Saturday

I woke up early, 4 am and as much as I tried to go back to sleep, pretended to be asleep, hoping my brain and body would get the message, it didn't work. I eventually gave up about 5.15 and read my book, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See. It is a great read and I highly recommend it. I didn't want it to end, but when it did, I got out of bed, drunk my breakfast smoothie and headed to the gym - at 6.30 am, on a Saturday morning - sad:). Today was upper body day. After that I caught up with my PT's fiance at the local Tapas Bar for a Chai Latte before heading home to housework, washing and gardening, via the Community Garden, where I watered and weeded and shifted the 4 eggplants that weren't happy at all where they were.

The Community Garden is doing well. We are harvesting salad leaves, small crops of beans and zucchini. The tomatoes are coming along as are the carrots, climbing beans, cucumbers, broccoli and beetroot. I need to get some more seed going.

I picked lettuce, spinach, silverbeet - green and coloured (as above), beetroot leaves and young bean leaves to take home to make a salad for my lunch. Bean leaves are rich in Iron and other nutrients that we use everyday in our cells. 

Once home, I put the washing in the machine and set it going, added some water and essential oil to my diffuser and turned it on, went outside and watered the tubs and put the soaker hose on the vegetable garden then started picking tomatoes.  I use Doterra Essential Oils and at the moment have Elevation in the diffuser. Not only does it smell lovely, it will hopefully help keep everyone's mood light and happy.   I knew there would be a few, but not two bowls full. We have had some horrid winds over the past few days and my tomatoes have taken a battering, even though they are under the cover of insect/fruit fly mesh and stacked in tomato cages. They were so heavy with fruit, the "arms" of the cages popped off and the tomatoes all fell in a heap. I removed all the ripe and nearly ripe and picked up the odd green one that had been knocked off and wired the "arms" back on, propping the "branches" of the tomatoes back up, then giving them a good deep soak. I pulled on out, it had only two very small toms left on it and the plant was very broken. These are a mix of Black Russian, Mortgage Lifter and Rouge de Marmade or something like that and an unnamed large cherry type.   I cut the ripest of them in half and free-flow froze them. Once frozen, I'll vacuum pack them to use at a later date for tomato sauce and napoli sauce.

Above are the tomatoes ready for the freezer and the salad I made with the "leaves" I picked from the community garden and I added the purple lettuce from my garden, as well as the tomatoes, spring onion and carrot. There is also cucumber, celery and I added avocado and slow cooked pork and drizzled it with a Balsamic reduction. I had it for my lunch and it was as delicious and tasty as it looks.

I spent the afternoon and evening looking after my two youngest grand-daughters, but that's for my next blog. 

How did you spend your Saturday

1 comment Community Garden, leisure, Tomatoes