This week has given us milder weather here in Melbourne. Darren and I continue to work in our garden planting, pruning, weeding and harvesting. Everything we harvest from the veggie garden is a real blessing and is helping to keep our food budget low.
Here's what we've been up to -
* Picked a handful of raspberries each day. Our strawberry plants are still giving us fruit every couple of days.
* Saved the shower warm up water and poured it into the washing machine. Saved kitchen water was used to water lots of pot plants and the mandarin trees.
* Darren and I had a day out last Sunday to Phillip Island ( about an hour away ). We took our lunch, a thermos and afternoon tea with us which saved us quite a bit of money. It was lovely to sit under the big trees on the sloping grassed area at the beach.
* Wrote out our menu plan for the next 4 weeks. It's always a relief to have it written out and really does make dinner time so much easier.
* I took some homemade chicken stock out of the freezer and made a pot of chunky chicken and veggie soup. I added broccoli crumbs from the bottom of a ziplock bag in the freezer. Nothing went to waste and it gave extra nutrients to the soup. We had the soup for 2 dinners this week at a cost of about 20 cents a serve.
* Filled up both our cars with petrol for well under $1.20 a litre just as the price was going up to $1.65.
* Picked the last of the sweet corn, blanched and froze it to add to future meals.
* Built a little fence to protect the lettuce and silverbeet plants from the ever growing bean plants. I used gutter guard as the fence and scraps of timber and tied it together with cut up old socks.
* Darren and Luka made scones together. Luka is a fan of anything that looks like cake.
* Dried all the washing on the line outside even when it threatened to rain. I'm always full of optimism when it comes to the weather and my wash day. The dryer is only used in emergencies.
* Planted lettuce seedlings I bought. I picked a punnet with more seedlings than the others to get more value. From the punnet I got 20 seedlings instead of the usual 8.
* Picked more lemons from our tree. I know it's out of season but our tree has ripe lemons as well as baby ones.
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| The little fence I built to protect the lettuce seedlings |
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| Protecting the silverbeet from the bean plants |
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| More out of season lemons |
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| Luka helping with the vacuuming |
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| " I can do it myself " |
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| Luka loves the on / off button. |
I'm with Luka - anything that looks like cake is a good thing :-) Your garden it looking fantastic BTW.
ReplyDeleteThankyou Phil. We really love being outside pottering around.
DeleteI managed to save us around 18 cents a litre on our fuel this week. It has been quite a while since our fuel price has been low. I did spend some money but I am hoping it will help me save money in the long run. I bought a book on preserving food and after a year of thinking about it and doing without I surrendered and bought a new Kindle. When I downloaded my books I discovered I had about 15,500 books in my account! Most were free or very very cheap indeed. I am crafting from home and trying to use what I have here. This morning I bought a piece of fabric that will be added to my music stash. There is almost enough to make a quilt. It was reduced a little and it was the end of the bolt so I was given the extra for free. I cooked once and ate the same meal five times for my dinner. My mother likes to eat food which I am allergic too so I was pleased to have a quick option.
ReplyDeleteTake care and keep safe.
Hi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteYour homegrown produce looks like it's growing well. I don't have a lot growing at moment but still picking basil, spring onion and chives. I am hoping to plant more again this Autumn. This week has been a busy one here too:
* made spaghetti bolognese, zucchini slice, salads, snitzels and veg and a stir
fry for dinners and had leftovers for lunches as well as sandwiches
* made chocolate slice, fruity cupcakes and pear pikelets for lunchboxes
* used up creamed corn and sour cream had in fridge in a baked cob loaf dip
* checked specials before shopping - got 1/2price blocks of organic dark choc and
two tins of tomato soup for Winter lunches (we have with toasted sandwiches).
* shopped at factory outlet and got 5xvege pizzas for $2.50ea I have these in my
freezer and one pizza gives us two slices each with salad for cheap meal
if I forget to put something out to defrost.
* received one large red capsicum and half dozen Roma tomatoes from kind friend.
* gifted friend a bunch of magnolia 'Little Gem' blooms from our garden
* Hubby rang around and we got a much cheaper price for small plumbing job we needed done in our ensuite. Self-employed local plumber offered cheapest quote and did good job:)
Have a lovely week, Wendy. Hope the Autumn weather in Melbourne is beautiful!
Meg:)
Love seeing others gorgeous gardens and hoping to get a bit inspired to get some winter veges going. Have been stewing up apples and putting half in the freezer and blanching tomatoes for winter pasta.I'm afraid I like anything that's like cake also!
ReplyDelete