Sunday in the Kitchen

It's the weekend for spring cleaning, garden make-overs and cooking the excess produce. I'm having a ball, and at the same time I'm reliving the life of my mother, and her mother... My lemon tree has been very busy over winter, and while I've been sharing and giving away the produce, I still have plenty filling the fruit bowl. Today I've made up some marmalade, lemon butter and a lemon pudding for dinner. I've also stewed up my rhubarb, a made some more gooseberry jam. This morning we also had the great joy of tasting the first fruits off our new citrus tree's - a grapefruit and a sweet orange. Boy, this does feel like I'm acting out 'the good life' (a TV show my parents watched when I was sposed to be in bed!).

More on the organic front - I've been weeding out under the fruit tree's preparing to feed with blood'n'bone and mulch for the summer season, I've planted seeds for my next round of lettuce, cucmbers, spinach and beetroot. Hoping to have a basket full of organic and yummy foods for Christmas - which I've recently heard Im hosting this year!

My time in the garden was well spent this morning as I reflected and pondered on some articles I read recently in G-Magazine. I was interested in the article about Cork and the suggestion that the recent move to screw top wine bottles threatens cork forests as the demand for cork decreases the forests loose monetary value and are therefore threatened. The value of the forests is based in production of a physical product and not simply valued for their role in enviornmental cooling and CO2 use. What a shame that we can't value a tree for what it contributes to it's ecosystem.

I have been busy recently with life outside my garden which has allowed me time to read a few books on the trains. Reviews to come for my first completed book from the Japanese Literature challenge "After Dark", a Christian Novel 'The Shack', and my current book "Chez Moi".