogs. Hopefully in the near future I will also be sharing my scraps with some chickens too! In fact, I might not have enough food waste to sustain the chickens and may have to actually grow some goodies for them! Amazing.

All green waste from kitchen, including fruit and vegetable peelings, fruit stones, ends of herbs and old and sloppy fruit and vegetables all go to my worm farm and compost bins. The meat wastes and any small amounts of old left-overs go to my dogs! The only food scraps that on occasion goes into my mainstream garbage stream is my onion and garlic skins. Worms don't like these and as such most of the time they go into the normal rubbish bin.

 (Source: Colin J via Earth 911)

Interesting what little light bulbs turn on when you're up to your elbows in grey-water appropriate soaps suds!   Pin It

Seasonal produce guide

Via the 1Million Women campaign blog I have discovered a "seasonal produce guide" that lets you know which fruit and vegetables are in season and therefore the ones you should buy. Food that is in season will have shorter food miles, be fresher, be better for you and will generally be more enjoyable to eat.

I have been wanting a pocket size seasonal produce guides for ages and have started dabbling in creating my own, going so far in some instances at looking at when you should plant various crops and calculate their availability based on time till harvest. But, yippppeee, there is no need to reinvent the wheel and I have now printed out the Sustainable Table's version.

The one downside to this guide is that it has been produced (by the look of things) by people based in southern Australia. There is therefore some seasonal variation between the northern parts of Australia and the fruits and vegetables available in the fields in southern Australia, but at least it does provide a guide. It will provide you with some reference to what you should be able to buy and perhaps over time you can amend it to better suit your region. 

Give it a go and let me know what you think. Pin It

Tomato....aaarrgghhh!

In my transition between houses, I have been growing six tomato plants in a styrofoam box. I decided to grow them in this type of "bed" so that I could transporting them between houses, because I knew they wouldn't be ready to harvest before we left the last place. 

It was really just an experiment to see whether I could grow normal sized tomatoes, as I have never had any success. Always insect-bitten by the time the tomatoes were ripe. :( In this experiment I decided to attempt some heirloom varieties, which I just bought as seedlings at Bunnings. All has gone fairly well with the plants coping well in the positions that I have had them in and they have even managed to stay upright, with the assistance of some stakes and eventually flowered and fruited! Woo hoo. 

I have been watching the fruit for what has seemed like an eternity. They have been growing and growing and then stabilising in size but not changing colour. Green, green and more green. No orange glow, not a hint until last week. Yipppeee! 

I then had to go away at the beginning of the week with my partner charged with watering. (Not that I think this happened). As I drove out of the drive-way, my thoughts immediately jumped to my nearly ripe largest tomato and dread crossed my mind with the thought that it would be rotten on the vine by the time I returned home. 

Long story short. Tomato gone!  That's right, gone! 

Quizzed my partner. Didn't realise it wasn't there. All that was left was a small amount of flesh and the attachment point to the plant. Aaarrrrhhhh! I just hope whatever creature ended up consuming my tomato was well-satisfied with my excellent heirloom tomato. 

Oh well, better luck next year! Hopefully by then I will be able to plant so many tomato plants that there will be enough produce for both me and the creatures of my garden. 

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Pineapple update

In early June I wrote about my quest to grow my own pineapple from a top of a pineapple I purchased on the side of the road. 

At the time of the post, I hadn't planted the pineapple top yet, but was letting it cure, as recommended by Gardening Australia. After the week of rest I planted the pineapple top into a styrofoam box (for ease of transportation) with some potting mix and sugar cane mulch and maintained as with any new seedling/plant, with a nearly daily watering regime. The tips of the leaves did brown off during the early stages, which concerned me a little and just prior to our move I thought it was going to give up. But I am pleased to announce there is new life in my pineapple top, in the form of new central sprouts since arriving at our new place. 

Now I just have to continue my maintenance program, worm wee every now and watering every few days and maybe in a couple of years I can tell you how succulent my pineapple is. Here's hoping! Pin It

Food Matters

There is currently a Internet movie available free called Food Matters. It is only available until the 8 October 2011.

It is available at: www.FoodMatters.tv/ScreeningEventCinema.

I have started to watch it and it certainly provides an alternate position about nutrients in your food and our food chain. The supposed experts tell you how the food that is commercially available is not all it is cut out to be, in that it doesn't contain the nutrients your body requires.

Also in the bit I have watched so far it mentions that our body isn't truly able to cope with cooked food and "raw" (uncooked) food is better for you. The figure mentioned in the movie is that 55% of every meal you eat should be raw. My understanding is the less cooked your food is the more nutrients available to you. This sounds reasonable to me, but I certainly don't practice this.

Watch for yourself and see what you think. Pin It

Lemon peel missing...update

Here is a photo of the mysterious missing peel lemon that still remains otherwise intact on the tree.

I still haven't discovered the animal that is causing this and I haven't come across anymore lemons missing their peel.


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Where is my lemon peel?

My new house has a luxurious lemon tree near its back steps. Another fantastic thing is that this fruit tree isn't currently infested with the sooty mould that quite often affects citrus trees and has seen me running scared from venturing into these fruit crops previously.

My tree is currently supporting about 10 lemons that are ready for picking and then there are about three lemons which are completely intact, except they are missing their peel. These three fruit are completely intact, still hanging perfectly on the tree, but missing every inch of their peel. What is this all about?

I assume there is some very pedantic animal scurrying around the bush and up towards my house to neatly   remove every bit of peel from lemon. I would love to catch this little animal in the act and see what is munching so delicately on my lemons and over time figure out whether I can sacrifice a few lemons to this critter or whether I need to come up with some clever contraception to protect my fruit from them.

Nature is so peculiar. Will post some photos soon. Pin It

Fruit fly trap

I recently built a non-chemical fruit fly trap and I have had some success reducing the number of fruit flies buzzing around my place, so I thought I should share it with you all.

I made the trap because I was suffering from an overload of fruit flies around my worm farm.  I have been known to overfeed my worms and give them too many fruit scraps, creating a perfect environment for fruit flies to breed in. This didn't really bother me except for the cloud of fruit flies that would swirl around my head when I opened my worm farm.

After a quick internet search, I discovered vinegar is a solution that fruit flies are attracted to. Makes sense really, since vinegar is similar smelling to the rotting fruit in my worm farm. I then just had to find a suitable container to hold the vinegar, whilst also not attracting my toddler to tip the vinegar everywhere or minimise the amount spilt if she did decide to tip the container upside. My solution was an old plastic "jar". I filled the bottom of the container with white vinegar (about 1/10) and then drilled some holes in the lid. The holes were large enough for the fruit flies to fly in. I then just sat this container on top of my worm farm. Voila!

With this solution I have definitely managed to reduce the number of fruit flies in and around my worm farm. There are still some fruit flies floating around, which is just because I still have rotting fruit in my worm farm, but certainly numbers have decreased significantly and not worrying me at all.

This system does require some maintenance, but not very much though. I have to replace the vinegar every 2-3 weeks. I just chuck out all of the old vinegar and dead fruit flies and then add new white vinegar in the bottom of the container. This is cheap solution and has minimised my environmental footprint, as I have used products around my house (old container), will require very little input over time (just the new white vinegar) and uses no harsh chemicals. No off the shelf product required for me. Hope this solution works for you as well! Pin It

Basil

I have had a couple of recipes in my weekly dinner plan that have basil in them for the last couple of weeks. I chose these recipes a little while ago and added basil to my shopping list. My basil plant in my garden wasn't doing so well, wilted leaves, large seed heads and bitter-tasting leaves (picture was taken when the basil was in its prime). I just thought this was a result of the poor soil it is currently planted in, being in terribly non-neutral (pH) mushroom compost in a bath tub.

However, from my continual search for basil in the shops and farmers' market and its lack of presence on the shelves I have come to the conclusion that basil is out of season.  And due to its complete lack of presence in the supermarket I assume it is a herb that is too fragile to transport over large distances for any reasonable price.

Once again, lesson learnt, no basil in winter and will start to think about sorting my recipe book into suitable seasons in which to cook them rather than under categories such as 'pasta', 'meat', 'chicken' and so on.

The lesson: shop seasonally for fruit and vegetables and also herbs and you will shop for less and have less impact on the planet through reduced transportation impacts/costs. Pin It

Pineapples!

I am going to try and grow my own pineapple!

I bought one from the side of the road the other day and thought perhaps I should try to grow my own. I have read recently that growing pineapples isn't that difficult. All you need is the top of an old pineapple and basically stick it in the ground and watch it grow! Hence, the inspiration, recent knowledge and pineapple = hairbrain ideas that I might be able to do it myself!

So what I have done is:

• Buy the pineapple
• Eat the pineapple
• Cut all the fruit off the spiky top of the pineapple
• Take some of the smaller leaves off the base of the pineapple top
• I dipped the base in some agricultural sulpur (as suggested by Gardening Australia); and
• Now drying/curing the pineapple top for approximately a week

When I return home at the end of the week, apparently my pineapple top will be ready to plant. According to the above webpage all I need to do is plant it into some good potting mix, with enough space for a 1.5m high by 1m wide plant. They can also apparently be grown in pots, with the recommendation being a terracotta pot because they breath and drain well.

Let's see how I go. Pin It

In Tune with Nature

To become more in tune with the land, seasons and opportunities for food growing, energy and water capture and the changes in wildlife and weeds in my life and the land I occupy, I am going to start an observation journal. 


What will this entail?


Recording:

• date
• season
• weather - temperature, rainfall, cloud cover, etc
• what is in flower/fruit - food, native and weed plants
• what is happening on the land

and anything else that takes my fancy. 


Overtime, I hope to collect a picture of the patterns in the landscape, what I will need to be doing on the land, what to expect from my food plants and identify things that are out of place or sorts.


I am looking forward to learning from this process.  Pin It

Reducing my carbon footprint

Ok, so I have this grand plan (well at least an idea of interest)! I am thinking that I will try this only eating from produce that comes from within 250km of my place! I'm sure you've all heard of the concept by now...if you buy produce from a limited radius from around your house the theory is that you will reduce your carbon footprint (less food kms/miles), support local producers, eat seasonally available food and if you're lucky might even be a little healthier. You will definitely know where your food comes from, you will know how is it produced and you can start to take control of what goes into your body. The concept sounds fantastic, it is the logistics that are the nightmare, particularly for those souls that live in Australia. Well, it seems that way to me anyway.

I have recently moved to the Sunshine Coast and now seemed to be exposed to a plethora of produce at weekend markets. I get the feeling though that a lot of it is still coming from the Brisbane fruit and vegetable markets rather than the producers themselves. Also there seems to be a significant lack of protein producers at these markets too, so unless you're totally vegetarian the markets don't seem to be meeting all of the requirements.

Hence, the logistical nightmare. If I go ahead with this plan it will be extensive question asking for a period to establish the locality of the production process for my food and perhaps some carbon footprint increase due to me driving around finding and sourcing the produce.

I am still keen for the plan, just have to start the process! Also the 250km radius is just an arbitrary distance around my house from which I thought I could obtain a fair variety of produce throughout the year. Pin It

Cling Wrap

Until recently I had used what I consider to be copious amounts of cling wrap (clear plastic film) to keep my sandwiches intact when going to work, covering fruit & veggies that were half consumed for storage in the fridge, covering up packets of ham that I had opened and then don't seal again, etc.

Having thought about the amount of cling/plastic wrap that I was going through I was convinced there had got to be alternatives to using all of this thin plastic. I was concerned because of:

1. the amount of plastic I was using and throwing away after a single use
2. the potential for this plastic to be blown from the landfill locations (or on the way there) and entering the waterways and marine environments, in turn potentially being consumed by all sorts of aquatic life forms; and
3. just generally adding to landfill.

What did I do? I invested in some more plastic (this doesn't sound very good) but I purchased a few long-wearing plastic rectangular containers to store left over foods, a sandwich-specific storage box to contain my sandwiches and a spherical container that will store tomatoes and onions.

As a result of this I use hardly any plastic/cling wrap and generally feel a little better about the footprint. I'm sure the plastic containers that I am still utilising in the kitchen domain are not the perfect environmental solutions but I consider it a start and something that I could easily adopt into my lifestyle.

Hope this helps others.

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Removal of pesticides from food

Following on from one of my previous posts, my basic research indicated that just rinsing your fruit and vegetables is not enough to remove some of the more harmful 'toxins' (pesticides/herbicides). One page that I have just come across suggests a combination of water, white vinegar, baking soda and grapefruit seed extract combined and then sprayed onto the fruit and vegetable and left for an hour or two prior to rinsing.

Sounds like a major effort, which I guess is expected, but I wouldn't have a clue where to get grapefruit seed extract. Let's see if I can find a more practical solution.

Aaaahhh....here is a more basic approach that I have since found combine 1 lemon, 2 tbsp of distilled white vinegar and 1 cup of water. Spray this onto your fruit & veggies and then rinse off, apparently this is a more basic recipe but is likely to remove pesticides from fruit/vegetables for household consumption. I wonder if it will change the taste of the products. Have to give it a go. Pin It

Washing your veggies

I have recently been thinking about more actively washing my veggies and fruit that I buy from the supermarket. My main aim with undertaking such an activity is to remove nasty chemicals from the surface of these foods and ensure that my family doesn't end up consuming more than our fair share.

Unfortunately the garden isn't at a level of self-sufficiency which means I have to buy commercially grown veggies. Up until now I haven't really taken the effort to wash the veggies that I buy. But now that I have a toddler and thinking more about what goes into our bodies, I wonder what the benefits of washing them under water is.

From my basic research most of the initial websites I have looked at on this topic indicate that washing them under the tap will wash off dirt and bacteria. Nothing that I am particularly worried about. I am more concerned about the pesticides, herbicides and other man-made agents that farmers spray around their farms to make their fruit and veggies more commercially attractive.

There are also adverts on the net for products which you can utilise to assist you with cleaning your fruit and veggies and once again can't seem to determine with any certainty that these products would in fact assist with my aim of removing the toxins.

So does washing in water, with no a lot of elbow grease, in fact remove these nasty chemicals? More research required! Pin It