Informed Consumer

Today I came across the old label from my prolific self-seeding lettuce that I have been writing about for the last few weeks – Green Salad Bowl – I finally know what I have been eating most nights. This is a great loose leaf variety which grows happily in any container. We have about eight lettuces on the go so we don’t over pick one particular lettuce. My mixed lettuce seedlings (grown from seed) I transplanted into their ‘pots’ today and I also started sowing Drunken Woman , Biscia Rossa, Buttercrunch and Little Gem lettuces in newspaper pots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW4t_6dTAvA&feature=related My seeds seem to like our warm laundry and all my seeds over the last year and a half have happily sprouted without any effort. I just grow them in toilet rolls or newspaper pots with potting mix and cover with a piece of newspaper. My last lot of lettuce seeds I sowed straight outside in an ice cream container and they seemed to like it so I will see how my inside seeds go in terms of germinating and compare the two methods. I might need to move my pots soon to some other spot on the site as it is starting to become hazardous to enter by the front door and I imagine the number of pots will continue to grow once I am unemployed in four weeks time. I wonder if hubby will be happy to live on lettuce if I don’t find a new job?

So now after 18 days the question everyone keeps asking me is “Have you found a new job yet?” I have been casually looking but part of the reason I gave up my job was that it wasn’t good for me so I don’t really want to go back to a similar job. I want to see if it is possible to alter my career somehow without losing everything I have worked for including the house that I built with hubby. Today hubby and I did garden maintenance on my mum’s property – it was lovely to be outside in the fresh air gardening and cleaning up. You get a real sense of satisfaction getting a job completed and being able to see something completed. I have found a new love over the last year – growing food for almost no cost. Today I planted out some of my pea seedlings into my mum’s garden Growing peas. I have found they tend to be quite happy being transplanted if you just plant them toilet roll and all.   

The two parsley plants I gave my mum earlier on in the year have grown into almost a giant shrub – I think I might need to find her a few recipes that use a lot of parsley!

I don’t think I have quite got the hang of this resignation thing. Yesterday and today I ended up putting in 13 hours each day at the office – I’m sure the point of resigning is to do less work! Meanwhile while I have been working hard so have my seeds – came home today to all my peas germinated and my lettuce seeds that I have planted outside in an ice cream container also starting to sprout. Incredibly easy to grow. My self-seeded lettuces are ready to start eating – we will have to start having salad every night to get through them all. Every time we have had visitors I have been handing over a tub of lettuces as a take home gift. While everyday life continues normally at the moment it is a lot easier to get up for work – I am up early each day even fitting in household tasks before heading off to work, eager to get to the end of my resignation. I am finding it hard though to put up with those well meaning comments from people like “No regrets?”