down to earth

These photos were all taken this morning. Early morning, before the sun hits the vegetables, is the best time to walk around looking for bugs or potential problems. Observation is the key to growing good vegies. You need to know what's happening out there and help the plants along if you notice something going wrong.

I had to buy tomatoes yesterday. We had some of our own and some from my step son's garden but with three avid tomato eaters here at the moment, the time came to go to the store to buy them. Yikes! $5 a kilo for plain old tasteless tomatoes, $10 kg for the "vine ripened" ones. I had a look around at the other vegies - $7/kilo for capsicums (peppers), $4 for a lettuce, $3.50 for a bunch of radishes and the long cucumbers were $3.80 each. It would have cost about $20 just for a couple of salads. I hate to think what the same vegetables would cost if I was buying organic produce. Luckily I only had to buy the tomatoes, we had everything else.

French radishes. These are $3.50 at the store, but are easily grown fresh and organic in the back yard for the price of the seeds and a bit of work planting and watering.

That's the great benefit of growing your own, not only are they organic, they're also fresher, tastier and you're protected from the spikes in prices when there's been a drought, storms or cyclones.

Zucchini. We have just planted the follow ups to these - yellow zucchini. By the time the yellows are ready, these will be pulled out.

I've written about starting a new vegetable garden here so I won't go over that again. I want to give those of you who have started your first vegie gardens, or who are about to, a few tips that I hope will help you grow your vegetables.

Nectarines ripening in the warm sun. No fruit you buy will ever taste as good as that from your own backyard.

Almost all uncontaminated soil will grow food, but with a bit of help, the soil in your back yard will produce very good crops instead of mediocre ones. The one thing that will make the biggest difference is to add aged manure to the soil. Your aim should be to add as much organic matter as possible, but if you can only add one thing, let it be old manure. If you can add compost with the manure you're on your way to good soil, and good soil will give good crops. If you're lucky enough to have your own animals, when you buy manure, or if it is given to you, make sure the animals have not recently been wormed. Manure from wormed animals will kill the worms in your soil. You want to encourage worms, they enrich your soil. At the same time you're developing your vegetable garden you should also start a compost pile or bin. The two go hand-in-hand.

These are Richmond green apple cucumbers which were a popular variety of cucumber in Australia in the 1950s. You can't buy these at the supermarket now, they are only available in seed form to grow in your own vegie garden. The taste is sensational.

And the follow ups to the Richmond cucumbers - Lebanese cucumbers that will be picked small and crunchy in about 8 weeks time.

Think of your soil as a cake. Sure, you can make a cake from a packet and you have a cake. But you can also make a cake using organic flour, backyard eggs, good butter, homegrown carrots, walnuts and spices and you get healthy, delicious cake that everyone will enjoy. The packet cake will fill you but the homemade cake will not only fill your belly, it will add to your nutrition.

A variety of lettuces - red, Cos, butter and frilly. All fresh and waiting to be picked for a salad.

So let's imagine you've added some aged horse or cow manure to your soil, along with your homemade compost. You dig it in (my preferred way) or you add it to your layers in a no dig garden bed. If you can afford to buy a good organic fertiliser, do so, if you can't, buy some blood and bone and sulphate of potash and use them. The blood and bone will add nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus - all necessary for good plant growth and the potash will induce flowering. The ratio is one handful of potash to 10kg of blood and bone. Sprinkle that over your new garden and dig in, along with the manure and compost.

Green lake beans. Hanno loves these cooked - either hot or in a salad. I like them eaten raw straight from the vine.

Now you're ready to plant your seeds or seedlings. You're planting into good soil, so you want to give your plants the best chance to thrive. Get yourself some seaweed concentrate. I use Natrakelp when I can afford it and Seasol when I can't. There is some good info here about organic fertilisers, including Natrakelp. Seaweed concentrate, properly diluted, will help your seedlings over the shock of transplanting. I water my plants with a weak solution of seaweed concentrate every couple of weeks to keep everything healthy. A good trick is to pour some diluted seaweed into a small container before you plant your seedlings. Allow the seedlings to sit in the seaweed for about 30 minutes before you plant. Then plant out and water in. Then pour on some more seaweed to settle the plant in nicely.

The follow ups to the tomatoes. We have tomatoes in large pots, sweet bites and tommy toes in various places in the garden and quite a few planted in the aquaponics garden. One of these is a yellow pear tomatoes, I'm not sure what the others are. In the pots we have Armish paste, beefsteaks and brandywines, in the aquaponics we have dwarf pear, sweet bites and beefsteaks.

Now a word of warning. Never over fertilise your plants. If you start your garden in a similar way to the outline above, you won't need to fertilise much at all. I make up a liquid comfrey fertiliser or worm juice for the leafy greens and apply that every two weeks. Things like tomatoes, peppers and beans, I just plant into rich soil and keep watered. The rule of thumb is you give nitrogen to the leafy greens and a small amount of potash (when planting) to the fruiting plants like tomatoes, beans, zucchinis etc. Give a good deep watering maybe twice a week, depending on your climate, and three times a week in the heat of summer. Try to water your plants in the early morning as this will help you avoid the diseases of humidity like powdery mildew.

There are many reasons to start growing your own food. It's really enjoyable, you can grow organic food for a minimal price, it's as fresh as it can possibly be when you eat it and it has no pesticides or herbicides. But now it will also save you money and ensure your supply of vegetables when the supply might be a bit tight at the shop.

It never occurred to me when I was a spender that I was actually giving away my independence. I thought the opposite. I believed I was the queen of my realm and the more I had and the more dollars I spent, the more power, strength and independence I had. When I stopped spending I realised how pathetically wrong that was.

What I was doing was working in a job I didn't like so I had enough money to pay for a lifestyle I didn't want to live. I was shopping for clothes and shoes to make me look like everyone else, I was buying things for my home to make me feel comfortable in a place I didn't take the time to feel comfortable in, and I was buying foods to comfort and nurture because I didn't feel at ease in my life and I didn't have the time or energy to cook the foods I liked. And the strangest thing is that when I was doing that, I didn't think about the sadness I was feeling, I didn't realise I was unsatisfied and I didn't see the need for change.

I only realised that need when I took myself out of the shopping frenzy and sat alone on my verandah and thought about what I was doing and how far from my ideal life I really was. When I stopped shopping, I saw it in a brighter light and when I saw its ugly side, I didn't want to go back there.

I realised that I could do all those things I used to spend my money on. I could make clothes, I could cook well, I could do my own housework, but when I started doing those things I found that I'd lost many of the skills I grew up with. I'd forgotten how to sew and knit because I paid someone else to make my clothes, I'd forgotten how to cook well because I'd been buying all sorts of foods that didn't require me to exercise my mind and spend my energy on making my truly favourite dishes. When it came to housework, all I knew was to get the Chux and Mr Sheen from the cupboard and wipe. I was really pathetic - a grown woman who didn't know how to look after myself or my family properly; I'd forgotten the skills that all my great grandmothers had passed on to me - I, my friends, was a modern woman - I was dependent on others to help me live.

You don't have to be a genius to shop, you need limited skills to be good at it - all you need is money, or credit, and time. All that time to spend walking through shopping malls searching for something made (usually) in a foreign land by people who are probably underpaid, producing millions of products exactly the same as the previous million, and the million that will follow.

On the other hand, not shopping requires a multifaceted strategy. You need to know how to create, cook, clean and sew, you need to make do with what you have, to reuse, recycle and repair, you need to barter, grow food, preserve, and you need to love doing it. You have to discover for yourself the true beauty of being able to look after yourself, your family and your home with a minimum of outside help. The beauty of it is there if you look.

I am much richer now than I've ever been in my life. I know how to live now. I have the skills to survive a crisis, I have the strength and knowledge to produce my own food and to store it. I can clothe myself and others. All these are real life-engaging and self-empowering skills. But the real skill here is to do it and love doing it. Relearning those lost skills, and then loving the doing of them, is an act of subversion because you're not doing what women and men in our times are supposed to be doing. Nurturing your family and yourself with cooking, gardening, housekeeping, dress making, knitting, making soap, baskets, shawls and jam, and all the other things you learn to do in your post-consumerist life, not only enriches your spirit but it makes you an independent force. Ladies and gentlemen, may the force be with you.

Graphic from allposters.com

I read the following quote for the first time on Jewel's blog. It really sums up, in an eloquent way, how I feel about my home.

If you wanted to gather up all tender memories, all lights and shadows of the heart, all banquetings and reunions, all filial, fraternal, paternal, conjugal affections, and had only four letters with which to spell out the height and depth and length, and breadth and magnitude and eternity of meaning, you would write it all out with these four capital letters: H-O-M-E.

Thomas DeWitt Talmage

My home is such a joy to me nowadays that I fret when I'm away from it. When we went to Brisbane on the weekend, looking for, and not finding, our kitchen appliances, I said more than once, "let's go home". And I meant it. I don't like what I find when I go out. Generally, people are more social but less socialised. There is pushing, rudeness and a "me first" attitude.

I am content at home. I know each and every inch; all the trees, smells and breezes. I know the length and breadth of this place and nowhere else is as comfortable to me as my home. And as the quoted paragraph above says, all tender memories and eternity of meaning are bound up here. It's my important place. It's where I've buried my soul and where I will live until I cease to be.

I spent Sunday afternoon relaxing and stitching on the front verandah. Hanno was out, Tricia went to visit our cousin, and I was well content to stay in my place. I'm enjoying making these curtains for the kitchen. It seems to me that stitching something functional, something that will serve for its usefulness rather than it's beauty, is more rewarding than a merely decorative piece. With each stitch I feel I connect with my female antecedents as I am sure they did similar work at many points in their lives. All the sounds I hear while stitching, all the bird song, the children at play, the wind rustling leaves and a rooster crowing in the distance are all sounds my great great grandmothers, and their great great grandmothers, might have heard while they sat stitching. There is a connection there, made only because I sit at home and stitch. I am privileged to feel that connection.

A friend asked me the other day why I bothered stitching because it was so slow. She thought I should buy fabric already patterned or curtains already made. I mumbled something about enjoying the sewing then we talked about something else. I thought about that again later and one of the main reasons I like stitching by hand is that it is slow. That slow, rhythmic repetition is part of the charm of it. How many solitary active things do we do now that slow us down enough to allow concentration and mindfulness. Not many.

Maybe the world is being divided into shoppers and stitchers. If it is, I think the shoppers will win all the battles, but the stitchers will have beautiful curtains. : )

Here are the curtains Tricia made. I'm really pleased with them, they feel fresh and make the kitchen look bigger. I noticed that Hanno has installed one pull back hook higher than the other. : \ We'll have to adjust that. I have to buy a few hooks for the top of the curtains as there are a few missing, but when they're all fixed, I'll happily live with these curtains for many years. The curtains I'm stitching will take another couple of weeks but I'll post a photo when they're finished.

Tricia saw my other pottery crock when I featured it on the blog a while back so she bought up this much bigger crock for me to use. This one has a water filter inside it but if you take it out, the crock would hold about 10 litres (2.6 gallons). It will be just perfect for making lemon cordial and ginger beer. I mix the drinks up in the crock , then fill bottles from the little tap.

Tricia also found this vintage linen tea towel she thought would fit nicely into my new colour scheme. Isn't it pretty!

I've been honoured with two awards. The first was one given a while back by Linda at Somewhere in Time. Linda has presented me with a You Make Me Smile Award. Thank you Linda, you make me smile too. : )

Tami at Joyful Noise has honoured me with a Thinking Blogger Award. Thank you Tami. When I first started blogging it was my hope that I would help a few people think about their lives in a different way. I also wanted to be influenced and challenged by the lives of other bloggers, so I really appreciate this award.

Hanno and I went to the scratch and dent sale yesterday and the prices were still so high we walked out without even talking to anyone. Such a pity. The sale prices on these appliances were $2000 and above. So today we have our last lead - we're going to a shop here on the Sunshine Coast where we hope to find a bargain. If not, all the old appliances will be going back in when the new benchtop is installed.

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend. Thank you for stopping by today.

Tricia's husband died suddenly a few years ago and she's spent the past couple of years deciding whether she would sell the family home and move to a smaller place. She now lives in a beautiful six bedroom mansion house on the outskirts of Sydney. There is a library, chandeliers, four hectares of bushland and a heated pool set in a beautiful secluded garden with fountains. This last couple of months she's started packing up, decluttering and selling or giving away a lot of her unwanted possessions.

She drove up from Sydney in a car packed to the roof with things she wanted to give to me or to the people at our Neighbourhood Centre. The first day she was here, we took a lot of those things with us and gave them away to people whose needs include the blankets, pillows, coats etc she gave.

She also brought some things she thought I would like. One of those things was mum's button box.

We were both born in the 1940s and grew up as part of Sydney's working class in the 1950s. I guess we both did well for ourselves and although I became middle class, I have always thought of myself as working class. I feel comfortable with those values and the collective flaws and strengths that helped shape us.

Our parents left little in the way of material possessions when they died but what I have of my mother's I really cherish. She gave me the amethyst ring and pendant she was given for her 21st birthday, I have a small fruit knife that was her mother's - it has a bone handle with the name 'jean cullen' carved in it, a little green glass that she liked and some very fine Orrefors glasses that I drink from when I'm sick. I also still have a stainless steel wok she gave me in the 1960s - it must be one of the first non-Asian woks in Australia as no one (except me) used them then.

And now, the buttons.

I went through them yesterday and tried to remember where they were from. I wanted to see, with my mind's eye, the dresses and coats they would have been on. I didn't get far with that because going through the buttons brought back different memories to me. I remembered how mum, and every other woman we knew, saved buttons, string, ribbons, old zippers and fabrics 'just in case' they were needed. And that frugal philosophy was why I had that box of old buttons in front of me.

The buttons were packed in the small, brown, plastic containers that pills used to be dispensed in before the days of pre-packaged bubble packs and child-safe bottles; there were also two little glass vegemite jars. All these were held in a 1970s 'Fresh Pak' plastic box. It must have been one of the first plastic containers sold then. It is brown, with an opaque lid with the words 'Fresh Pak' on it.

I spilled each container out so I could have a good look and along with all the buttons came a flood of childhood memories. It really was a different world then. Now that I look back on it, we, and almost everyone we knew, were what we would now think of as 'poor'. But we didn't feel like that. We had everything we needed, we never went hungry, we took our place within a strong and happy community and we knew everyone, not just in our street, but also in the streets surrounding us.

I was too young and silly to know what people really focused on in their lives then but in our home we rarely talked about money or possessions. My mother taught me valuable things like caring for others, self respect and respectfulness, she told me it was good to be kind, brave and thoughtful, she demonstrated every day the value of hard work and she showed me, by example, the importance of positive role models. So although there may not have been much in the way of physical possessions given from her hand to mine, she left me with the soul of a frugal, hard-working woman and for that I will be eternally grateful.

These are the buttons I will keep. The rest of them will go back to Sydney with Tricia and probably spend the rest of their days, not as they were intended - as a functional part of clothing or furnishings - but as a silent reminder of the days when thrift was a part of almost every life and we all saved things 'just in case'.

She thought I was sitting in a lounge chair stitching, but I was quietly taking this photo. If you're wondering, that little white box has a tiny teddy bear in it, a gift from my other sister, Kathleen.

We've had some good times together these past few days. Nothing too exciting, as is fitting for two old ducks, but good, nonetheless. We've talked and remembered, laughed, had tea and fruit cake and talked some more. Tricia arrived on Sunday night, went to work with me on Monday and to the beach on Tuesday. On Wednesday we finally got the go ahead from the insurance company for the repairs to the kitchen so the three of us went to the builder's showroom to choose a new benchtop and then to the shops nearby to look at some new kitchen appliances. We've decided to replace the cooktop and oven while we have the chance (with the new benchtop) but we're not sure yet if we'll be able to afford what we want. We can afford to replace these things now if we buy lower quality, but we don't want that. We want these things to last a long time so they need to be the absolute best we can afford. Hanno and I will go into Brisbane tomorrow to a scratch and dent sale at Kleenmaid and hopefully pick up some good quality bargains. Some of their stoves are 60% off. If we can't get what we want for a good price, we won't replace anything now.

The flash alerted her there was a photographer lurking, but I couldn't get her to smile.

Yesterday Tricia made the red and white gingham curtains while I started on the kitchen curtains. Tricia bought the gingham for me in Sydney as I couldn't find anyone with it up here. The fabric cost $140. I'm using the lining from the old curtains. I bought two metres of a 60% linen/40% cotton fabric for the kitchen curtains, which cost $8.95 a metre. I've drawn my own design and I'm stitching them before making a simple half window double curtain with a valance. They will be similar to Debbie's gorgeous curtains here.

I think it will take about a week to stitch them. It's a simple pattern of flowers in a tea cup and I have the two sides to do. The red gingham curtains are hanging now and they make such a difference to the look of the kitchen. They're fresh and clean looking and they contrast nicely with the pale butter colour of the walls. I'll take a photo of them later.

Tricia is going to visit friends in Brisbane today and will return on Sunday when we plan on having afternoon tea with Susie and her family; Susie is our cousin who lives near here. I'll catch up on some housework today and tomorrow and hopefully have time to do some work on my ebooks and the kitchen curtains.

I've had a few emails from readers asking about the ebooks. I hope to have the first available for sale in November. There will probably be four or five of them from me and Bel will do one on simple living with a young family. They will be in PDF format and will cost $10 each.

Thank you for stopping by today. I want you all to know that even if I don't have the time everyday to respond to your comments, I read everyone of them and appreciate your loving thoughts and the time you take to make contact. I know many of the readers love reading the comments too and I think they add a lot to my blog. So thanks to everyone who taps away in that little comment box. Oh, and I will catch up with the remaining emails today too. : )

This is when your simple life starts. At this very minute. If you've decided you want to change the way you live and intend to make a plan to live simply, then I want you to think of yourself as living simply. Tell other people too; tell your family, friends and neighbours. Tell them: "I've changed how I live my life, I'm living simply now." You'll find that if you tell others and verbalise your changes, that the change itself will be easier. You'll feel like you've already made inroads on your new life and the change is underway.

I want to emphasise that simple living can be started at any time of your life, with each period having its own challenges and rewards. If you’re in your 50s or beyond, like me, it will put you on the path towards a healthy and ethically-based lifestyle that will allow you to do more good than harm. If you are in the period when you’re nurturing a young family and buying a home, I hope you’ll gain valuable insight into how to build a sustainable and fulfilling life. If you’re younger and just starting out, I hope you will use your simple values to build an ethical and secure base on which to build a fine future.

As soon as you finished reading this blog today, I have a task for you. Your first small step: sit down with a pen and notepad and think about the kind of life you want to live. Picture yourself in your ideal location doing what would make you happy. What is complicating your life? What do you need to change in your life to achieve what you want? Write down the points of change as you think of them. Write down how you believe you could achieve the changes you want. Write down what you’re prepared to give up to make the changes happen. List what you don’t like about your life now. List what is important to you.

Your list will show you what areas you need to focus on, and you can then work through your list point by point. If you’re like me, you’ll need to change a lot to achieve the life you want. Take a bit of time with this first exercise, think about what is important to you and your family and write it all down. It will be very interesting in the coming weeks and months to look at these points again to see how your path or your ideas change. Be aware it won't be all smooth sailing. You'll need to compromise on some of your wishes but maybe you can revisit them in coming months and move them closer to where you want to be.

When undertaking any major change in life you need to be organised to be able to cope with it and do it in the most efficient way. You will probably change a lot of small things to live simply, so organisation is vital. Each simple life is different as well, there is no fixed formula for what we're doing here. Your life will be different to mine, your plans will vary according to the stage of life you're at, if you're married or not, if you have children, if you're working at home or outside the home, there are many variables. You must plan your changes and keep all your information at hand.

I've written before about how to declutter and organise your home, but decluttering is only one part of this organisation. I am going to encourage you to start making lists. Shopping lists, stockpile lists, to do lists. Make up any sort of list that will help you achieve what you hope for. Use your lists to give yourself reminders during the day about what you should be focusing on. Use a calendar to mark important dates like birthdays, anniversaries and meetings. Keep a diary to record notes for yourself and to remind you of what you need to do.

This is your second small step. Start a simplicity journal in which you record new ways of doing things and new ideas you want to work on. The list of how you want your life to change should be the first thing in your journal. It will also hold the general information about your home like your To Do’s, your garden plan and a record of your harvests, when and what you preserve, and any new recipes you find for both food and cleaning. I hope you'll include some of my ebooks in your simplicity journal too.

I recycled one of those old cardboard covered three ring binders, covered it in a fabric and I use that for all my simple notes, recipes and reminders. My journal also contains letters people write to me, seeds that I've decided to plant but haven't planted yet, a calendar so I can mark down what I'm doing, my water meter card, seed and tree catalogues and many recipes.

If you find something online that will help you in your new life, download it and add it to your folder. It is important that you keep a folder to organise your transition to simplicity, not only will it be the repository of all your notes and reminders, it will also document your journey to your new way of living. Keep this folder and your diary together so you always know where they are. You can put in some dividers and have sections for recipes, seed catalogues, ideas you want to try, stories from others who inspire you to be the best you can be. If you're trying to reduce your electricity and water consumption, keep your bills in your folder, along with your weekly meter readings. Tailor your journal to suit what you're doing and it will help you simplify. You'll have all your information in one place and you can add to it or read it easily.

Starting a simplicity journal might sound like an extra burden in a changing life, but being organised will focus you and keep you on track for all the good things that will become part of your simple life.

Many people want to live simply but don’t know how, or where, to start, or even what simple living really is. The simple answer is that simplicity is about many small things that add up to become entire way of life. For me, simple living has been a mixture of personal growth, thrift, making do with what I have, resource conservation, a change in attitude about what is considered success and achievement, slowing down, expanding horizons, living well on less money and making deliberate choices about my life and how I live it. Of course, it encompasses much more than those elements but that’s it in a nutshell. It is a fine honest lifestyle and when you get a taste of it, nothing else will be good enough for you.

I have been trying to set out information in my blog about the practical aspects of a simple life. Things like how to:

budget and shop mindfully
store and preserve food
grow some of your own food
keep chickens and worms
organise your home and declutter
and how to make some of homemade cleaners

Many of these tasks are things that will help you live simply and generally they're all fairly easy to do. The difficult part of your simple living change will be to have a deep understanding of how you are personally responsibile for how you live your life, to develop simple values and consistently live according to them, and to change your mindset about spending and possessions.

We live in an increasingly artificial world. We can have anything our heart desires, for a price. If you’ve got the money, you can buy disposable mops, toothbrushes and underwear, robotic vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers, fake jewellery as well as authentic gems that may have cost someone their life, frozen dinners, fake finger nails and suntans, cigarettes that might kill you, clothes that look divine but hide their exploitative creation, and meat, fruit and vegetables that look perfect and healthy but often aren’t.

Many people have deliberately cut themselves off from the natural world. Some won’t eat a tomato that has had a bug on it but will happily eat vegetables that have been fed with artificial fertilisers, meat that comes from animals that are poorly treated and fed unnatural food, or fish and prawns that have lived their lives in polluted waters far from our shores. Even though an important part of simplicity is to have enough money to live, one thing is certain, simple living cannot be bought. No credit card has enough credit, no amount of dollars, euros or gold will deliver it to your door. It is one of those rare things of true and enduring value that you have to work for.

I'd be lying if I told you that simple living is easy. It is satisfying, rewarding, healthy, beautiful, it makes you feel happy and content, it's substantial and important and necessary, but it isn't easy, especially when you start. But it's a wonderful and significant way of life and I hope all of you decide that even if it isn't easy, it is how you want your life to be.