Buying organic

Well things are winding down in the vegie patch...I guess when you run away to holiday for 5 weeks you can't expect your garden to look after itself!  I also didn't plant much in preparation for Winter knowing that we'd be away for a lot of it.  So we took ourselves to CERES (one of my favourite places) for a bit of an organic vegie shop.

Buying organic can be a very expensive exercise and there is so much debate on whether or not it makes a difference to your health.  I'm certain that it does - I'm positive anyway that ingesting endless amounts of pesticide isn't good for you - and I like organic farming practices and how much kinder they are to the earth. 

  

 

 

I love foraging through farmers markets or looking in my CERES fair food box on weeks where I don't get time to go to market.  I've ordered from Organic Angels too - but really the best way to eat organic is to grow it yourself.  I'm looking forward to warmer weather so I can get right in with the planting!  My garden isn't very productive right now.  

My garden is looking like this at the moment:

Harvesting fennel for the first time!

 

  

Look at  lovely Mr Buzzy Bee with knees laden with pollen! Love seeing bees in Winter.

Not much of a harvest...

The Environmental Working Group has published their guide to the dozen fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residue - and a list of the lowest.  Farmgirl shared a fantastic link referencing the same research here:  http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/dirty-dozen-foods#fbIndex1

The Dirty Dozen, or list of twelve fruits/vegetables with highest pesticide residue are:

Apples, Celery, Strawberries, Peaches, Spinach, Nectarines, Grapes, Capsicum, Potatoes, Blueberries, Lettuce, Kale

Luckily we grow most of the 'dirty dozen' ourselves...although I never get a whiff of the strawberries between Master Bok (2) and the Bok Flock.  And I only grow kale for the chooks because I don't like the stuff myself!  Perhaps I'm cooking it wrong?  Same with brussel sprouts - I only grow them because they are so fascinating to watch develop, but I hate eating them!  <guilty>  I tend to just give them away!  

The research reveals that the vegetables and fruit that tend to have the lowest chemical residue or are the 'cleanest' are:

Onions, Sweet Corn, Pineapple, Avocado, Asparagus, Sweet peas, Mango, Eggplant, Cantaloupe (domestic), Kiwi, Cabbage, Watermelon, Sweet Potatoes, Grapefruit, Mushrooms

Some of the things on the list surprised me.  

I guess my bank balance will continue to look unhealthy and I'll have to keep working full time until our garden becomes more productive!  Until then I'll continue to buy organic where we can afford to.

Most of you probably only ever eat from your own gardens going on the amazing produce you display on your blogs...but for those of you whose gardens are less productive like mine...do you buy organic...?

p.s.  The girls seem happy in their new abode but the fox has been back...signs of digging each morning...argh!     

Sustainable Living Festival

Hello!

Today we took a wander through the Sustainable Living Festival weekend at Federation Square in Melbourne.  Even the weather, so uncooperative of late, gave us a beautiful day for the celebration and promotion of sustainable living.

Many varieties of heirloom apple

 Mr Bok and Master Bok by the Yarra River seen through the climbing logan berries

 Talk on permaculture in the suburbs

 Paving on the ground, Fed Square river walk

 If you can't let your chooks free range and you can't build your own run, I think this mobile chook tractor looks great!

 We enjoyed a beautiful banana nectarine smoothie blended by the pedal power of this young lady  :)

 Tunes by the river

 Lovely ladies making yummy spinach Turkish pastries

 Even dirt girl was there!

It was a lovely morning spent wandering up and down the stalls.  Even found myself a place to purchase live bugs - 'Backyard Buddies' by Eco Organic Garden.  What a fabulous thing to be able to buy!  My own little colony of green lacewings, ladybirds will hopefully arrive soon in the post and I'll take pics for you to see  :)

On the way home we stopped by Ceres again, I love their mosaic wall.  I'd love to do mosaic myself but I am not the most artistically gifted of individuals although I do excel at stick figures!    :)

We went so I could grab this:

I've been after it for ages!  And I have to say I do love it (well the few pages I've flicked through anyway).

I hope you're enjoying your day!!

I love unexpected mornings

I was having a lovely morning cleaning the house...you know!  How one loves to clean!  when a lovely friend called to tell us about a garage sale she was going to, an events company doing a mini clean out.  Well it was a tough decision, clean or catch up with a friend! so we decided to meet her there.  We love her dearly but we live on opposite ends of the city and don't manage to meet as often as we'd like.  I often think it is sad that everyones lives are so busy it makes pleasant things like catching up with friends difficult sometimes.  I know you understand as it's an increasingly common predicament these days - so I always take the opportunity when it presents itself!  No matter how odd.  I've found myself 'helping out' with the birthing of a cow, sitting in the ER, pitching in with planting of a tree farm, helping a friend stack library book shelves...so catching up at a garage sale sounded great!  No intent to buy anything but solely for the opportunity to see her. 


But as these things go...I did end up walking away with a carboot full of things - all for $20!!  A bunch of bright blue branches for another friend of mine who is doing a trade show in Sydney next weekend and I thought she might like them!  Also a bamboo screen, a soccer ball, a few paper lanterns, two parasols and fake grass covered mounds which I thought my daughter would love for her 'Enchanted Wood' themed bedroom and play (she is 6 and very much in love with those old Enid Blyton books).  Oh!  And the colourful thing is actually a Llama pinata!!  Yes very random I know.  But as I was telling Mr Bok...they are usefull!  All of them!  When he isn't calling me a hippy he is calling me quirky kooky but he married me and he knew what he was in for so he can't complain or so I keep telling him  :)

Afterwards we all went to one of my favourite places, CERES.  They have a fabulous organic market with live music and much of the produce comes from their own gardens, a great little cafe, an interesting nursery with lots of edible plants and a huge flock of chickens!  I always come away feeling so inspired and full of renewed enthusiasm for our backyard - and usually an empty purse too - but this time I resisted the urge to get that orange tamarillo I've been after or the book on permaculture.  Probably because I was thinking about the things in the boot of the car  :)   


http://www.ceres.org.au/about

I'm definitely planting an abundance of sunflowers this year!

After seeing the enormous flocks of chooks at Ceres, Mr Bok doesn't think our small flock is that bad after all.  That's good because I'm bringing home an araucana in a week or so which he doesn't know yet  :)

On the way home we dropped off the blue branches.  My friend loved them so I was very happy.  Two of the shorter blue branches got left behind so have ended up in my daughter's room too. 

See?  That mound of fake grass was perfect as a rest point for the enchanted toadstool! 


The book there is my daughter's favourite and was my favourite at her age when I was tiny.  She hasn't yet giggled at the names in them but I refuse to get her a 'politically correct' copy, so Jo, Bessie, Dick, Fanny, Connie and Dame Slap it is!  Sometimes modern culture goes too far in fear of leading its citizens astray I think and we really lose the innocence of childhood.  I'm waiting for the day she realises what those terms mean in the school yard.  Maybe she won't love the books so much then but until then take us up the Faraway Tree!