The last of the capsicums and zucchini's for the season
As the cooler weather arrives its a busy time in the garden. Its amazing to think it was only 6mths ago we started our garden, it was my birthday wish to have a vegetable garden.
I wanted a garden for a few reasons....
- to save money
- better for the family, knowing what we are eating, fresher meaning more vitamins etc
- to teach the kids how easy it can be - a skill for life
- to get our youngest involved in hope he would learn to eat vegetables
- to complement our chickens - scraps go to the chickens - chicken poo makes good compost - win/win
- a hobby
To save money - I can't even put a price on what we have saved in the last 6mths I have bought only 2 lettuce, no tomato's, no spinach, no zucchini, no pumpkins, no capsicum, no bok choi, no beans and I'm sure a few others I can't think of right now. The savings of not buying these things has been HUGE! We also have a stockpile in the freezer of some of these items to carry us partly through the winter. I also made more preserves which everyone will be enjoying those over the next few months too.
Better for the family - Its great being able to just go up the back and pick fresh veggies for dinner, knowing they are fresh and full of goodness lost by store bought veggies.
To teach the kids how easy it can be - All three kids have spent lots of time helping out in the garden and all do it of free will and admit they enjoy it. The older boys at 16 and 14 both say they will grow at the very least lettuce, spinach and bok choi when they leave home in pots if need be. They can't believe how expensive those vegies are given how quickly and easily they can be gown.
To get our youngest involved in hope he would learn to eat vegetables - Master 5 now eats alot more vegetables than he was just a few months ago in fact stir fry is now one of his favourite closely followed by quiche. He loves helping in the garden eating as he goes! Just 6mths ago he would eat carrot, banana and strawberry, not alot else. He now tries things before saying he doesn't like it and likes alot more!!
To complement our chickens - The chickens are enjoying the scraps from the garden and come spring the garden will enjoy the compost from the chickens. The pallet compost bins are coming along nicely, can't wait to use it on the garden come spring.
A hobby - its a great hobby, rewarding because of all the above reasons.
So as the warmer months are behind us and we move to the cooler months, with the lessons we have learnt so far we move forward to winter crops. I've never grown much in the way of winter veggies so this will be a much bigger learning curve but we look forward to the next chapter and the goodies to come in the following months.
aus.keeys
