all that's fit to grow

In the dead of winter, still they grow, up and up. I want a good macro of the stamen of that orchid but my camera doesn't do things like that. Scary obsessions with orchids are so very justified - they are instantaneous existential questions.


Reaching for the lifelocus. Basic horticultural demonstrations in cotton wool.

pumpkin carraige

I've got some pumpkin abundance. They're in season and I keep getting more before I use the ones I have. This blue pumpkin came from a stand on the roadside outside of Bright, VIC. A quarter of it went into a 'pumpkin masala' which taught me some things about making Indian food. Or just showed me how few of them I know now. It's mushy but fresh and spicy.

The seeds are in the process of becoming pepitas, roasted cajun-style I think. Retrieving these seeds from the flesh of the pumpkin was a sensuous activity. When I know where something came from I want to consume all parts of it, to experience it completely, to dig right through it and all its textures and components. This was one such occasion. The seeds are big and fat and healthy and they pop out of the flesh with little encouragement. Very satisfying, a feeling of harvesting the fertility from this big body. I got to dig the last few rows, which are sort of rib-like in their arrangement, out of the flesh with my fingertips.



photos by the man with whom I shared the experience. iphone loves to blog.

jussa lil' bit

This is my special fucken ladyfriend in her joy garden. She also grows veggies there.



Yes, abundance, yes. She also had this to say about common excess, and whilst it's not in standard 'comment' form I thought it was a lovely comment:

i really love the new blog,too. it's something that i think about a lot. and such a beautiful thing to soak in during a time when all i hear from everyone is tighten the belt, better get hip to the economics of scarcity, reign it in. but you say NO! sustainable excess! you're a fucking genius.

I wasn't going to leave in the 'fucking genius' bit but I thought it a bit dishonest not to present her words in their entirety.

I hadn't really thought about that myself when I started this little project up, but now that it's been put into those words in that order, I think about it all the time. And the more I think about that 'belt tightening' stuff the more little excesses I find to roll around in. And maybe in some small way that's a way of coping with things that are narrowing - by noticing the things on the other side which are opening up.

abundance laboratories

the roots

At this week's market, a basket of multi-coloured carrots from Daylesford Organics. I particularly love purple carrots - there are some of the nantes variety sprouting on my windowsill - and am still searching for the perfect blue cheese dressing to adulterate their simple nutritional goodness. Taken by a special visitor who later turned a few of these babies into curry.

everything flowers

Garlic flower from a farm in the Grampians. We got some great tips for planting the bulbs which were at its very root, and some well-wishes that we wouldn't have to meet the farmer in a transaction the following year. Everywhere people are giving each other permission to be sustainable.

Oh, and in the background are some happy little beetrootlings.

So much just sprouts out of the ground. Lots of rain lately means everyone's deeply green and up-reaching. Tomorrow morning in the early light I start supporting peas and broad beanlings with bamboo and string.

broad beanlings

and a pretty new dress, channelling vintage psychedelic prariegirl. These babies were sprouted from seed and they are the most eager little guys I have ever seen, gratifying to a novice urban foodgrower.