Slow Living October

I haven't joined up at Christine's series this year as it felt a little hypocritical with the fast paced life we live at the moment but this month that was has been a relatively slower one with lots of lovely things happening so I cannot resist adding my post to the mix.

NOURISH

 Our garden has been very generous over the last while with asparagus, spinach, kale, herbs, blueberries and strawberries. I have been planning meals around what vegetables need to be used. This post shares some of the meals made this past week.







PREPARE
I used up a 2kg bag of kumquats in a scrumptious marmalade.

REDUCE
Mmmh...so I reduced my computer time to bare minimum but this is tough as I have two blogs and two websites which need attention as well as an offline business that brings online queries. Seriously though, I am reading a book with my middle two children called "The Next Story - Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion" and it is really challenging in many areas. I do not believe my technology owns me, but rather I use it for the purpose it was created. Even thought I don't do Facebook or other social media, nor do I have time for lots of blogs (there are three or four I visit intermittently) I do feel that I can have a bit of a clean up of the cyberspace "noise" in my life...so I reduce :)

GREEN
Due to a cash shortage this month I have again returned to some old favourites, like homemade washing liquid and I discovered Cocopeat to use as a seedling starter. I think so much of our daily routine include simple wise stewardship ideas that its hard to do this category now with something new. We compost, have a wormery, recycle, reuse, rethink and have for the most part since 2008 that it is all a little old hat.

GROW

Growing month here in the Southern Hemisphere - so beefsteak tomatoes, green zebra tomatoes, golden, black and Italian striped courgettes, pumpkins, corn, potatoes, cucumbers - bush, lemon and climbing, butternut, winter squash, queen squash, onions, carrots, bush beans and climbing beans all are growing along with the days of October.

CREATE

We created a rather funny looking cucumber frame from what we had lying around. I hope the trailing cucumbers will cover it and give shade to the chard underneath. A garden experiment.

DISCOVER
I discovered kohlrabi...pity, it was the end of the season. I think I may grow some next season.

ENHANCE
I like to think that my life enhances others, that is one of the reasons for this blog. I like to encourage others, perhaps they are sometimes bowled over by my enthusiasm and can take it as I am a know-it-all but I love to share what we have discovered or learnt.

I also have two fellow gardeners down the road who every now and again get the overflow of my garden, so when I sowed too many bush cucumbers I sent them along their way as well as some kale plants that were being moved and there were too many just for us.

ENJOY

I feel like I live in my car Monday to Saturday from 2-6pm. The last thing I want to do is get into a car on a Sunday, but Superman and I have been heading off to gym to swim on Sunday mornings, just the two of us.

I swim 2 other times in the week but it is always in a pool with young studs showing me just how slow I actually am :)) so it's a pleasure to have the pool to the two of us on a Sunday.





When we get home our elder son has cooked lunch for us and then I relax for the afternoon. Generally the Lucky dog AKA Precious Baby Lamb and I along with a friend and her two pups also enjoy a long walk in the forest.

Sunday is my day. I enjoy that.