Preserving

Here's a photo of my first attempt with the Fowlers Vacola, preserving a mix of berries, cherries and some apple. We've been eating it on pancakes with yoghurt and it's great!

We've only been getting one or two eggs a day - our next door neighbour says that when the weather changes (it's rained a lot lately) they will stop laying. I actually had to buy some eggs today! :(
I want to include more photos, but it's too slow on this computer, and I don't have much patience.

My latest projects include: knitting food for my baby. I don't want to buy plastic toy food for him, but I'd like him to play with cooking and serving food, so I've knitted some celery, lettuce, tomato and eggs so far. I'm going to try to knit everything in our vegie garden and maybe a sandwich that he can put together. I'm just using scraps of wool from people I know and op shops so it's really cheap. I'm not a good knitter (he won't know or care if it's not perfect, real vegies are all imperfect anyway!) and I'm having trouble understanding the knitting patterns I'm getting for free off the internet, becuase it's in 'knitting language' that I barely know, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm hoping that if I can increase my skills, maybe I'll knit some clothes one day.

My vinegar attempts have been pretty pathetic, I've grown some amazing pink mould that looks kind of rubbery. I've thrown 3 lots away and am trying white wine vinegar now with some leftovers. I haven't looked at it lately but I think it's OK so far. At least none of these had any set-up costs and the only time comittment was pouring liquid in the jar and throwing it out a few weeks later.

I've also made more jam, relish and tomato sauce. So far it's wonderful - my husband loves it more than I do, but I don't think we'll be buying tomato sauce again for a while, ours is much better! I was really skeptical about that, I have my favourite brand of tomato sauce and thought I'd hate the home-made stuff, but I was wrong - just as well, we have nearly a litre of it!

We've also started swapping things with our neighbours - it was actually their idea. They also grow vegies and we've been giving them eggs and garden stakes (from trees we've cut back) and we've received potatoes and rhubarb in return. I've been asked to bake a cake, which I love, as there aren't enough cake-lovers in my family to eat all that I make, and we've been promised zucchinis. It's nice that we all get a bit more variety without having to go and buy it - just pass it over the fence instead! We also get lemons and mandarins from the other next-door neighbour and have given home-made biscuits and eggs in return. We've been giving away garlic as we grew way too much, and my dad gives us his excess potatoes and pumpkins.

One of my friends has started vegie gardening too, after buying her first home. It's exciting to see someone else embarking on this for the first time. She has some leeks from me, and lots of other things to start out with. She also has a young child so there's another new-generation vegie gardener in the making!

I'm hoping for less rain and more eggs tomorrow...