Ep 009 - Self Sufficiency, Stock and Marital Aids

In this episode Averill and Bernadette catch up to discuss ways in which they practice self sufficiency at home.  From home made stocks and jams, to soups and stewed fruits, we discuss the projects we like to do hoping to inspire you to try some too.  Peppered with a health dose of laughs, we hope you enjoy this summer episode.

Transcript

Before we start today, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, recognising their continued connection to this land. Traditional custodians of all our lands, from the water running through our creeks, the air we breathe in our mountains and the stars that shine brightly in the sky. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Hello and welcome. Welcome to Seedy Chats. Hello and welcome back. Welcome to Seedy Chats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners, Avril, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favorite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro, or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. Welcome back, Brunadad. Welcome back, Avril, and welcome back to what we are now referring to as our seedy chums. Are we? Yeah. I'm loving it. I'm loving seedy chums. Let me know if you think it'll catch on. Anyone out there like it as well? Like it as much as Brunadad? Seedy chums. Avril's told me about a connotation of the word chum that I wasn't aware of, which can be a woman's mensies. Yes. When you put it into Google, it does come up in Indian culture, I think it is, Bernadette. And then Bernadette did explain to me why it would represent that. And it also pedigree chum. We were brought up with pedigree chum. Yes. Yeah. And I have used the word chum a lot. You said you've used it a lot. I'm pretty chummy with chum. Yeah. Seedy chums anyway. Yes. Oh, I did a Dipper. A Dipper. A Dipper. Craig bought me a beautiful Dipper and a beautiful pair of secateurs. And I forgot to bring the secateurs with me actually. For those who don't know what a Dipper is, it's a little T shaped hand tool. with a pointy end, isn't it? And you stick it in the ground and it makes a little hole and then you put like your garlic clove or your tulip or whatever in. Yeah, it makes planting a little bit easier. So you obviously could see me struggling and sticking my fingers in and then it's all behind me now. So which does not bother me at all. I actually, I went to make some little jam jar terraniums with my friend the other day and she had a mask on, she had gloves on, handling soil. And she was like, would you like a pair of gloves? And I was like, God no. And she is a scientist. I do get it. She was just a little bit careful. She's used to PPE. She's definitely used to PPE and she during COVID as well, she has an autoimmune disease. Right. So she's probably just used to it as well. So she was comfortable wearing it, but she wanted to protect me as well. And I was like, I'm fine. Anyway, I've got a Dibra now. So this one has beautiful metal. I have it with me. Oh, do you have one like that with the metal? I have three dibbits. I have that exact one, that exact one in rose gold and a wider one but it is the most used tool out of all my tools in the garden. Yep, it's very handy. And he also bought me a beautiful pair of secateurs with leather handles. They're gorgeous. I've been using them. I don't actually know where I put them then. You'll have to get a little sharpening stone and oil and look after them. Well, I've just after I saw it was it on Gardening Australia, where if you keep a bucket of sand and by your back door and if you oil your your secateurs or anything you want to keep and maintain and then you stick them into the sand, it prevents that such an easy little tip. It prevents them. It keeps them. and nice and safe and it keeps them from rusting. Yeah and I've got like, it's almost like a little pen and it's got oil at one end and a little sharpening stone at the other. And I just, and I got that just from an online gardening store. I think it was 10 bucks. It was really cheap, but I don't really know what I'm doing, but I try. Yeah, right. I try to look after it. I do, I must say I'm pretty good at sterilizing the secateurs from one plant to another. Do you do that? What do you use? Just an alcohol spray? Alcohol spray. Or a little wipe, yeah. Yeah, or if the hand sanitizer spray is closer, I'll just use that. Yeah, fair enough. With COVID, I guess that's tough sort of more. But yeah, I've just got an alcohol spray. Yeah, that's great, because you should put your secateurs from one plant to the other. You've got your secateurs and your dibber. Got my secateurs, so when I opened, so that my little story at Christmas was, when I opened the dibber, I went, ooh! Craig, thank you. And we had family there and they weren't too sure what this was exactly for. Did they think it might be a marital aid? See where you're going with this. No, my story's a lot cleaner than this, Bernadette. I opened it up and, for fuck's sake, Bernadette. I opened it up. We'll have to pause the picture a bit. If I had been recording this, I went, Craig, it's forgetting our children to bed. So my kids were kind of a little bit, well, eyes wide open and then realized I was messing. But my god, I was going to say godchildren. They're not there. And they're not grandchildren. Thank you. Nieces and nephews. So my niece and my nephew though, uh, would probably still be getting used to my humor and they were kind of extremely worried, extremely worried as I was poking it in the air, doing some air pokes. In a sort of psycho killer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, they were horrified. And then they kind of started to react after my children and realized it may not have been as yeah, that I wasn't been as serious as they thought I was. But no, definitely not. They are honestly the most useful tool I have. I tell you when I wish I had one, I've got something actually here for you. All of the bulbs from Floriart and can I tell you Avril? I've also cured them for you. So they're ready to go in, ready to go in in April. But, um, thank you. What an adventure that was. So I thought I didn't even go with any tools. So they're like, bring your, bring your black bag to Floriade. That's a big flower festival that we have here in Canberra. And at the end of the festival, you bring your bag. It's $15. That goes to charity. We bought it when we were at Floriade. So we bought a bag at Floriade. paid $15 and then you were, when, when Flaury had ended, they, um, they put aside a day and invited everyone back with their bags to fill them with all the bulbs. You dug them and filled them, but I was away. The great dig or something. The great dig and it was all for charity. It was great actually. Was it? Not so much. I didn't bring any tools. We were going to go together, but. Cause they didn't say that. And I thought, I don't know. I thought maybe because for some reason I just thought it would be like, Very loose soil and very easy to get to them. The beds are built up, right? It wasn't so loose. Some are. Some of those big circular huge beds just in. Where did you go? Cause I had my eyes on some of the bulbs. I was like, I've got a strategy. I want these purple ones. By the time I got there, I was 15 minutes from the start. 15 minutes cause I couldn't get a park. You know what it's like over there. And you had family with you. They had family with me. When I get there, the vultures had descended. I went into this crazy panic. Oh, I'm happy. I was like, ah, every man for themselves. And I'm sitting there and I'm trying to pull these bulbs and all these people are, I don't know if people know, but you can't just rip the greenery off the off the tulip, for example, you can't just rip the leaves off because the. bulb needs to absorb all of the energy from those leaves. Which is good actually to talk about at the moment because I have a few bulbs that are still green and a bit lifeless, but I'm like, I really want to get rid of them, but should I leave them? Sometimes if they're sort of half half and they're looking crummy, I just get rid of them or you could pull them and dry them in the garage, which is what I did with these. Yeah, okay, yeah. But people are just pulling all the greens off and just filling their bag with bulbs. I'm like, you don't know what you're doing. And it was out of chaos. I have, it was the biggest work and I think I've done this year still to date. I was profusely sweating. Mum lost her kneeling pad and all the madness. She's like, I don't know, I don't know what's wrong, okay, of course. She goes, I don't know where, what's happened to it, it's just gone. I don't know, it's stolen it. But we got the bulbs. So I think next year I'd be going with a pitchfork and I'd be getting there early. But I'm still, I didn't know if it was worth it, but I worked it out. If it's about $3 worth. If it's about three dollars a bulb, we definitely got over a hundred dollars worth of bulbs, but then I got lots of those beautiful John quills that they had. Oh, yes. No one was touching them. Because they're smelly. They smell lovely. I love the smell. Not inside though. I like. They smell a bit like urine inside, don't they? It's like, oh God, where's that smell coming from? Oh, they smell like springs on the way to me. Yeah, so no one was touching the John Quill, so that's the big yellow ones in there. That's all I have in here now, it's John Quill. No, no, no, you've got half John Quill's half tulips. Sorry, I'll take that back, that sounds very ungrateful. And then the next day I can't remember, something happened and it was really physical and I'd used all my energy at that bulb thing the day before and I was like, oh my gosh, I think, anyway, I was... It was something important, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't know, but I was... There was a lovely idea when we had planned, we'll come back and we'll do it together. And then I went over to Ireland and I was like, sorry, Bernadette. And people were prepared. Obviously it wasn't their first rodeo. So people had those little wagons and then they had pitchforks and all this other stuff. And I'm just turning up there going, but luckily I ended up getting my little hands on a trowel at one stage. But otherwise it was just, you talk about getting in the dirt. I was digging the dirt like a rabid dog. Literally. And squatting, you have to squat the whole time because everyone had already descended. The only bits left were like the very center of a 20 meter circle display. So I had to like crawl all the way in and then squat over everything for 20 minutes. Oh, I'm so disappointed I missed it. Next year. It made me appreciate that garden bed I've got out the back where I can't access things because actually that's refreshing in comparison. Yeah. They're all big bads, aren't they? They start them really early too, it's pretty amazing. It'll be interesting to see how these perform. I can't wait, yeah, yeah. Hopefully good because there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears in them. Today we've got an episode for everyone where we're talking about a word of the day. We haven't done this for a while. Self-sufficiency. It's really two words of the day, but anyway. I've hyphenated. We'll, we're at phrase of the day. What does it mean to you, Bernadette, being self-sufficient? Something that I'd do myself that otherwise you'd be outsourcing to someone else. Is that a lame definition? What does it mean to you? Oh, what does it mean to me? It just means about thinking a little bit about a little bit more about something. Yeah. Trying, trying, just trying. And also thinking about where something's come from and how it's made. Yeah, yeah. I became probably a little bit more aware of it. I didn't... with my cleaning products when I moved out to a semi-rural lifestyle. And then my husband was like, so we've got a septic, so you can't use X, Y and Z. And then I was like, why was I ever using them anyway? Really? Because any of the products that I've introduced now, they're spot on. They're fantastic. And do you make any of your own cleaning products? I use a lot of vinegar. Yes. Use a lot of vinegar. Use a lot of bicarb. Use a lot of lemon. And you can get cleaning vinegar. Yes. I mean normal vinegar is fine, but cleaning vinegar is slightly more acidic and cheaper as well. I just pick up if I see something unspecialed. And yeah, I think something like Windex is as simple as a bit of cheap vodka, vinegar. Yeah. And if you want some essential oil, a bit of, yeah, if you want to put like some people put their... leftover orange peel and things like that just to give it a bit of botanical on some water but you'd be amazed at how simple you can make these things and they're still really effective. That's right even just your peels in your vinegar for a spray, lemon in your vinegar for a spray as well. And if you've got sensitive people in your house it makes a lot of sense as well. It does it's a great softener like when I when I thought about using it as a like a fabric softener vinegar I was like, can't do that because you'd smell. People think that they think it's going to make their clothes stink. Yeah, nothing. There's nothing at all. And I actually... Bleach is a lot more of a lingering smell. That's right. To use on washing. Yeah. So I, my friend has really bad eczema, eczema, wherever you're from. And years ago, that's all she would use in her laundry. So I knew about it years and years and years ago before I started using it myself. And then I was like, why wouldn't I, why would I do this? It's a lot better for your clothes. Your clothes last longer as well. One of those aha moments, like when you sort of swap to a. And then you kind of go, what is actually in that when you look? A lot of the packets though, you have to be aware, you can't, they don't have ingredients on there. You actually have to go on and look at chemicals online. I've often bought a few, what I thought were green. You know, they were in nice brand bottles and they represented everything that I love about an eco product. I would say pretty much any cleaning product that you make that's natural and eco-friendly shouldn't really be more than four ingredients. It's a bit of a general rule. The more ingredients is when you're sort of going, what's going on there? Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, so you like your, your self sustainable to be outsourced. Oh, no, no, no. Self sustainability to me means something that, for example, you know, I make my bacon. Yes. So instead of having someone else make the bacon, I'm outsourcing it to someone else. I'm doing that in between step from when it's, you know, from the pig to the bacon. Yes. I do a fair bit. I like the process. I like doing things myself. I like the sense of accomplishment. I like knowing what's in things. And you and I like. um pottering so I like having little things to keep me occupied. Um so one of the biggest things I do I've got here and it's um one of my favorites is powdered stock. Yep. So that's just celery, carrot, onion in the dehydrator. Yes. Um and I especially do this with this you know when you first get the celery and you've got all those leaves they're perfect for this that you're not necessarily going to use in the dish. My dehydrator is six trays so I do two trays of celery, two trays of onion, two trays of carrot, then on top of them I put parsley. Dehydrate that right down and blend that. And I blend that with a couple of tablespoons of coarse sea salt. And then I put that instead of using stock powder, stock cubes, things like that, I put that in nearly every single dish that I cook. So the ones that you'd buy in the supermarket would be like Knorr stock cubes or? Yes, or the little canisters of stock powder, but a lot of those- can have MSG in them. And again, you can get a liquid form too. Yeah. Like the liquid, I actually keep a few liquid forms in my, well like a carton of milk, it's a carton of stock. I make liquid stock every fortnight. So every fortnight, so all of my scraps that I'm using throughout the week, and I know people say this and you think, but I could never actually do that, it's such a muck around. Honestly, once you start doing these things, it's just the same as putting your socks in the sock drawer, you just get used to it. But I, you know, when I cut off all the tops of the onions and the carrot peels and the butter, the celery, I start adding all that into a freezer bag throughout the fortnight. And then once a fortnight, we always have a roast chook as well. I keep the carcass, put that all in the freezer. And then when I'm ready, boil that all up for at least an hour. It's a great idea is to throw, just throw it in the freezer. Throw it in the freezer. And then bring it back in. And then build up, you know, depending on how quickly you're using. Sometimes you'll have a lot of onion one day, sometimes you'll have carrots the next, so you can wait until you've got everything you need. I boil it all up, I've got a bay tree out the back, but you could use dry bay leaves, some peppercorns, and parsley and thyme from the garden, boil that all out. And throughout the week as we make rice in the rice cooker, I use the stock instead of using water, I use it for gravy sauces. Again, I use it in nearly everything. Just gives everything a lot more depth of flavor. Yeah, the flavor. It would do, it'd be beautiful. Can I try a little bit of that? You can. So, Brennan has a jar here in front of her just for the visual and in the jar there's like a little wooden spoon that she takes it out with. See how it's a little bit dry? Yeah. They're caked together. Yeah. There's no anti-caking agent, which is what the other stuff would have, but it's no bother because. Sorry. I just. I don't even taste them. You're so funny with your tasting. I know. But at least we know this is edible, right? Oh my God, it's beautiful. And it's so easy, honestly. Oh, my lord, it's beautiful. It's actually like a real... It reminds me of my dad's. My dad used to make a clear soup, a clear vegetable soup. Yes. That reminds me of the taste of it. And if you don't like, my husband doesn't like the consistency of onion, for example, but this is all powdered. So you get the flavour without the interruption of the actual onion. And then... Is there garlic in there or is it just onion? That's just onion. It's pretty impressive. And then I, but if I do have dehydrated garlic, I would chuck that in as well. Like whatever you have. Yeah, whatever you have, yeah. And then I never used to like celery and I don't particularly like it fresh, but in something like this, I mean, what do the French call it? There's a name for it. The carrot, celery and onion, and it's the base of a lot of French dishes as well. Yeah, right. It's called mirepoix. Mirepoix. Something else that you do. I'm gonna do this. This is a great idea. I tend to just put everything that I have, any leftovers in my fridge, I do a soup. It's also just so, you just so little space, doesn't it? So it's quite convenient. It's one of those things that anyone that started doing, like mum starts doing it and she swears by it now, she puts it in a spag ball. So do you reckon, does your mum, were you brought up seeing your mum do something like that when you were younger? Yeah. Which is interesting, isn't it? Because... I think you're more inclined to relate to something as well if it's in your memory, it's in your DNA. Also mum empowered us with that example because there's nothing that I look at that I think well mum would have given it a go or mum has done that so I can do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Charlotte, we'll see you doing that now. And so you're breeding it into where you're… Yeah, you're putting it into her memory. I do always think if there's a generation in the future that for whatever horrible reason needs to go back to bear, go back to- Back to basics. Back to basics a little bit, that it's a good skill to pass on down the family line, isn't it? Well, we're kind of losing it a little bit. And something so basic, because people might look and think that's in the too hard basket. So they- they wouldn't do it. I think it's a great idea. So I, I, anything that, that I can think that I do that will be similar would be, I just do a soup and then I freeze my soup and then I, I will take that out and I will put that into whatever I might be making. So you use that as a base? Yeah. Yeah. I use that as a base. Yeah. Do your spaghetti bolognese or casserole. Yeah. Yeah. Like a, like a veg, a veggie soup. And then, um, so I love stews. And then my stews always end up. Good Irish stew. Good Irish stew. I love chicken stew. Chicken stew is my favourite, which isn't traditionally an Irish stew, but then I will, that could turn into a curry. Yeah. You know, so I kind of have that base and then, or it might be a pie or, so I always have. So the other evening Craig came home and he was like, what's for dinner? And I was like, soup, sorry. Well, I love a soup for dinner sometimes. Oh, it was gorgeous. So beautiful. So I had it at Christmas. I'd made a massive pot of pumpkin soup of my one of my last pumpkins that we'd grown. So just been sitting outside, cut it up and it was so basic. And my sister-in-law was like, that is so tasty because I put the scapes into it. I mean, I say it was so basic, but I threw our own garlic into it. Oh, ever. I threw the scapes in as well. So tasty. So tasty. So I had some of that leftover. So the other night, that's what I took out. So I could probably relate to this, but more of my soups. What I like about yours is you could use any vegetable that maybe, so I throw very little vegetables out. I will either, if we're going away, I will blanch any veggies I've got in the fridge and then I will freeze them and I will use it that way. Or you could make a soup, like you're saying, with any veggies you've got leftover, freeze that. and then use it later because the best, you know, better than composting, of course, is less waste in the first place. That's right, it's to use it all. You're food wasted, so. But I like the idea of freezing stuff, is having a little bag in there and just throwing it in, because there's a few things that like my kids, there's always little bits of carrots around my place. They just go into the fridge, they'll take out carrots and they love celery. They'll always be little bits just left. They'll leave back on the counter, just left. I mean, it's not as if I'll be taking it from the couch. I suppose I probably could wash it off and put it in the freezer. But I do. I'll grab them and they'll go into my little compost bin that I'll be popping out to my worms. But in theory, I could have like a little bag in the fridge that I just kind of. pop them into and then boil them up and... I chuck them straight in the freezer and if I've got mushrooms left over I'll throw them because I'm sort of the only person in my family that has mushrooms so it's not too uncommon to have a few of those left. But as you say freezing I think is the most accessible and easy place for people to start when it comes to preserving something. That's right and not being able to use it at the time, not having the time. Whack it in the freezer and then take it out when you do at the time. And some things take better, will go better freezing. Other things like potatoes that are very watery, I think everyone's probably experienced that they don't really do as well. When you, well it depends how you do it sometimes but certainly with any vegetables fresh from the garden that you can't use, cauliflower, beans, peas, anything like that, blanch them in boiling water just for two minutes straight into an ice bath. and then into the freezer and they'll last you a good three to six months that way and you just throw them in a dish when you're ready to use them. Yeah, it's great. I probably do that a good bit with herbs. I'll and I think that's looking a little bit lifeless. I've just got like this really thin tray in the middle of my freezer and I'll put all my herbs in there if I feel. That's a good tip. Yeah and then I just, they look a bit sad when they're frozen but they seem okay. Like I just kind of take them out and put them into my... I even freeze. You do with oil, like do you ever do those oil cubes? People do those oil cubes and freeze them. I haven't done them before. I haven't done them either. I even do garlic. We grow all of our garlic, you probably are about the same. You could probably grow nearly all of your garlic for the year. So you go from this point of having this huge harvest and having everything available and then... Yeah. Some of it you can cure and it'll store and then some of it I peel it all down, especially the elephant garlic with the huge cloves because it's so easy to peel and I'll just peel them, blitz them up in the food processor, put them in a ziplock bag or similar. I've got a reusable ziplock bag that I use for that and then I sort of divide them at the back of a knife into little cubes so that when they freeze you can easily snap a portion off but even though I've got garlic all Sometimes when it's after work and you're tired, I just snap that off and it's just easier than having to peel and deal with the garlic. What else in your house? So is there anything food-wise like this that you also do? Yeah, I do a lot of jams. So, you know, we've just come out of berry season. So all the boysenberries, raspberries that we had and strawberries, I'll turn into jam. My family loved jam. They use a lot of jam. maybe 40 jars of jam at the moment, but remembering that's really seasonal and that'll last us a whole year until we're ready to use the next batch. Do a lot of dried fruit, do a lot of canned fruit. So my daughter loves mandarins, they're seasonal. So I can them. So that's putting them in sort of a sugar syrup and then boiling them when they're sealed in jars for long-term storage, just how you get canned peaches or canned fruit. So we do a lot of canned fruit. I do pickles because when cucumber season comes in... You're gonna have loads. Yeah, yeah, so I do lots of pickles and lots of... One of my dad's favourite is green tomato chutney. So I do that every year with the rest of... Just at the end of the season before the frost hits and you've got all your green tomatoes left on the vine. Yep. We do our own bacon, as I said. So your last bacon was beautiful. Did I tell you that? Yeah. It was gorgeous. We've... tweaked it a little bit. We've got the next batch in the fridge today actually. It smokes tomorrow. Yeah. Really? Oh, how have you tweaked it? So last time it was a bit too salty so I think I over cured. We left it in, so basically you get a big slab of pork belly without the rind. Yes. You cover that in a mixture of salt, sugar, paprika, black pepper. And then you put that in the fridge and you turn it every day for seven days. And you'd be amazed how much moisture that leeches out. of the meat and then also it's packing flavour in. And then today's day seven, rinse all of that off, put it back in the fridge uncovered to really dry out. Yeah, beautiful. And then tomorrow we smoke it for about three to four hours at a pretty low, pretty low, I think it's about 63 degrees Celsius. The longer you can smoke it, the more of that smoky flavour that you get in. And then... we bring it in, we cut off all the fat, it's quite fatty, I render all that fat down and use that delicious bacon fat on potatoes, on roasted potatoes and stuff like that. Oh, Bernadette. Even if you're just doing a bolognese, if you start with just a tablespoon of bacon fat instead of olive oil, it really brings flavor. You know? Oh, it's beautiful. Oh, even in a soup, delicious in a soup. Of course. So tell me when you render the fat, what does it look like? You cut off the big chunks of fat. Yes. I just put it in a pan on the lowest temperature, really low, and it will just render all the way down to an oil. No way, really? Yeah, yeah. And you'll be left with these little crispy chunks, which are my husband's favourite thing in the world, but I don't think they're edible, but each to their own. Yeah, right. Would it be like pork crackling? No. It's... Like not the crunchy bit of pork crackling, but that bit under the crunch. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, it's sort of like that next layer. Yeah. Because there's no rind. Yeah, okay. Mmm. Mmm. And then we, yeah, we cut that up portion. Yeah, I love it. I don't think we'll ever go back. It's one of those things with the bacon. Whenever Andrew says, when are we making more bacon? It's not let's go buy bacon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, you've put all that, the hard yards in. Why wouldn't you enjoy it? Like it would be so much nicer. And my husband likes the bacon really smoky so you can control those things. That's a hot smoker that we use, but if you use a cold smoker, you can expose it to the smoke a lot longer and get even more flavor in. Bacon's particularly good for smoking because fat absorbs that smoky flavor and bacon's very fatty. So if you get a cold smoker and you're not worried about cooking it, you can put it in and out of the cold smoker for three or four days in the winter. really infuse it with that smoky flavour. Yeah right, that's great. Love it. I guess self-sufficiency would also be, I see you a lot in the game, like you're doing a lot of things yourself, building things, designing things. Yeah. Like so it's not just food and eating. It's not just your food, no, no, no it's not. And I think it's just being mindful. So I talk to the kids about little things like their toothbrushes. So we've been trying to move away from plastic toothbrushes and just have wooden ones. And that's pretty easy to do now because a lot of supermarkets have wooden ones. I think self-sufficiency, you sort of embody the greater meaning, which is what I'm sort of trying to talk about as well, which is doing things yourself, not being afraid of just getting in and doing what you have to do or trying something or, you know, we've... never grown potatoes, we'll figure it out. Or if we need a trellis, like I often see you at the garden and someone goes, someone might need something like a trellis and you go, right, well, let's put one up now. Like there's your very, hey, let's. I get it, I know, cause when, I mean, I would probably be tying it with twine or like having cable ties to, people would be probably thinking nails and hammers. And if I didn't have that available to me at the time. You'd just get it done. I'd just. get it done and get it up. I'm like, you've just put that in. It needs something to creep up. We're not building a residential apartment. That's right. Yeah, we're not. And we may not want that there next growing seed, like our next crops. So we probably do want it to be movable or whatever. I did do that in the garden one day with a lady, remember? And yeah, and we, I got it up for her. Yeah, it is about trying. Actually, a friend of mine minded my little girl and her little cousin, that Thursday before Christmas, she'd done some stone painting with them. And I bought her a yam and I saw a yam. She's had a sweet potato. Sweet potato. Yeah. And she does candied yams for for Christmas. Actually, it's a Thanksgiving dish. So she would do them in November for Thanksgiving. And but I saw this, it was branded a yam. And I bought it for her to say thank you for looking after the girls that morning and doing some crafts with them. And she went, I don't want that. And I was like, that's a bit rude. Why? And she's like, I don't know how to grow it. She's American. And I was like, you just stick it in the ground. It's just like a potato. And no, couldn't do it because it had to be right in her mind. This is such a good point, Avril. So many people... let perfect get in the way of good enough and then don't even try to start with. And I said to her, I don't even, I've never grown one of these before. I said, I knew what a yam was, but I bought it because it had that name on it. Like, and I knew yams where that term was used more in the US. So I said, you've got a plantage. Anyway, a few weeks have gone past since this. So she got the week, the Christmas week, that Thursday. And I went out to her on Monday. She went, I haven't planted it. it and I went okay I'm gonna do it for you. That'd be great. Yeah. So I literally put it in a sack. Yes. So I got I said look it's not ideal but if you don't want to don't dig it into your ground because she has a lot of clay so I was trying to make it easy for her if she was to do it again. Actually guys potatoes fantastic for clay because as they grow and expand the tubers it breaks the clay up. Breaks it down doesn't it. Anyway I had a sack in the car got the sack out we can just put it on top of that bit of Um, it's portable if she's not happy with her, it is or changes their mind. Yeah. And I said, if you don't like it, the bottom's going to come past anyway. You just lift it up. It's all going to fall out. It doesn't matter. I'm going to spread the soil. You're not really, and I'm here. This is that easy. A lot of people just have to overcome that first obstacle. It's just that sort of throat, that paralysis by analysis. Yeah, that's right. Paralysis by analysis. I love it. Yeah. So she was, she was paralyzed by this. Yeah. I mean, would you make jam? I do, yes. So I tend to, when I have an oversupply of fruit, I'll do a proper jam and I'll put it in jam jars, I'll do it properly. But I tend not to have that at the moment. Like the last few years I haven't had that. Oh, and you've got the, you know, two hungry kids and you probably... They literally just eat you out of house. So my friend down the coast gave me plums and I thought, I'm going to, here we go, I'm on to Mark's Worcestershire sauce. Yeah. Callan, I think, smashed 10 plums in a minute. Gone. I swear to God. And then proceeded to tell Mark, I love those plums, can I have more? Which I thought was hilarious. And he brought me in more and I went, here we go. I might get my plums. No, no, no, he loves them. So he smashed them. So what I find is, so I always end up with a little bit of everything at the moment. So I don't have a lot of... one fruit because my kids are smashing through it but I might have like three plums then all of a sudden they've decided they don't want them anymore there's three there and I was like darn you and so I've been cutting up any fruit that's left so I'll stew three fruit um yeah I'll stew three fruits and over Christmas I made I got into chia seeds oh my lord And I'd be making like pudding. So I'd have the stew fruit with the cheesy pudding. Yum, yum, yum. Oh my God, it was amazing. Such an easy breakfast. Do you do the cheesy pudding with coconut milk? That's right, yeah. I didn't even have coconut milk. I just use regular milk and a little bit of vanilla essence. We've got old lactose free. So we do a lot of coconut milk for alternatives. But so yummy and the texture. Oh, they were divine. Like absolutely divine for breakfast. You can even do. I've even got canned apple pie filling. Oh yeah. So it's the filling of an apple pie. So if someone comes over and I nearly always have a dough crust in the freezer. If I make one, I usually make two and I put the other one in the freezer. And so if I know someone's coming, you can pretty quickly defrost the crust, roll it out, open that jar, it can be sitting on your shelf for six months. Open that jar, tip it in, put it in the oven. It looks like this amazing thing, but it's taking you just minutes to throw together. And that's where, so I will freeze my three fruits. So I would take that out of my freezer and put it into my dough crust and use that. I'm great at stewing, stewing is great. I'm really, really good at stewing. And even the other day. If you do do a jam and it doesn't set properly, so jam is a little bit of a science. And if you don't get everything quite right, sometimes it doesn't set, it's a bit runny. Yeah. I just say it's stewed fruit and you use it on ice cream. It's just as just as bloody delicious. That's right. And like I don't mind a runny jam. So yeah, so being self-sufficient, it's by thinking about the bigger picture, wastage. Or it might be and you're looking for an alternative. So, for example, you were posting I was making sauerkraut on the weekend. Yes, we love sauerkraut here, but I especially like to make it for my daughter because she's lactose intolerant. I try to help with that healthy gut. Yes. That those fermented foods are really good for the gut. But a lot of the sauerkraut that you buy tinned, as Mark was telling us, that sauerkraut that you get from the supermarket, if it's not live and not fermented, it's not giving you those benefits. I'd never connected those dots. And why would you? Why should you? So now I'm like, I'm making it all myself. I want it live. So it might just be that you want a different product or a product that's not as easy to get. You don't want the commercially more... you know, storable shelves, sturdy product you want the live, yeah, so that's, you know, bubbling away. Maybe you'll have to do a little video as to how easy it is to make a sauerkraut. I haven't ventured, I said I'm gonna do it. I haven't done it. And I went to the farmer's markets, you encouraged me to go to the farmer's markets. Oh yeah, you've been there, yes. Did you go with Andrew? I went with Andrew. Did he love it too? Because Craig really enjoyed them. He's in, he's all in. Where we're all in, that's what we're gonna do. Once a month we're gonna do it. Yeah. Because it is a bit of a journey, but. When I got there, this little stall had these cabbages, Avril. The most perfect cabbage you've ever seen. And when you picked it up, the tightest leaves, and when you picked it up, it was like you were picking up dark matter. It was so heavy, so dense, so perfect. And I went, so I'd sort of been thinking about the sauerkraut since Mark had said that. And I went, today's the day. I mean, you take it home. I've got a mandolin. Crunch it all up. So you get it, mandolin, shave it all down, put it in the bowl, sprinkle it with 40 grams of salt for the amount of cabbage that I had, crunch it with your hands for five minutes, massage it and all this water comes out. I also added some caraway seeds because I like that sort of German sauerkraut flavor. You pack that into a vessel and I'll tell you what people, I had to pivot here because I have a beautiful fermenting jar with a proper air lock lid. What did you put on top of it? Nothing, you just put that into the jar. I was going to put it into my proper fermenting jar with the airlock lid. And Andrew Blessim was trying to help and he boiled the kettle to rinse it out. The kettle broke. And it just shattered. Right? And I went, what am I going to do? Because you need sort of tall glass, something that can be sterile and it needs to be able to breathe. So I pivoted people. I got a vase, a ten dollar vase that I had from in the cupboard that I cleaned out. Put it all in that. I have weights, which is sort of what's the important bit. And they're just like a piece of ceramic that holds the cabbage under the waterline. So it doesn't get moldy or gross or anything like that. That's quite important. So you pack all of you I packed all my cabbage into that Press it down with your knuckles So the water is on top and then I put one Half cabbage leaf on top of that and then the weights to really press it down and not let any bits out Then I wrapped a piece of glad wrap and popped tiny little holes in it to let it breathe because it's live. It's fermenting And that was the it and that sits for two to three weeks. Bring it out. Taste it you it will get more vinegary as it develops. So depending on how strong I'm drooling because I love very vinegar, very strong flavor. But if you're someone that doesn't like it as vinegar then that might be another reason to make it because you can control it yourself. And then once it's where you want it to be you pack it in smaller jars, put it in the fridge to last there for up to three months. But yeah the other thing I was doing... And if you were going to put it into one of these jars can you put it into one of these? And then pop it in the fridge. In the fridge. Yeah. When you put it in the fridge it's that... cooler temperature is going to stop it from bubbling and carrying on as much. So what's the story then with the sauerkraut that you buy on the supermarket shelf that's not on the fridge? Because it's been canned and treated, that's why it's not alive. The heat kills it essentially. So it's a different product. It's still good. I'm sure it's still good for you. And if that's in, and look, I've eaten tons of that. I had some this morning. But I... What did you have it on? I just love it on anything where you have that… anything where you might have pickles or that sour. Yeah. But like the other night we had Swedish meatballs with mashed potato and it was gorgeous with that. The acidity really cuts through that sort of a dish or fatty pork or something like that. But I have it on breakfast. I have cream cheese on toast with sauerkraut. Yeah, right. That sounds gorgeous. Yeah. I thought we could also talk about Avril, what's happening in your garden? In my garden, Brenna Dash. What is happening? What bloody hell is happening in my garden? I actually don't know. I've been very naughty. I've got tomatoes growing. And that's probably about it. Because I missed, when I was away. You were away in a very critical time. That was very tricky. So I've kind of, I've got, I've still got some potatoes in. So I've harvested some of them and I've still got some in. So you've still got some of yours in too. All my late season is still in. But they've fully died back now. I should post a picture. I will post a picture for our city chums listening. It's really cool just to see. I'll show you when they're in their peak and what they look like now, because it's pretty obvious that it's time to pull them out of the ground. Yeah. Are yours the same? Mine have to come out. I just stopped the day, it was pretty hot. I'm sure it was a heat wave that day that I chose to take them out of the ground. I couldn't believe you're outside working that day. Tough. They bred me tough. So yeah, tomatoes, potatoes, I've got some beautiful lilies growing in my garden at the moment. So they have given me a lot of pleasure in my veggie patch. They come back every year. They're always like Christmas lilies. And I had some amazing artichokes that I always just grow my artichoke. And I let them go to flower. I let them go to flower. They are divine. The flowers are divine. I have. You should pickle them one year, the artichoke. I use pickled artichoke on my pizza. Oh do you? Yeah. I'm not a big fan of them. I just think there's a lot more to life than trying to be fiddly with an artichoke. That's so you. I'll be fiddly with them for you. Yeah, well I did give them to my neighbour, cooked them up for me last season and she boiled them in lemon water. Yeah, so they don't discolor. Yeah, I'm not too sure. I mean, it definitely put like a bit of a lemony taste. So, and then we had them on the plate. You would pick off a leaf. Is that what it's called? An artichoke? Yes, I know what you mean. They're almost like petals. Petals, that's it. Like an artichoke petal. And you would dip it in some balsamic and egg mayonnaise. And she had oil as well. And then you would just suck it off and you'd get the fleshy part. You just suck that and take it out. And get rid of the fibres. Yeah, you get rid of the fibres. I think artichokes are so underrated. They are. They are. They're fiddly. They're fiddly. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the ceremonial aspect of it. You wouldn't be doing it on a Friday night after work. I wouldn't, yeah. That's not for me. The flowers give me so much more joy. Maybe if I was to, I will give you my artichokes next year. Not all of them. I always have a lot of them. I have a lot of them. I gave them away last year to someone that I volunteered with, but yeah, like I always have a lot of them. Like I could have 20 at a time. They're picture perfect, your artichokes. And if no one's ever seen an artichoke flower, it's this huge purple sphere of amazing delight. It is an illuminous purple as well. Yes, yep. Luminous. It lights up the, it just lights up the veggie patch. I never really knew how much joy it would give me growing them. My husband planted two in the beginning and I cursed them from the day Dotharri put them in because they're a bit spiky. Yeah they are. So I was like I'm sure this is like a mother-in-law's cactus. He's done something here, he's put it in so it must be like a meaning to it or he's done something here and I'm always getting pricked by it and he's having the last laugh. But when they flowered they were spectacular and then that was it for me. I fell in love with them. And I've put some... There's something too about being surprised with something. Completely. When you're not like, for example, I love sometimes doing a mix of flowers in one of the garden beds I've got because when something comes up and you don't know what, it's just that thrill. I reckon in your meadow, the odd artichoke here and there would be like amazing. So when they die back, they're great. I kind of just put them, all their flowers, I just, all the petals, all the seeds. I just use it as like a mulch. I just put it all over my, I put it back into the ground. Probably why they do so well. Probably, yeah. Yeah. And this area just constantly, like a perennial artichoke just keeps coming back all year. And that's so easy too, something that just comes back. So good. So my garden bed, that's what it consists of. There's strawberries there. I've got some strawberries. Haven't been very good at feeding them, or really looking after them, but they've been giving some, a little bit of fruit. Yep. And that's probably about it. My grand, I am ready for my brassicas. So I was going to say it's not, you know, you've got some tomatoes, some potatoes, but there's still plenty of time. So at the moment we're, we've got 90 days. Yeah. Pretty much exactly. Yeah. Left of the season. Yeah. I mean, I've got zucchini varieties that mature in 60. Yeah. You could still be, I'll give you some after this, if you like, they're called early neck Yeah, right. And there are yellow zucchini. So you could put that in today and be harvesting them before frost. Even things like bush beans, little beans and stuff like that. You could still probably fit some in. That's right. Yeah, I haven't really. I think because of my mind has moved on to my next growing season. I mean, I still have lettuce. So I've got lettuce. I've got chives. My coriander completely went to seed. So I'm trying to let that dry out in the ground. And then hopefully it'll volunteer. And then hopefully some will volunteer for next year. Have we talked about what's happening in your garden, Brenda? Have we kind of told us some details? You've got a lot happening. So like we were saying, my late season potatoes are now coming to an end. So I'm getting ready to pull all of those out and then I've got a batch of failed compost, I'm gonna call it. So what that means is I'm still not getting the green-brown ratio right and it's not breaking down quick enough. But no worries, what I do is I'll dig out all of those potatoes from that last raised bed, same as what I did on the other side with the early season ones. I dig a really big ditch and I just tip all the compost in. It's not finished, but it will finish. The only thing I will warn you is when I did that on my other side, I've had about 50 volunteer pumpkin plants come out. I must have had a lot of pumpkin seeds in there. Oh yeah, right. So sometimes if you don't let it compost, it doesn't get hot enough. Things like that are going to pop up. It doesn't kill them off. I've just, I've left three of them and I've pulled the rest out. If they've survived, they probably will be pretty, they're pretty strong, pretty tasty. So I fill that little trench and then I'm going to start doing just what you were talking about which is brassicas before winter to make sure they get a little bit established. Because you said that last year. You should have done them earlier. Yes. Your brassicas, you were, yep. Whereas last time I did mine in autumn. Yes. So now I'm doing them in more late summer. I think will suit us better. So broccoli, cauliflower. chard or silver beet, whatever you call it, cabbage and kale. I'll probably also just do like some, I can fit in some spring onions, which I love, maybe some swedes. Yes. Oh, lettuce. You were a fan of turnips last year, so you're onto it this year, right? Love them. So back to your compost, you're gonna do that. Gonna do that, dig it all out, then I'm gonna do those, start those brassicas on top, and all of those brassicas I talked about. Yes. I'm not even going to bother starting seedlings. I'm just going to try chucking seeds in the ground because it's so warm at the moment. But in this one, I think I'm just going to do everything direct. Usually I would do all of them, like seed starting and blah, blah, blah. I'm just going to try and do them all direct. Oh, Brona, dad. I know. That's a bit cash. I'm bloody rogue. Look at you rubbing off on me. I might just mix all the seeds in my hand and throw them in the soil. I'm like, whatevs. That's actually what I thought this was, was the way some people mix their seeds with sand. Oh, no, it's my stock. Your stock. When I saw that brought into my, cause they say if you mix some seeds with sand, then when you're planting them, you'll get a better spread. Oh yeah, carrot. I think that's very good for carrot seeds. Yeah, cause they're quite tiny, aren't they? Yeah. So yeah, you're just gonna go, whew. Well, City Charms, I think that's all we've got for you. So thank you to everyone for joining us today, for having a listen, having a laugh, we hope. Having a laugh. Don't forget to go onto our Instagram page and like it. Yes. And send us some messages. I'd love to know what's happening in your garden. Absolutely, yeah. Okay, well until next time listeners. On laugh. On laugh, girl, my girl. Bye.