12 September 2009

Generous Journal: Carrot-Man and libraries

Well, I've been very slack with my Generous Journal recently, but thankfully that doesn't mean I've become a materialistic, resource-eating monster. I've still been trying to live a Generous life, just with nothing remarkable to say about it. But here's a few things that have been going on recently. First of all, meet Carrot-Man:

Heehee! This was part of our (very modest) carrot harvest, we only had three others sadly. But we are inundated with potatoes (weeks after harvesting them!) and runner beans, and have had a good crop of broad beans with more on the way. I've just had a lunch including salad leaves from the garden, which needed a good picking because they were starting to grow out of control. We had a few very small onions so not much better than last year there. But all in all I'm quite pleased with our progress in the garden, especially when we have very limited space and poor, shallow soil. Our indoor dwarf chilli plants are also faring well, giving us an abundance of tiny chillis to dry for future use. They had a spidermite problem recently but that's sorted now. (Tip: If you get a spidermite infestation, which is noticeable by very fine webs on your plants, spray the plants with a hose until all the webs and tiny little beasties are gone. Sorted ours out.)

So we're doing well on the grow-you-own front, bringing down our average food miles nicely. What's great is that our families are also in on the act so we can get home-grown fruit and veg from them too - I'm currently trying to think of things to do with piles of plums and greengauges!

In other Generous news, I've been side-tracked from my library-going recently, partly because of a rather disappointing trip a few months back where I couldn't really find anything good. But today I went and found loads of books I'd love to read! So once I've finished my current book, I'm going to try to only read books from my local library until the end of the year. I would do longer, but I'm bound to get a book or two for Christmas. It's a start though, and I do believe in supporting local libraries as they're very important community resources.

I'll try to post more about Generous stuff ... maybe I should start a diary so I remember when I've done something interesting ...

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