Chickens

The girls have made themselves right at home! I love the sound of happily 'bocking' chickens in the back yard...

Beyond Blue, Movember and Postnatal Depression (PND) Awareness Week

I choose to support a few causes through donations on an ongoing basis. One of these is Movember and the awareness and support for Beyond Blue National Depression Initiative and Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. I have friends, family and colleagues who grow a mo and it's all a bit of fun.

But it is also very serious and personal for me.

A few days ago I saw a poster for Beyond Blue, just briefly, and I can't remember the exact wording, but it had pictured 5 people, 4 of which were blind folded and writing to the effect of '1 in 5 people have depressions, but the other 4 suffer too'. I went looking on the website thinking I might see it there, but I didn't get further than discovering that it is currently Postnatal Depression Awareness week.

Of the people pictured in the poster, I would have been the one not blind folded.

It has been 2 years now since I have escaped the depths of perinatal depression (depression whilst pregnant and post natal depression). I was so ashamed of the depression that I felt that I did not 'confess' this depression to many people. I sought help, I saw my doctor, had a mental health care plan drawn up and saw a Psychologist. This continued in various levels of severity for around 2 years. My husband and mother carried the burden of helping me through this difficult time, whilst having to deal with a depressed me.

Only since returning to a somewhat normal version of myself, do I see how difficult it was for them through that stage of our lives. My mother and husband still don't fully understand what I went through, but they tried to understand and worked with me to get me better. No one really understands what it is like to be depressed, unless they have been depressed. I wish now, that I had spoken up at mother's groups and with friends. I realise now how many other people have been through or are going through depression. To some degree I feel a connection with these people that I have since been able to talk to about PND and liberated to say out loud exactly what I was going through and know that to them, it isn't that outrageous.

My small support network could have been so much larger if more people were aware of what depression is, if the stigma was taken away, and if I had just spoken up. I feared that people would react with "she's just had a baby, what's she got to be depressed out about?" or "having a baby is hard work - get over it". To be honest, I think a few people I know still would say something like that. But most of the people that I know now and have started talking about it with, have said something more like "I wish you had just let me know!".

I am eternally grateful for the love and support that I did receive, without which, this would have been a very different story.

I still have my ups and downs, like most people, and sometimes I feel my downs getting a little too low. But it is manageable now and I know what to do to get myself out of it before it sinks back to depression. I can only hope that I can keep doing that.

I have my garden now, too, and as my daughter says "Mummy goes to her green house when she is upset", but she also knows I go there when I am happy too. I am driven into my garden by an internal force. I often say to my husband "I need to go into the garden" and there I find my relaxation and calm. I have garden walks to take people on, even if it is mostly my husband and children. They don't seem to mind being taken on a garden walk several times a week. In fact, my daughter has started taking me on garden walks to see her gardens now, too!

So, thank you to my family who suffered holding my hand, and thank you to those who suffered without really knowing what was wrong, yet are still friends with me now.

Thank you for all of you who are growing a mo and to those of you making donations.

Let's not be ignorant to depression. Learn more and help someone you know, because if 1 in 5 people suffer depression, if it is not you, it will be someone you love.

http://www.beyondblue.org.au

http://au.movember.com

The green consumerist?

I love my garden. I love having the space to plant things and watch them grow. I love thinking of how my garden will develop and imagining what it will look like in months and years to come. I love watching the daily progress of seedling and fruits and vegetables. I love eating meals with home grown produce. I love that my daughter has asked for her own garden bed, and when it was promptly built for her, and just as quickly planted out, she asked why is it that she only has one garden bed and Mummy has so many more.

Recently I was talking to a friend, about my garden and what I have planted recently and what plans I have when a thought grabbed me. Am I a consumerist greenie?

In setting up our greener life style am I just consuming in a different way? I went looking for a tea camellia the other day, so I can grow my own black tea. I am considering which nut trees would be good to grow. We have our little nectarine tree (with tiny baby nectarines!) and I am considering a peach, because they are supposed to be a little better suited to our climate. I have a kaffir lime because I occasionally like to cook Thai food. I have plans on where to put the passionfruit and need to start researching which grape I want to grow.

I am seeing success with what I have been growing (except for this year's broccoli, but that's a different story) and boosted by this I want to try and grow new things. I want my children to see different things growing and then eat them. In my garden I want an abundant supply of staple veg and an adequate supply of foods that I'd normally consider 'treats' simply because of the price at the grocer and the rate my children eat them when we get them. I want to eat organically grown produce, even if it means having to grow more so that we share a bit with the possums, snails and chickens (YES! We now have 4 hens!) To do this I need to buy stuff. And then the garden centre or hardware store start to softly call my name, beaconing me with the lure of a different heritage tomato or frame for the cucumbers to climb or some other such object that I desire...

Greening our home and lives has cost us a bit of money! The solar panels (although they are starting to pay themselves off), buying a smaller and more fuel efficient car, installing water tanks, the garden equipment, the garden set up, plants...

And I ask myself "am I being consumerist in my attempt to be greener?"...

Seed Sowing September

With the warmer weather becoming more common, I seem to be thinking about the garden so much more. My lack of posts is actually due to my excitement at being able to make an impact in the garden again and certainly not due to a lack of interest... Too much time planting and sowing and not enough blogging...

September really was seed sowing month and the green house is now so full if trays and pots I can hardly get in. I recall this time last year when I didn't have my green house, in fact it was just dream of mine. Until my husband saw the look of absolute delight on my face when in a friend's new green house. It didn't take long till he ordered me one!

My friend's is twice the size of mine and I loved it, but assured my husband that I didn't need one that big, perhaps just because I just wanted one and didn't care how big, just that I was getting it!

I love my green house, it is my happy place. I heard my just turned 4 year old daughter say to my Mum the other day "Mummy goes to her green house when she is cranky because it make her feel happy". Did I say that to her at some point, or did she observe that herself?

I think of how I can possibly fit a chair in there too as the compulsion to visit it, to see the germinating seeds, the budding flowers, the just out of season vegetables lures me to stay...

So my green house is full and I still have more seeds to so to ensure successive crops... and my husband commented that "perhaps we should have gotten you a bigger green house".

Children in the garden

Today I had a lovely hour and a half in the garden while on parent helper roster at my daughter's Playschool, which is like preschool for 3 year olds - sessions are for a couple of hours twice a week, run by a not for profit organisation.

Earlier this year my husband and I helped plan and put together 6 garden beds, each 1 meter by 3 meters. With the teacher, we planned the beds to be 4 rotational beds, with a herb bed and a strawberry patch. So a few times a term I have been going in and helping the teacher and students planting out plants, seedlings or seeds (either direct sowing or into paper pots and then raised in my green house). Although we only had a few things in mind to do today, we just got caught up in it all, which I love!

Last term we sowed seeds for broad beans and sugar snap peas into paper pots with children from both groups. These have grown into healthy and strong seedlings which are due for planting out. We chose to plant out the broad beans today and the peas will go in later in the week by the other group of children.

We explored how the thick white roots were poking though the faded rolls of newsprint and dug holes to carefully plant the beginnings of our productive beans.

With dirty hands and thoughts of food, we poked around at what we had growing and were delighted to see that there were some things ready to eat. The sweet taste of fresh broccoli was tempting and eagerly eaten fresh and raw. We were on a roll... plump cherry sized radish were poking out of the soil. A somewhat less eaten vegetable by 3 year olds, would these school grown radish tempt the taste buds of the budding green thumbs?

Once the dirt was washed off and the bold red radish looking delicious to my adult eyes, I sliced wafer thin slices of radish. The pattern within the white of the radish is gorgeous, but not as beautiful to me as the pattern within zucchini, though much more appealing raw! Thankfully the radish were not spicy, rather a pleasantly mild flavour. The children gobbled them up! Fantastic!

I see three successes right there, with planting broad beans, eating broccoli and radish, but our gardening experience was not yet over. We also pulled up a bed of green manure, to be dug through to continue enriching the soil before we plant it out when the weather warms. Finally, the children sowed a tray of everlasting daisies, which will be planted out into the native garden when they are bigger.

Seeing these young children enjoying themselves and learning about gardening, food production and trying new things was really so good to see. I see it every day in my own young children and every week with the primary school aged children in my gardening club, too. It renews my faith in believing that through exposure and experience children will choose to make decisions that benefit themselves and their environment.

PJG

Stephanie Challenge update

Yesterday I sowed some seeds for chinese cabbage, or Pak Choi, so I have made a start on growing my Asian Greens. I will have to check out some favourites of gardening friends and see what else I should put is as it is just at the beginning of the planting season now.

Asparagus. Yay! I actually already have 5 asparagus plants that I put in last year. Although they shouldn't be harvested in their first year, I did cut a few delicious stalks, so I am really looking forward to this year when I can cut more for harvest. Yum.

Next in Stephanie's book is Bananas. I would love to grow a good cavendish, although I believe that firstly they do not tolerate frost, and secondly there are strict rules about non-farmers growing cavendish. Apparently growing lady finger bananas do not have the same strict rules, although we still have the frost issue. I'm not sure if this is one that we can find a solution for as my green house is not big enough to fit a whole banana tree!

Basil. I have grown basil with great success in the past and look forward to growing it again this year, and for the first time from my own collected seeds. I love the smell of basil and the taste in both fresh and cooked foods. I can hardly wait for my home made pasta sauces and pesto again...

Bay. I actually have a Bay tree. A very small one, perhaps only 30cm high. I had wanted a bay tree, but when my husband inquired as to how big they grow - if I recall correctly it is around 5 meters - he wasn't big on the idea. I did discover that if pruned regularly they make a good hedge and stay small and are quite slow growing. So I have had my little potted bay for 6 months or so now. Being so small, only really special dishes get a fresh bay leaf in them and there is still a pack of dried bay leaves in the spice cupboard.

And last one for today is beans. I currently have broad beans in the garden which are still rather small but they should produce a bumper crop again this year. I didn't save seeds from last year's crop so I will have to remember to this year. Last season I also grew blue lake, purple king and bortolli beans, all of which I have saved seeds for planting when the weather warms up. I think I'll grow the blue lake and purple king again, although the variety of bortolli were drawf and I thought were a waste of space when I have so much vertical room! Do bortolli beans come in a climbing variety? More research to be done.

Signing off from the pyjama gardener and her pyjama clad gardening children...

Food on TV

I wouldn't say I watch a lot of tv, although I do have my favourites. Just like half of Australia I watched 'Masterchef' and have been watching 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution'. On Masterchef I found the little talks that chefs would do about their 'food philosophy' quite interesting. Most would talk about fresh foods cooked 'simply' to let the flavours of the foods shine. Sure thing. There was one celebrity chef that really sung to my tune, though.

Good on you Jamie Oliver. Seasonal produce. Locally grown produce that is currently in season. LOVE IT! Gordon Ramsay would bang that drum as well on his "Kitchen Nightmares" series. Following the seasons in terms of food and produce makes so much sense to me. The food is fresher, specially when it doesn't have to travel half way around the world before it gets to my plate. The food is 'greener' as less carbon is used in the transportation of foods.

I wish I could say that I am growing all my own vegetables in our gorgeous garden, but in reality I don't have the time and productive garden space to do it all. My family and I are also guilty of liking to eat out of season foods - we all have our favourite fruit and veg. I actually struggle with that on occasion in the produce section of the supermarket.

I bought a 'Marie Clare Seasonal Kitchen' cook book thinking that it would be a great seasonal companion to my vegie garden. Unfortunately a quick flick through it before buying it (no doubt with two small children both trying to pull me in different directions at the same time) was not enough to get a good idea of that rational behind it.

Critically looking at it I realised that the recipes looked delicious. I also realised that they often had a mix of in season and out of season produce for where we live. The Seasonal Kitchen, was more about the kinds of foods that you like to eat in certain seasons.

So many of our favourite recipes have this same mix of in and out of season produce. So there the dilemma lies. I have now been buying only Australian grown produce with preference to locally in season produce. My little girl is getting 'no' probably as much as she always has, but I am making sure to give her a more meaningful response than "it's too expensive". Sometimes I hear myself saying "darling, strawberries aren't in season in our area at the moment, so although those very expensive strawberries might look good, they have been in cold storage while traveling a long way before getting to these shops. They won't be as juicy and sweet as the strawberries that we grow at home and will probably go mouldy very quickly." Perhaps I go overboard a bit...

But then I saw Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolution in Huntington, West Virginia, USA. I actually felt sick in my stomach when a class of lower primary school students couldn't name whole raw vegetables. I have all sorts of comments on that but won't go into it. It did reaffirm to me that everything that I am doing with my own children and with children that I teach, in relation to sustainable productive gardening, really is so important.

PJG