The Boy rang and said "I'm coming to visit for a few days," and there he was. It was so lovely. Nothing thrifty about that, but lovely all the same. On one of the days we went to the beach. One of the amazing things about Tasmania is the beaches are fabulous and there's mostly about four people on them. It was so rejuvenating to walk on the sand and paddle in the sea and lie in the sun. The important thing about choosing a beach is to go to one that has trees growing down to the beach. My favourite kind of beach has sun plus shade. The best.
It is finally properly summer here, and so I washed all the cushion covers, which have had pets sleeping on them all winter. Later I washed the couch blankets and the cat blankies. Everything is clean again, and even the dog had a bath! (Not his favourite)
I don't often go op-shopping anymore, because I don't often go shopping anymore. Life is much more peaceful and cheap that way. But last week I went and found a haul of pillowcases. Many of my pillowcases are ten to fifteen years old and starting to fall apart. I found five nice pillowcases for $5.50. The kitten was thrown in for free:) I saw the elephant pillowcase and decided that it was just what Red needed. Luckily they agreed it was.
I think it was reader Blueberry who recommended rosemary tea. I have so much rosemary, so I made rosemary tea. It is good. Refreshing. Tangy. Almost citrus-like. A winner! Thnak you, Blueberry. I learn so much from this community:)
My friend Lesley is a dahlia enthusiast, and has been experimenting with breeding new seedlings. The pink dahlia below is the stunning result. She has named it Pink Genie. I have such clever friends.
New seedlings for summer. Beans and lettuce. The beans I planted last week, and they are climbing the trellis already. I am getting a handful of delicious green beans daily from the first bean planting back in November. I planted at least half of the lettuces into punnets a few days ago. I may go out when I have finished this post and plant out the rest. Maybe.
I haven't bought fruit for several weeks now. I started eating from the loquat tree in December, then came the apricots and now the nectarines. The stone fruit still have brown rot this year, despite the spraying. It is heartbreaking, but I am harvesting just enough good fruit to eat something every day, and cutting the bad bits off to stew some. I will get on top of the brown rot. I am determined.. the latest fruit is the cherry plums leaning over the fence from the neighbours' yard. Thanks, neighbours.
Eating from the garden: lemons, the first tomatoes, green beans, basil, zucchini, cherry plums, nectarines, rocket, kale, silverbeet.
Talk to me about you thrifty triumphs this week..
Comments
Being very watchful of energy use, specially after the debauchery of the lighting usage during the Christmas holiday. Not driving unless I have to.Gas is going up again here in Florida, 40 cents a gallon increase in the last 5 days. I know gas in Australia is much more expensive than here, but this is a huge increase.
Living on a pension challenges me to be creative. I started propagating plants to give as gifts in the coming months. Planting tomatoes, and peppers. Hoping to harvest loquats and bananas in several months. Citrus was a bust again this past year. Maybe this year? Hurricane Ian destroyed the citrus harvest in Florida so prices have increased exponentially. I have 5 non producing trees on my property. They got a good talking to, this morning.
Have a good green and thrifty week, my friend.
Patricia
We have noticed that the price of fresh veg in both the supermarkets and the local green grocers has skyrocketted. I had to give up spuds for a month because $5/kilogram is ridiculously expensive. Considering that potatoes are my main food that was hard to do. I subbed in pumpkin that I had bought at the end of last season from a local roadside stall. Luckily I bought 21 of them and they are still going strong. I picked up 3 x 10kg bags of seconds potatoes from a local IGA for a good price so potatoes are back on the menu at least for now.
We are going to increase the fence size around the house block to take back a bit of land for growing more food. We have a terrible possum, wallaby and rat problem. It's far easier to keep the possums and wallabies out of the garden than the rats. We are trying to find a good solution at the moment. Raised wicking beds made out of old fridges is a good way to deal with them but we have to make rat proof covers for all of the garden bed making it an expensive exercise but if that's what it takes, we can be creative and reuse tea tree that we source from the block to make the top structures and it is amazing how creative you can get with what you already have.
I am about to start the annual blanket washing week. It takes a week to wash them and dry them all out. Excellent score on those pillow cases by the way. It's always good when you can find what you are looking for at a thrift shop :)
Rosemary tea, now that is an idea! I've never heard of such a thing, but I have enough rosemary to make tea for the rest of my life, and it seems it would be at least as good to drink as hot water!
I have been keeping odd bits of veg that are not good enough to be cooked with and putting them in a bag in the freezer, I had enough to make a batch of vegetable stock this week which was delicious in soup. I think it will only happen about once a month but it is better than always having to use shop bought stock.