I have been nominated for a Liebster award. Thanks Gav! 🙂
It’s always nice to be recognised in the blogosphere, even if you’re being very quiet on the blog post front. A few weeks back I got an email from Gav telling me he’d nominated me for a Liebster award. Given the crazy sort of life I lead it will be no surprise to Gav or to most of you, that I’ve taken this long to get around to acknowledging and forwarding it on. 🙂 Continue reading
Have you ever picked up a book and found that you actually can’t believe how much you’ve read when you finish your coffee (or tea for those leaning towards the leaf drink)? Not so much easy to read but more that it merges from the page to the brain with zero effort. Until I read this book I had never experienced a book that simply migrated to my consciousness like this. It was a real experience. And to boot, the book was about a subject dear to my heart and existence. 🙂 Continue reading
I was very humbled when my very good friend in the both the blogging world and the real world, the Rabid Little Hippy asked me to write a guest post for her blog.
My journey to eco-friendliness and self-sustainability is a very new one. It’s only been a few months since I seriously started changing my habits. My decision to start this journey is very much influenced by the Rabid Little Hippy (hereon in referred to as Rabid). I had been following Rabid’s journey via her blog and it really got me thinking about MY carbon footprint. I had always wanted to grow my own herbs. In fact the raised garden bed for my herbs had been sitting there empty for about 6 months. It was just one of those things I never got around to doing. I started out small. In about August this year, I finally planted out the raised garden bed with herbs, chillies and strawberries.
As I continued to follow Rabid’s blog, I was astounded and in awe of her commitment to her journey to self-sustainability and eco-friendliness, in particular though, her commitment to finding the most environmentally friendly way to renovate her new house in country Victoria. The more I read Rabid’s blog, the more inspired I was to change my way of life. My husband has been nagging me for years to move from our small 600sqm block onto acreage and I’ve always been against it. Since following Rabid’s blog, I yearn for the day when we can afford to sell up and move to acreage. To have my own chickens, the ability to grow all my own produce and the space and tranquility that acreage provides is now a dream that I intend to make reality.
I decided to start blogging my eco journey because I live in climate that is traditionally very difficult to grow anything in. Most of the blogs and websites I had come across talked about growing produce through the summer in temperate and cool mountain areas. It has been very difficult to find information about going eco in tropical climates. Everyone has always said that you can’t grow much in North Queensland and what you can grow has to be grown in winter. We have 30 degree plus temperatures from about the end of September through to March/early April. I decided there must be something I can grow. So research I did and it turns out that there are plants that love hot weather. I also decided I was going to challenge traditional beliefs and try and grow some things though the summer that most people normally wouldn’t grow.
The first to go in was my sweet potatoes who absolutely love 30 to 40 degree heat. Since planting them about 3 weeks ago, they have tripled in size. The great thing about sweet potatoes is they only take about 4 months to mature so in early March next year, we should have our first harvest.
Our chillies have been growing great guns. We have four types, cayenne, jalapenos, Anaheim chillies and Siam chillies. The cayennes and jalapenos have yielded the most chillies which we have been using a lot in our cooking. My husband is the chilli fan. He’s had jalapenos on his homemade pizza’s and even made chilli spaghetti one night.
We have an abundance of herbs that have been going into our cooking and I have also used some to make my own vegetable stock. The celery, strawberries and garlic have failed to yield anything much yet but they are still small so I expect over the coming months we will be using these in our cooking too.
We’ve also started making changes to our personal care products such as shampoo, conditioner, body wash and the likes. We are fortunate enough in Townsville to have a shop called Plant Essentials, which makes all their own natural products, most of them sold in glass bottles instead of plastic and you can take in your old bottles and have them refilled for a discount.
I have discovered that this journey to eco-friendliness and self-sustainability is a continuous learning curve. Every day, I come across things that need to be changed to a more eco-friendly option, or some situation that really challenges my thoughts and beliefs but I know that every little thing that I do is a contribution towards making this world a better place to live.  I want to say a massive thank you to the Rabid Little Hippy for she has challenged my thoughts and changed my life for the better. I would love for you to come on over and visit my blog The Tropical Hippy.
Rabid Little Hippy 