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Why EVERYONE with access to soil doesn’t grow their own veg is beyond me. Actually I have a good idea why. It’s all those shitty distractions of modern life. Work, TV, Sports, social expectations, giving a shit about the Grammys and wasting time getting valentines day gifts. All unnecessary distractions.

Not sounding like too much of a wanker, although I often find that a difficult task….
Life for us is simple at the same time it’s fucking brilliant. We chose this life and are so much the happier for it. We’re happy, our kids are happy. We live in a little country cottage (that we painted green and not for ironic reasons although come to think of it…..the green house hhhmm might be something in that). We have a tiny mortgage compared to the national average. We work but we don’t live to work. We work to live. Our career is a career in happiness. It’s not always achieved but afternoons like the one explained below are when the dividends from our investment in the Good Life PTY LTD pay big bucks.

I needed a promo shot for an iPad app I’ll be featured in soon (more details soon), this involved a photographer visit for a quick shoot. The lovely photographer came over and put up with my unwanted technical advice, so charming I was. To represent my ‘mission statement’ of grow your own I picked a bunch of produce from the garden with the idea that I could hold it all and pose like a Turkey…now that should really get the right message out I thought to myself. The concept looked much better in my head. (see Turkey holding produce photo below). Taking advantage of an uncomfortable situation for me, Kim grabbed a camera and took a pick so we’d have evidence that we’d spotted the rare bread Urban Bearded Turkey for submission to National Geographic.

This time of the year is bloody brilliant. I’ve harvested so much already and have made space for fresh mid summer plantings. How hard is this….I chucked a few handfuls of boroltti beans in the soil, raked them and now I have a fresh round of beans growing. Took me all of five minutes. Exhausting work this grow your own business.

How cute are the new beans shooting up? And what a fine specimen of a pumpkin! Smokin!

Eggplant has done really well this summer!

Did you know we also have wild fairy princess’ in our garden?

See…it’s a jungle

Ingredients for a pork marinade?

Mix for the WLL marinade for the pork ribs and the Turkey (Right with blue hat)

As white middle class urbanites we visited the local farmers market to spend our middle class coin while feeling good about our actions. I bought some rare bread pork products from Greenvale Farm, a local farm (1 hour away…it’s as local as I can get). One of the said pork products happened to be ribs. Fatty juicy tender ribs. I marinated them in a secret WLL marinade and served them with some of the veg that I picked for the turkey promo shoot. I called this veg concoction, Ro-atouille. Along with the marinade it’s a definite addition to the cook book….due out in October this year….still coming to terms with that. Me, a book writer dude. Amazing.

The result? Sexy, sticky, juicy finger lickin good food. Resulting in one very happy bearded Turkey.

In our home we know we’re NOT perfect. We still buy food from the supermarket, avocado, biscuits, milk etc. It’s not all or nothing for us. We don’t profess to be completely self sufficient. We do try to grow, hunt, fish and forage for a good deal of it, which is all very rewarding. And most notably it’s just fun having an edible jungle taking over in the back yard! The taste of the freshest veg is great. And an added bonus is that we know the process of how it was raised. We know that carbon emissions don’t come from road miles our food travels but most notably in the form of gaseous expungements from eating too many fresh beans and artichoke!

All this turkey talk has developed a hunger for a feed of turkey….adios!