Nothing like a good challenge

A part of my day job is keeping track of what's going on in the media. I subscribe to an excellent free media monitoring service- 'making environmental news' which is collated by an organisation called the Banksia Foundation. Unfortunately the 'environmental news' space is a pretty depressing space these days. Take the issue of food for example -just a sample of themes and challenges currently featuring  include the expansion of coal seam gas exploration into our most productive farmland, various reports about the challenges of feeding the planet's growing population in a world constrained by the challenges of climate change, Victorian farmers pulling up peach trees because they can't sell the peaches and the Chinese buying up another patch of local farmland. To top that all off there was a Four Corners investigation into toxic dioxins being found in common herbicides used on our farms.  So rather than get down about it all I have decided to make it a motivating force to keep up my home grown challenge....

With spring around the corner, my baby girls have started to lay and the garden and the planter boxes are starting to yield serious dividends.....

Sprouting broccoli and rapini are the current staples

my first ever  parsnips, a random carrot and more broccoli and rapini for dinner

Just like the Chinese ...... I am continuing with my own land grab....taking on my biggest expansion challenge ever......

A plot in the new Braybrook community garden. This was supposed to be a new community and food hub in one of Melbourne's most disadvantaged areas.... two years later the vision hasn't materialised and Council has given up... leaving a weed filled field with ten garden plots up to the community to deal with.... like I said a challenge.

To fill my garden beds I am cleaning out the seed drawer

A test of some really old (about 10 years old!) lettuce seeds yielded the following results:

Oh well, at least the tomatoes I scored from Bek's seed collection clean out are now happily germinated on the way to being my first Braybrook crop.