By far the best Christmas present we got this year was our planter from Mark’s parents. It is called a four layer stacking garden and is perfect for growing plants in small spaces. In our case we have filled it with herbs and tomatoes. As soon as we returned from holidays we went to Northey Street City Farm to pick up some organic seedlings. We bought two types of cherry tomatoes, italian parsley, mint, bush and sweet basil, thyme, aloe vera, citronella (to help control the mossies), lemon grass, chili and rosemary. When we were visiting my aunt we also picked up a few cuttings and seedlings from her abundant garden including tumeric and another variety of citronella.

In support of the seed savers’ cause we are keen to start growing heritage plants. There is a great stall at the local farmers markets which sells heirloom tomatoes. We have saved seeds from a variety of these and are hoping to plant them soon. We are collecting the plant juice from our Bokashi bin and are adding a small amount of this as plant fertilizer when we water our plants. Our Bokashi bin is working well although there is one glitch. On the instructions they state that an average family will fill the bin once a month, but we seem to be filling ours in two to three weeks. Because we only have one bin this doesn’t allow it enough time for the compost to ferment before we bury it in the ground. We have been told that it is best to have two bins so when one is full you can set it aside to ferment while you fill the other one. We are looking into this. Thankfully (or not) the garden around our flat isn’t too loved so we have been able to do a little bit of guerrilla composting (we bury our bokashi by moonlight). When the manager does eventually decide to make use of the green space it should be full of healthy soil.

We have already started using some of the herbs. For lunch we had cauliflower and broccoli (from the Food Connect box) soup with freshly made basil oil.  As we post this we’re drinking some fresh lemongrass and honey tea.

[imgset:72157612698791634,thumbnail,true]