Abundance Flows in Organic Community Garden

Abundance flows for all in the Organic Community Garden to which I belong.

I felt overwhelmed today with news of weather events all around the world and needed to  walk around this shared garden to remind myself we can all work together to heal our world.

 What was once a mowed piece of park is now a thriving garden feeding so many, not just with food but with community and ideas.

Learning how to honor the earth does produce abundance.

The Okinawa Spinach above grows so easily through the harshest of weather conditions and is such a nutritious  and strong food.

So many examples of abundance all around, along with nurture and care of upcoming crops.

Individual creativity is also part of the shared abundance and I especially the love the garden below which is always full of creativity and life. In a process of renewal at present it overflows in summer with flowers and color that bring a smile to all who pass by.

Food can be healing but sharing the concept of abundance on our earth can heal us all on so many levels.

101 Organic Gardening Hacks: Eco-friendly Solutions to Improve Any Garden

Health Supplements and Your Budget.

If the world was perfect none of us would need supplements but it isn't.

Although I have created as healthy a lifestyle as I am able to stay cancer clear I still take some supplements.

Vitamin D assists in breast cancer prevention.

A daily probiotic keeps my stomach bacteria good and healthy.

Magnesium, Vitamin K, Fish oil and glucosamine and chondroitin  all aid my  bones.

I talk with my medical professionals about what I am taking and my doctor also gives me a vitamin B12 injection once a month.

But the cost of these all add up. Which is why I go to iHerb, in fact I picked up a parcel from them today at my post office box.

I love their wide range of products, the way they give you such clear information as to what is in each supplement and their reliable service.

I would not be able to afford what I take if I had not discovered iHerb which is why I am sharing them with you.

I don't what your health needs are but if you feel there are supplements that could assist you I do suggest you look at this site and the wide range of well priced options they have available.

With my budget I get quality supplements thanks to iHerb and they also offer $5 off $40 for new customers.


This post contains affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you purchase through one of these links. Thank you for your support! 

Organic Flowers in Permaculture Garden Feed Healthy Bees

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The bees are always busy buzzing round in my organic home garden.

It does feel so good being part of our planet's solution rather than its destruction.

As I drove to church this morning I noticed all the dead plants along the kerbsides of the main road.

Yes the local council had been out spraying more toxic pesticides that make their way into our waterways.

I have a no spray order on my kerbside and use permaculture methods to keep my garden alive and healthy.

Permaculture honors the earth and the relationships of the plants that grow on it.

These lovely yellow flowers belong to the African Pigeon Pea a perennial plant bearing ongoing supplies of large, nutritious peas. I discovered this plant through permaculture courses and it has been a stable in my garden every since.

When I cut it back I just leave the cuttings on the ground as they are add nitrogen to the soil. So this wonderful permaculture plant is great not only for the bees but for my soil.

And so excited to discover the first blossom on my lime tree. A new tree in a difficult position it also needs those healthy bees buzzing around.

So pleased the neighbors on my street also keep away from pesticides.


 And finally the new blossoms on my mulberry trees at the bottom of the garden behind which is a generous tree reserve.

Do nothing for these trees but somehow using permaculture methods in a garden that honors the earth they produce crop after crop most of the year round. 

Plastic, Plastic , Plastic So Over It.

So over plastic in our current world.

Where I live we now take our own bags to stores or pay at the store to buy ones that can break down in the environment. We are banning plastic straws and stopping takeaway cups.

All this is good, good, good, but what I am talking about is the insidious use of plastic in our cooking  items that are endocrine disrupting, that is they mess up your hormones and your immune system. Heat and plastic are not a good combination..

Yesterday I broke my very precious Pyrex Cooking Steamer which I have had for well over ten years.  It fell out of a cupboard and cracked into many pieces, silly me, I could have cried. I loved that steamer.

But this morning I set out to find a replacement. Not in my town.

Rang one store and the lady in the kitchen section sounded surprised there were steamers made from anything other than plastic. Her store sold only plastic steamers and she used one herself.

My indignation rose and I said she may be comfortable with a lacing of endocrine disrupting chemicals with her steamed vegies but after three breast cancers I certainly wasn't.

She was taken aback but I left her with  food for thought.

So wanting my freshly picked steamed vegies for dinner what was I to do.

I went to the local opportunity shop. There I was lucky enough to find for $4 the great set of bamboo vegetable steamers seen above. Not my favorite Pyrex but an interesting alternative.

My jug also pictured above is another example of this plastic takeover. After looking at many jugs at all price ranges this was the only one I found without some sneaky and cheap internal plastic component placed where it would add a generous  doze of endocrine disrupting chemicals to your favorite cuppa.  

Not easy escaping the many chemicals that contribute to the rise in hormone related cancers.

The use of cheap plastic adjuncts in even the most impressive of kitchen items is in my view insidious.

Anticancer: a new way of life Kindle Edition

What Are We Doing to Our World?

What are we doing to our world?

Currently I am reading Carol Drinkwater's book `Return to the Olive Farm' where she slowly comes to realize the wide ranging implications of the chemicals they have been spraying on their olives.

My own awareness of how I was being impacted by the chemicals in my own  lifestyle was also slow.

In fairness to myself there was little awareness of how chemicals impacted the environment and those in it when I had a first breast cancer in the early nineties.

I tried to eat well but had little understanding of the role of organics. It was only during radiation for a second breast cancer in early 2000 that I discovered many of my fellow patients were going organic. 

After that I did my reading and attempted to avoid harmful  chemicals but as we all know that can be difficult to do and be part of Western living.

Yes it was the third breast cancer and before that a large ovarian cyst that really made me decide something had to change.

With each cancer I did have standard medical treatments and I say a big thank you to excellent doctors but to stop this continuing to happen I knew I needed to look at a new way to live.

My budget was very limited by this time but finally I sold my apartment and brought an old government house with land, and began the journey I share on this blog.

Like Carol Drinkwater's Olive Farm it was not always a straight road but working the land brought new understandings and an awareness our world does have to change its ways.

Return to the Olive Farm Kindle Edition by Carol Drinkwater 

Renewing the Body with Strong, Organic Food

I love renewing my body with strong, organic food.

It even tastes different, so much more intense and satisfying.

I was at my community garden patch last night talking with another member and we both agreed we feel like we haven't been feed when we eat commercially produced food after our own strong food.

It is hard to put into words the difference. Perhaps I should say it just tastes weak. You cannot dilute your soil and its nutrients, add chemical pesticides and herbicides and expect to produce the food nature intended for our bodies.

All of the pictures in this blog are of food I am currently growing at my own community garden patch.

The broad beans above will soon be ready. They grew from the seeds from my last years crop.

Always lots of delicious little cherry tomatoes and my red cabbages are just starting to form centers. I eat the outer leaves while they are young like this. Little bok choy  have self seeded between the cabbages, and always I find a small broccolini to add to the dinner mix.

Love discussing how to cook our wonderful food with other members. So many delicious ideas from all cultures. Makes me hungry thinking about them.

Dispatches from the Sweet Life: One Family, Five Acres, and a Community's Quest to Reinvent the World by William Powers

Why Sustainable Living After Breast Cancer

Estrogen dominance has been firmly linked to breast cancer and other hormone sensitive cancers.

I wish I had known about estrogen dominance when I was thirty five.

Three breast cancers later I am finally getting to understand what estrogen dominance is and how it impacts hormone sensitive cancers.

Xenoestrogens  or man-made substances that mimic natural estrogen are a primary causes of estrogen dominance.

With a world now full of exotic man-made chemicals avoiding these estrogen imitators is difficult but I made the decision after a third breast cancer that the best way to do this was to live as sustain-ably as I was able.

This blog is about my journey in sustainable living to discover a more chemical free lifestyle, but to begin your xenoestrogen free journey here are some of the simple guidelines I use in my daily life.

 My first rule of thumb is if I don't know what a chemical is on a label I don't use that products, especially with beauty products as xenoestrogens absorbed through the skin are more potent than those you consume.

I am a vegan, but if you must have milk or meat make sure it is organic.

I use glass, metal or wax paper for storage at my house, no plastic  bottles, dishes, containers or food wraps, and none of those non stick cooking utensils either, metal or Pyrex will do me.

Canned foods are out as I never know which ones have plastics or other synthetic linings.

Styrofoam cups and containers are also out.

I don't have a microwave oven.

As a follower of permaculture I grow organic food and look for solutions in tune with nature instead of using pesticides or herbicides.

My home is finished with VOC friendly products, no synthetic paints, solvents or finishes creating toxic fumes as they off gas.

Detergents and household cleaners are also as natural as I am able with baking soda, white vinegar and salt being great standbys.

I also have a clay water filter and use this for all my drinking and cooking needs.

There is always something new to learn in the journey to avoid xenoestrogens but as someone who is now well after three separate breast cancers I just wish I had started this journey earlier.

My Garden In Your Home

One of the special gifts of my sustainable garden is being able to share its joys.

I write about my garden here on my blog but also have captured some of my special garden moments to share..


Here are some of my garden cushions for you to view.  Lavender Moment shares the special, sweet smelling lavender flowers I grow all around my home. So many bunches have been shared with friends and I just wish you could smell the robust, strong scent of this enduring plant.

  Garden Flavor features the rich colors of my beautiful nasturtiums, so delicious to eat in a salad as well having such sunny faces.Together my  lavender and nasturtiums make great hospital posies for sick friends.
Perilla Beauty features the soft leaves of the beautiful Perilla Herb also known as Japanese Basil and Red Shiso. These aromatic purple leaves are a Japanese favorite to flavour fish, tempura and pickles, a sushi favorite.


  Mulberry Moment shares the lush abundance of my Mulberries. Plumb and tasty they do not last long on the trees. The birds will get them if I am not quick.


There are more cushions taking you into my sustainable  garden at this site. I do hope my garden can add to your home.

Food as Medicine

The nights are cold and smokey from back burns to halt summer fires and I need my special warming, cleansing soup.

First step take myself out to the garden to gather fresh greens.

These include leaves from the beautiful Moringa or Drumstick Tree with all its special nutritional qualities.

Also in my garden at present bok choy, broccoli, red cabbage, and red Kale.



Next one organic onion, some organic garlic and red chilli and turmeric from my own garden.

The onion is diced, the garlic sliced, the turmeric grated and the red chili sliced minus its seeds and inner threads which I find too hot.

Now I chop up some pumpkin, while gently softening the onions, garlic, turmeric and chili in two tablespoons of organic olive oil.

The pumpkin pieces are now added to the pan and coated  before filling the pan up to half way with boiling water.

Finally the shredded greens are added, plus one can of organic chickpeas rinsed in cold water, two tablespoons of coconut aminos which is a great fermented sauce plus salt to taste.

And there you have it, the soup I am craving at present and which leaves me feeling refreshed and energized.

I look forward to having it for dinner tonight. 

Healing Our Planet, Healing Our Bodies

Twenty seven years ago I had a breast cancer then a second and  a third.

After the first I was advised to leave my teaching job,  after the second I stopped drinking milk and attempted to eat organic.


By the time I had the third breast cancer I thought I was out of lifestyle options and feeling very frustrated.


But I did crave a connection with real earth.

So I put my shiny apartment on the market and looked for another way to live, and discovered Permaculture


This is wonderful way of living which imitates nature

Soil and water are conserved and plants are allowed to set seed and inter-planted for pest control. You are unlikely to see food plants in rows.

The permaculture site will look more like a food-forest with some open glades full of herbs and perennials.

Ten years later I am still working on creating such a garden.

It takes considerable physical work but this I love.

Surrounded by permaculture perennials and now many trees I have grown myself from seed I say thank you for the good people who created a system which not only can save our planet but help to heal our bodies.

 

 

Practical Permaculture: for Home Landscapes, Your Community, and the Whole Earth Kindle Edition

 

 

Community and Sharing at Organic, Sustainable Home Garden

My friend Rebecca's organic garden is about sustainability and sharing with the community.

One never leaves her garden without new inspiring ideas or some of her generous produce.

She shares her garden with others from the community including an elderly Chinese lady from the apartments behind her.

Rebecca has learned from her Chinese neighbor and her neighbor has learned from Rebecca. The neighbor is now growing abundant food in raised boxes an idea shown her by Rebecca.

The lemon tree above was a Bunning's reject that Rebecca has nourished back to life, but all the plants in her garden are bountiful a result of the care and nurture she puts into making her soil nutrient rich.

Below some new bean seedlings in  generous mulch about to begin life, and a self seeded pumpkin about to produce its first fruit.

A friendly magpie whose life Rebecca saved poses for my camera with no sign of fear, and a wonderful Aibika tree provides leaves that may be steamed, boiled, stir-fried or added to soups.

 The leaves contain mucilage, which can give a slightly slimy feel in the mouth but which my friends from New Guinea tell me is wonderful for the digestive system.

I look forward to visiting Rebecca's garden again soon and sharing more of her wonderful garden and inspiring ideas.