For the love of carrots

Carrots seem to do well in our garden. My children have learnt to let them grow till they are a little bigger and we get to enjoy them as snacks and in meals.

I picked these two carrots today. They look like we can't really have one without the other.

Just what I asked for

The weather is perfect for garden play/gardening today! Just what I asked for. Now, where to start...

School holidays mean lazy mornings and pj-gardening

Just as my body has recovered from a week of gardening and renovating at places other than my home, the rain is upon us and a good day in the garden with my littlies seems unlikely.

School holidays started here this week and as I'm now the proud parent of a school aged child this is quite significant. I am a primary school teacher and I did work full time in schools before I had my children. So you could say that the concept of school holidays is not new to me. But with the juggle of school, after school activities, my teaching jobs, my husband's work and our other interests and passions, having my daughter off school for two weeks is significant.

I still have work to do, as does my husband, so there is a bit of juggling. But much less than usual. We're getting to slow things down and enjoying it.

I was really looking forward to a lot of pyjama-gardening, but unless the rain clears or it gets warmer outside I don't think we'll all be out there much. Cold and wet children get miserable quite quickly so it's not really worth it.

While we are waiting for the right moments to venture out I can let my body rest a little more and enjoy spending more time with my little ones. Quite perfect, really.

That first frost caught me by surprise

We had a frost last night. I wasn't expecting it at all. Perhaps if I had been paying attention to weather reports I would have known. But as it was, I was totally unprepared.

All of the frost tender veg are looking a bit sad and I find myself longing for the weather to be a little warmer.

At least I enjoyed a lovely weekend in the garden to see out the last few warm days of the season.

The slow road to sustainability

Some times I feel like we are achieving so much, sometimes it feels like so little.

In the last few weeks I have done very little in my own garden, but finally on this long weekend I have made some great progress.

So far this weekend I have tidied, pruned and harvested. I have planted out seeds (carrot, swede, broccoli, onion sets), collected seeds (carrot, bean, zucchini, squash, sunflower) and enjoyed being in my garden.

Being tomato harvest time, I have also picked kilos of tomatoes. We seem to eat a lot of tomatoes, but there are far too many ripe at the moment to possibly eat them all. Sound like what's happening in your patch too?

Well, besides the green tomato pickle and relish that I sometimes make, I also bottle my tomatoes. It's a bit like tinned tomatoes, but in a bottle I suppose.

It's really very easy to do. I pick my tomatoes and give them a good wash. If they are large tomatoes, I blanche them and remove the skins then roughly chop. Then into the slow cooker. Cherry tomatoes go straight in whole. Turn it on low or high depending on how quickly I want them done and leave the slow cooker to work its magic. Sometimes I add herbs, but I usually leave any flavourings and seasoning till I'm cooking with the bottled tomatoes.

Several hours later, the tomatoes are cooked in a clear-ish liquid that they have produced. I take clean, hot jars and lids from the dishwasher (but you can also boil then oven dry jars and lids), spoon the the tomatoes and juice in, seal them up and there we go!

The lids with safety 'buttons' pop down and you know that there is a good safe seal. I store in my pantry and use as I would tinned tomatoes from the supermarket. Only, I know I have organic, zero carbon mile produce going into my dinner, and it tastes so good.

So the road to sustainability is slow, because I only have 20 jars of tomatoes so far, and the tomato season in coming to an end. I could probably make 100 jars and we'd get through them in less than a year. Next year, I'll put in a few more plants and collect more jars and we'll be just a little bit further down that road.