It has been absolutely beautiful weather here for the last week, the only downside being that there hasn’t been a single drop of rain so the plants have had a tendency to get rather frazzled. Also the weeds love the sunshine and have choked half my poor peas to death and seemed determined to take over the allotment. On a brighter note, our container gardening at home is going well. We have several large squash plants as well as beetroot, quinoa (a Peruvian grain), peppers, aubergines, peas, various herbs, sunflowers, Brussels sprouts, cauliflowers and melons. I’m sure I’ve missed a few things out there but everything is well underway.
We also had our first gas bill for our new house. This was a bit of a novelty for us as for the most part we have either lived in accommodation where our bills were paid for by our employers or we have house shared so never really paid attention to the bill. It wasn’t too bad approx £25 per month, from February to end of April but it did make us question how much we used the oven (we know full well how much we used the central heating and that we have the hot water on for one hour every other day for washing up, cleaning etc.) So we decided to try and stop using the oven so much. Step one was to stop having toast and have sandwiches instead. That then led us onto having salad sandwiches which is quite refreshing in this weather. So coupled with the fact that our vegetable box is due in a couple of days and we need to finish up the current produce, we’ve been eating a lot more raw and feeling a lot better for it. Now I have been interested in the raw food movement for quite some time (for those who don’t have a clue WHAT I’m talking about have a look on this wikipedia link) for health reasons (and some spiritual reasons to be honest) but have always felt that as it seems to advocate a lot of exotic foods (which I love but aren’t very Earth-friendly if they have to be flown over), and expensive supplements, so I had shied away from the idea somewhat. However, I have started to realise that with the food we are growing coupled with the food we get from our veg box, a rawer lifestyle may be achievable. And with the added bonus of not cooking our food, we will save gas and therefore pennies. I’ve previously had experience with enzyme rich ‘live’ foods as I used to sprout alfalfa and other greens on my windowsill and can honestly say that when I incorporated those into my diet I never felt better, and best of all it was very cheap! Now I’m not going to go and jump in and be raw 100% from the outset as that is just madness! But I do feel it would be better for health and for the gas bill to up the ratio of foods eaten raw to at least 50% gradually increasing with time. Plus with eating more fresh fruit and veg, even less landfill waste will come out of our home and more waste for the compost heap, which can’t be bad! So I have started sprouting alfalfa and sunflower seeds on the windowsill for fresh greens packed with nutrients and had a delicious carrot and pear juice for breakfast yesterday. For more information on sprouting seeds have a look at Sprouting Seeds. Or I thoroughly recommend Steve ‘Sproutman’ Meyerowitz’s book Sprouts, the Miracle Food: The Complete Guide to Sprouting. FYI - the water rinsed from your sprouts is very good for watering the rest of your plants.
I found some pretty interesting stuff online last night, including this website ‘The Right Brain vs Left Brain’ which is very interesting. It tells you which side of the brain is dominant then the characteristics you should have. But you should be able to flip between the different sides of the brain. I turned out to be in the minority as when relaxed I am right brain dominated (I guessed this would be true as I am left handed), but I looked through the list for the characteristics of the left brain and tried to think about past events and mathematics and found that after a while I could control how I saw the dancer (I found the easiest way was doing the 2 times table in my head!). Very interesting indeed.
I also started having a bit of a clear out! Well, I’m always trying but the stuff does seem to pile up. But I got rid of a few books on Green Metropolis. I was recommended this site quite some time ago but never got around to using it. If you have good quality books you can advertise them on there and if you sell them you will get £3 credited to your account (you can either use this onsite to buy books, cash it into your bank account or donate it to the Woodland Trust), but you do have to pay for postage (if it is a large book the customer will pay extra to cover postage). I had tried Read It Swap It on previous occasions but people never had the books I wanted to swap so it was a bit of a non starter but Green Metropolis suits me down to the ground. I sold my first book this morning so hopefully am well on the way to freeing up some much needed shelf space!
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