Not for sissies

Njam, njam, njam. As a family, we devour a lot of food. We like to eat, we like to celebrate, we like to cook, we like fillet. Enough said!

So I thought an easy way to save would be to tackle to grocery bill. And I would like to dedicate this blog today to all the brave and super-creative people who earn very little money, yet manage to feed their whole family every day. (...and I am ashamed to confess that the money we spend on food every month is almost double than what some people earn in a whole month)

But no more!!! We came up with a 4-prong approach. Like a fork - a four-prong fork; and that is what we eat with; - and that is njam,njam, njam. Sorry - see how easily my mind is distracted by the thought of food.

Prong 1:   Spend less on groceries so we can become richer and Pick&Pay can become poorer
Prong 2:   Produce as much of our own food as possible
Prong 3:   Become more creative with recipes and meals
Prong 4:   Waste less & re-use more

First let's have a paradigm shift to another 4-prong fork (no najm-njam-njam here)

So armed with this approach - we tackled the vegetable garden. David is a wonderful vegetable garden creator, and have planted a massive garden full of the most wonderful veggies. But I also want to try other, more economic ways to grow veggies for the kitchen, so stumbled (literally) over the big plastic bag containing some long-forgotten empty bottle I was going to recycle during one of my other phases. At the same time I also stumbled (figuratively) onto a website with tips on growing upside-down veggies in empty plastic containers. 2 Stumbles do not make a genius, but it did ring a creative bell - and viola - we now have a very ugly, but promising hanging-garden of Sundra.

The bottom bit is our lovely little tomato/green pepper/aubergine plant, and then the mystical top device is the watering system. The biggest danger with the upside-down world of hanging veggies are that they can dry out so quickly. So now we have made little holes in the "proppie", then we fill the top bottle with water, and viola!!!! Drip-irrigation!!!!!! This waters the plants all day - but tonight I am putting little panties on all the watering bottles to serve as filters, as leaves and goggos fall into it and then they block the little drainage holes. Will take a pic and show you in the morning.

I also went a bit bananas over pumpkins, so have planted pumpkins everywhere!!!! Wherever there is a little bit of soil and a ray of sunshine, a little pumpkin/marrow plant got deposited. Every morning when I have my first cup of coffee, i go outside and sing to all my pumpkins. Luckily our nearest neighbours is 500m away, otherwise i would be eating hospital veggies in an asylum by now.

The most amazing thing I learned from the pumpkin-planting episode, is how scared people are of pumpkin plants. There was a type of mass-hysteria in our household because i planted them so close to the house, and do I know how big a pumpkin plant gets and how vigorous it grows and it is going to come and invade the house!!!!! I was the only calm one, as I am in possession of a secret weapon called a SPADE, and as soon as these little buggers dare push their creepy fingers over the concrete - off with their hands!

So please people - do not be scared of pumpkin plants, they are kind, joyful and natural explorers. But remember you are in charge, so do not take any shit from them. On the other hand, they would appreciate a little bit of shit from you.

All they need is a sunny spot, soil, water when they are dry and a firm but loving hand to guide them towards glorious adulthood and then - - - njam, najm, njam.

I have lots of pumpkin and marrow plants left over, so please let me know if you would like to buy one for R5. (I will obviously be advertising pumpkins in this blog at a later stage, as there is no way on earth we can eat all the pumpkins and marrows I have planted)