I’ve taken lots of finger thick cuttings, using a very sharp knife to cut at an angle just below a bud. I’ve dipped the bottom of the cuttings in a bucket in which I’ve been steeping the willow cuttings – willow is a rich source of rooting hormones
I quite like deadlines – they give me a target. Without them I find that, in my busy busy life, things that are important get put aside in favour of the things that are most noisily urgent. And seasons don’t scream urgent, but they don’t wait. They are a wonderful reminder that we humans can argue all we like but nature holds trump cards. We live on a little spinning…
You can eat a few young mustard leaves in salads and stir fries, but most of the harvest is in the seeds, and one mustard plant, one of those tiny little seeds, will grow over a metre tall, dominate most of a square metre of space, and yield enough mustard seed to keep us going all year.
We’re eating broccoli and snow peas at just about every meal now, and just about to start harvesting cauliflowers. We have silver beet and kale coming out our ears and as much cabbage of various kinds as we can eat. This is the time of year to appreciate all the brassica family. Not too much longer now and keeping the cabbage moths off them will be too much of an effort.…
I’ve never got into the habit of cooking ahead. But this one, when I make it I make a decent sized batch and we eat it for a couple of lunches and dinners. It’s just as good cold as hot and good enough to still look forward to the third time.
Avos have lots of calories but they’re such good calories – full of vitamins A, B, C, E and K, omega-3, monounsaturated fats, potassium, magnesium, antioxidant phytonutrients, and importantly, an amino acid called glutathione that slows down aging. I make a face mask out of them this time of year, but really, they’re much more effective from the inside!
On Mondays I travel an hour and a half to work, and I car pool which means I can’t be late. So Monday mornings are somewhat rushed (to put it mildly!) To make matters worse, it’s a full on day when I really don’t want to be fuzzy brained, and I often end up with a rushed and less than perfect lunch. I also work in a room full of…