23 July 2010

Hooray - My veggies are going hairy!

The price of fresh fruit and vegetables has sky rocketed in the last few weeks. Lemons are 80c each! Cauliflower the size of a small saucer are $3 each! Apples are between $5 - $8 a kilo! Pumpkin is $1.25 a kilo, potatoes have been $1.66 a kilo - and that was on sale!

I think that by now every one who reads this blog, or the Cheapskates Club newsletter, or logs in to the Member's Centre would know that I love growing our own food. I grin from ear to ear with every turnip I pull, bunch of silverbeet or celery I cut and every cauliflower I blanch and freeze.

Growing our food saves us a fortune - easily $60 a week - and it means that we eat far better and a much wider variety of fresh fruits and vegetables than we would if I had to buy them from the supermarket. Not only that, but they taste so much better. And they don't last forever either.

I thought it was just me, that the fruit and veg I was buying from the supermarket was lasting forever. Then I thought it was my Tupperware, doing an even better job than I thought possible. Until my friend Debbie mentioned the carrots that had been in a bag in the bottom of her fridge for over two months and they weren't even slightly limp or hairy. Ewww! What is with vegetables that last two months!

For the things I do have to buy, I try to buy as close as possible to the grower as I can. Thankfully we have two amazing orchards just five minutes away, so apples and pears are not only fresh, but cheap when they are in season. And we visit with friends in Mildura and come home with boxes of orchard fresh fruit.

I still have to buy some things. Potatoes and onions for instance. I have both planted but of course they're not ready yet. If I can't get them from the farmer, I go to the market. I just love going to the market. I drag my "granny trolley" behind me, filling it up with all sorts of yummy fruit and veg at rock bottom prices. I take my time picking and choosing, reading the cartons to see where everything has come from, and buying as close to the farm gate as possible.

Food doesn't often last long in our house, but I can tell you that when I find the occasional hairy carrot or zucchini I just add it to the Bokashi bucket and smile. There's no preservatives in the veggies I grow. They may not last for months, but they taste great.

1 comment:

  1. You are very lucky, all the farmers' markets in my area are very costly.

    ReplyDelete

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