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So, the weekend started and ended with quilting, and in between was pretty much gardening and cooking.
Finished the centre of the Plain Jane Passcaglia while watching GotG2. Still pretty feelgood. Now it's just getting the borders on. (And fixing up all the little holes that have worked their way into it. Eek.)
Saturday: I swapped eggs for home-grown apples and home-grown rhubarb, worked a couple of hours in my own garden, tidying and planting out, and then went to a working bee to do 5 hours in someone else's garden for and International Permaculture Day open garden. She lives in a strata unit/terrace, has maybe 30sqm of east-facing garden, and has used every inch of it, including some "common land". (Which she arranged with the strata's body corporate - like the homeowner's association, I guess?) Anyway, I came back with a bucketload of ideas, and two banana shoots ('pups') which I now have to work out where to put in my garden....
I came home, cooked dinner, and sat and stared blearily at my computer wondering why the words didn't word.
Sunday was International Permaculture Day, and I was organising the Crop Swap at one of the open houses - a woman whose 1/3 acre garden is SPECTACULARLY productive. It's also quite a lot of work - homesteading (which is more or less what she's doing, although in suburbia) is *hard* work.
But I wasn't there to do any of that - I was there just to oversee the crop swap which works like this:
- you have excess of one thing, someone else has excess of another thing, you either arrange a direct swap (6 eggs for 6 apples) or else you go to a crop swap event, put your excess down on the table and pick up...pretty much anything that takes your fancy.
There's a lot of herbs, a lot of cuttings, seedlings, seeds, jams, and yesterday there were a lot of kombucha SCOBYs. There were eggs (mostly mine, privately swapped), marinated feta cheese (home-made, not sure if the feta was made or bought), jams, and even a loaf of bread (which didn't even touch the table - someone either swapped it pronto or just took it straight).
The concept of a Crop Swap is sharing the excess; some people do better at this than others. (The woman who snagged the entire trombocino squash is on my hit list - didn't even consider chopping it up and taking home a chunk, just took the whole thing. Seriously?)
As an example, there was a guy who really wanted a bit of rooted turmeric to plant out, but he arrived too late and didn't have anything to swap. So I gave him the piece I'd taken for planting, because I'm pretty sure I can get a piece at another place/time. At the time I gave it, I didn't know I'd taken two, but it didn't matter - even if I'd known I'd only had the one, I'd have given it up because I had a ream of other things and the turmeric can wait. To me, that's the core of crop swapping (or taxes, or supporting things which will never benefit me) - sometimes you give more than you get, because you have more to give.
The permaculture principle is Fair Share, but spiritually, I think of it as the outcome of the biblical parable of the talents: "to whom more has been given, more will be expected". I have more; others have less. I have both a duty to maximise what I do have, and the joy of sharing that with others.
Anyway, I'm trying to organise a regular local crop swap event at the local Uniting church - they have a community garden there, a hall, space in which to swap, and they might be willing to host us. I'd ask my own church, but I think the Uniting church is a better fit since they have the garden right there and have already run a swap event there for the local council. I sent them an email this morning.
But the swap took up my morning and early afternoon, and then I was on the AV at church, which took up my late afternoon, and then I went home and cooked apple and rhubarb crumble from the items I swapped earlier on the weekend, roasted an eggplant I picked from my garden, and made a purple potato bake from a couple of potatoes I picked up at the swap (after cutting out the eyes to attempt to plant them for more potatoes).
Then I sewed the first of my borders on the Plain Jane Passcaglia.
No wonder I woke up tired this morning...
Finished the centre of the Plain Jane Passcaglia while watching GotG2. Still pretty feelgood. Now it's just getting the borders on. (And fixing up all the little holes that have worked their way into it. Eek.)
Saturday: I swapped eggs for home-grown apples and home-grown rhubarb, worked a couple of hours in my own garden, tidying and planting out, and then went to a working bee to do 5 hours in someone else's garden for and International Permaculture Day open garden. She lives in a strata unit/terrace, has maybe 30sqm of east-facing garden, and has used every inch of it, including some "common land". (Which she arranged with the strata's body corporate - like the homeowner's association, I guess?) Anyway, I came back with a bucketload of ideas, and two banana shoots ('pups') which I now have to work out where to put in my garden....
I came home, cooked dinner, and sat and stared blearily at my computer wondering why the words didn't word.
Sunday was International Permaculture Day, and I was organising the Crop Swap at one of the open houses - a woman whose 1/3 acre garden is SPECTACULARLY productive. It's also quite a lot of work - homesteading (which is more or less what she's doing, although in suburbia) is *hard* work.
But I wasn't there to do any of that - I was there just to oversee the crop swap which works like this:
- you have excess of one thing, someone else has excess of another thing, you either arrange a direct swap (6 eggs for 6 apples) or else you go to a crop swap event, put your excess down on the table and pick up...pretty much anything that takes your fancy.
There's a lot of herbs, a lot of cuttings, seedlings, seeds, jams, and yesterday there were a lot of kombucha SCOBYs. There were eggs (mostly mine, privately swapped), marinated feta cheese (home-made, not sure if the feta was made or bought), jams, and even a loaf of bread (which didn't even touch the table - someone either swapped it pronto or just took it straight).
The concept of a Crop Swap is sharing the excess; some people do better at this than others. (The woman who snagged the entire trombocino squash is on my hit list - didn't even consider chopping it up and taking home a chunk, just took the whole thing. Seriously?)
As an example, there was a guy who really wanted a bit of rooted turmeric to plant out, but he arrived too late and didn't have anything to swap. So I gave him the piece I'd taken for planting, because I'm pretty sure I can get a piece at another place/time. At the time I gave it, I didn't know I'd taken two, but it didn't matter - even if I'd known I'd only had the one, I'd have given it up because I had a ream of other things and the turmeric can wait. To me, that's the core of crop swapping (or taxes, or supporting things which will never benefit me) - sometimes you give more than you get, because you have more to give.
The permaculture principle is Fair Share, but spiritually, I think of it as the outcome of the biblical parable of the talents: "to whom more has been given, more will be expected". I have more; others have less. I have both a duty to maximise what I do have, and the joy of sharing that with others.
Anyway, I'm trying to organise a regular local crop swap event at the local Uniting church - they have a community garden there, a hall, space in which to swap, and they might be willing to host us. I'd ask my own church, but I think the Uniting church is a better fit since they have the garden right there and have already run a swap event there for the local council. I sent them an email this morning.
But the swap took up my morning and early afternoon, and then I was on the AV at church, which took up my late afternoon, and then I went home and cooked apple and rhubarb crumble from the items I swapped earlier on the weekend, roasted an eggplant I picked from my garden, and made a purple potato bake from a couple of potatoes I picked up at the swap (after cutting out the eyes to attempt to plant them for more potatoes).
Then I sewed the first of my borders on the Plain Jane Passcaglia.
No wonder I woke up tired this morning...
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