Food waste Friday
Add article to favourites
It’s food waste Friday! This week we have some pesky salad again; which I found limping about in the bottom of the fridge.
It’s about 1/5 salad bags worth, which will provide some good, rich green stuff for the compost bin.
You will, however, be joyous to hear that, inspired by some of you lovely people, we’ve now planted some salad in the garden (the picture is our very own lettuce plants!)
Yes, Mr Green has procrastinated for the past 2 years about Growing His Own because of his aversion to cat shit and slug slime.
I think he thinks that farms where his salad is grown is immune to such things, but I do understand the out of sight, out of mind approach to life. A chlorine wash and some MAP packing later and you can eat your sterilised salad, right?!
In addition, our soil is traditionally better for throwing pots with rather than digging with a fork and planting delicate seeds.
Of course, it’s always been ok for me to risk poo and slime and to grow my own stuff like beans, potatoes and courgettes …
Anyway, we’re now growing him some salad in raised, covered troughs – mizuna, rocket, watercress, mixed lettuces (or is that letti?) and pots of herbs.
They are out of the way of slug city (and thus far the little critters haven’t sniffed out his tender green bits) and covered from lazy paws who like nothing better than a fine tilthy toilet to raise their tails on.
I’ve been creating some fine meals from leftovers this week. Mr Green, who is a bit of a meat and two veg man at this time of year, has been enjoying some vegetarian delights in the name of reuse and Little Miss Green is getting used to my ‘you’ll find it in your soup’ line if she doesn’t munch gratefully through everything she has taken onto her platter.
Today there is a cooked jacket potato and half a tin of beans in the fridge looking at me. So it will be fried potatoes with scrambled eggs and beans for breakfast tomorrow. That’s not exactly bad news is it?
How about you? I know some of you are absolute stars now at reducing food waste – any dirty stories of slime and filth to tell me about?
Don’t forget to pop over to Kristen’s frugal Girl site to tell your story and share in some of her link love!
Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:
Crop Swappers – rebuilding communities and sharing resources I'm delighted to welcome Sophie Greenyer to myzerowaste today. This gorgeous lady is the passion and…
Don’t throw it away… That's rubbish, just throw it away ... How many times have you heard that or said…
Mrs Green grows her own cleaning sponge It's not just tomatoes and beans this year, it's kitchen sponges too.
The only garden pest contamination that I really object to is caterpillars on my brassicas. Everything else can be washed off.
I thought of you yesterday when throwing away the last few slices of sauteed green zucchini. But I just couldn’t eat them anymore; I tried a new olive oil and couldn’t get past the flavor, and I had eaten most of the zucchini already. A girl has some limits.
Also, courgette sounds so much better than eggplant. Just thought I’d toss that out there.
Isn’t Zucchini really courgette and eggplant is aubergine? And a courgette is only a baby marrow anyway….
I’m hoping for better results from the pesky slugs this year by growing our salad plants in containers off the ground. The slimey critters used to put me off.
My younger daughter is a lover of salad and this year, for the first time, we are going to have a go at growing some. I’ve scattered a handfull of mixed seeds in two window boxes and yesterday the first few green sprouts made an appearance. I’m hoping that the slugs and snails don’t find them up on our front windowsills.
last night I couldn’t finish my french fries (chips I think you call them), so I dutifully took them home. Cold fries are not on my wish list, but I figured I could fry them up with some eggs and pretend I was having breakfast at a greasy spoon.
@Sarah: I knew I was eating organic last Sunday when I ate caterpillar with my broccoli 🙁
@SavvyChristine: Oooo, funky olive oil is not good. Well done for manfully eating what you could LOL! I guess you couldn’t have hidden the flavour in soup either; not without lots of curry powder! Never mind; we live and learn.
@Almost Mrs Average: You’ve never seen a slug climb then Mrs A? we’ve had them half way up our patio door in search of cat food …
@just Gai: Sounds lovely, Just Gai – it’s so exciting when the seedlings make an appearance 🙂 Ours are showing through too and so far no slugs; but it has been very dry.
@jen: Hey Jen – I’d never thought of reheating chips until Poppy mentioned it. How did you get on, were they edible?
We had a gardening day at school yesterday, and in the woodland area was loads of wild garlic(Ransome), the chaps doing the weedwhacking didn’t know what it was but luckily the smell wafted acrross to where I was working.
I took a trowel and dug up a bag full to bring home and put into my garden.Beofre it all got cut down with the nettles etc
I only use the leaves in salads and such so it grows back year on year.
for those trying to keep slugs away from their lettuce, – use bran, much cheaper than any other methods, – biodegradable and organic, and slugs hate it so won’t go across it.
Our lettuce is in a hanging basket 🙂 No sliming munchers up there 😉
Hah! The slugs found my hanging baskets last year, they’re cunning blighters….
We have heaps of wild garlic around here, Maisie; we could live on it for a year I should think. Can you eat the white ‘flowers’ too, or just the leaves?
Thanks for the bran tip, Claire. I’ll try that one. So far my slugs have legs and shoes, as nothing deters them, but I’ll give the bran a go.
Strange things, slugs. They’ve left the plants in the soil, but they are in the greenhouse, up on the shelving eating the seedlings in there. Good luck with the hanging baskets, Poppy – let’s hope you have better luck than Sarah!
Slugs make great chicken food……
Yep, ducks like them too. I don’t have chickens though and my neighbours don’t seem that partial to slugs!