Category: frugal
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Communitea
Over recent years, I’ve started making large amounts of what I call ‘communitea’…herbal tea blends made from whatever I can find in the 4412 postcode of Palmerston North…the postcode I live in. It’s an exercise in locavorism and sharing and fun. I dry things foraged and grown, cultivated and gifted, rub and snip them into…
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Apple season
Apple cheeks, apple weeks, the race against the birds… The inherited tree which has the codlin moth – I know it’s time to strip the tree when the birds begin to peck at the apple tops – this means they are sweet and ready. Cutting around the moth tunnels, making apple sauce which turn into…
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victory gardens / mend and make do
I’m very inspired by World War Two imagery around Victory Gardens and Mend & Make Do campaigns. I’m also fascinated by the Land Girls / Womens’ Land Army, and the way WW2 changed work life for women in the West forever. I recently had a pile of WW2 social history books out of the library…
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Interview with Johanna Knox author of ‘A Forager’s Treasury’
As a keen forager myself, I was so excited to hear that my friend Johanna Knox was writing a foraging guide for New Zealand, but despite the fact I was pre-disposed to like it, I am truly impressed and in awe of what she has produced. It is a beautifully written, helpful and down-to-earth book…
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picking up what the wind drops
I took a walk to a nearby section where an old house had recently been demolished. They are building shops there. I dug up a wormwood plant and rescued an iron gate from a skip which I’ll use as a frame for beans in the vegetable garden. When I walk I am looking for stray…
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the last
I write about the seasons a lot, don’t I? I can’t help it. I grew up in a small town in the middle of farmland – my Dad was (still is) a hunter and fisherman and so we ate with the seasons and the seasons were meaningful in a way they may not be for…
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beets and pieces
First some writing news – Fourth Floor Literary Journal is up and I have two poems in it! Yay! You can read them HERE. Back HERE I mentioned my friend Helen wrote an essay about ‘Taking Care’ (killing) ‘Of Animals’. It’s also in 4th Floor. It is a funny, chilling read – you can read…
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unexciting gluts
Sometimes I end up with an unexciting glut in the garden. Recently it was silverbeet. A silverbeet glut is not like a tomato glut, or an apple glut – where your friends will get excited and happily take bagsful off your hands or you can make bulk delicious things like ketchup and apple sauce. I…
Helen Lehndorf 