Trying to Stay Positive

The last couple of posts, I'm sorry to say have been a bit negative and I apologise for that. There's enough going on out there without bringing my winges to the party. In order to escape everything that's going on in the news, politics, etc. I've been keeping my head down and have continued to take pleasure in gardening and spending time at my allotment.

I have also found a few more YouTube channels that I've been enjoying watching, that post regular videos on this subject or on the subject of growing food or homesteading.

The newest one is a channel called MossyBottom (strange name I know), but it's by a guy who has left the rat race in the UK and bought a run down cottage in the West of Ireland, where he is restoring the cottage and land, growing/selling food and using the principles of permaculture to live more sustainably. It's quite interesting to watch someone who's doing this in this part of the world, as opposed to the US.

Another current favourite channel is The Hollar Homestead, which is created by a young couple who in the last few months have moved onto a homestead in North Carolina in the US. The channel follows their efforts to get their homestead up and running.  It's quite interesting, especially as they seem to belong to a community of homesteaders who help them out when needed, which is good to see.

Finally, I'm enjoying the channel called Peter Kanaris Green Dreams FL, who posts videos about growers in Costa Rica and Florida, many of whom grow food and obscure and wonderful sounding fruits, some of which I've never seen or heard of before. It's amazing to see people doing such wonderful things all over the world, to show people how easy it is to grow your own food and not be so dependent on others for survival. Plus they are all helping to increase the diversity on our planet.

It's making me want to grow as much food as I can. At the moment, we've been having great success at the allotment with tomatoes and cucumbers.  We've got more than we can possibly eat, despite giving some away to fellow plot holders and others.

I've been freezing many of the tomatoes, as we realised that when you put them in chilli or spaghetti Bolognese, they taste fine, even after freezing. Hopefully, I won't need to buy tinned tomatoes for a while, although there is now limited room in the freezer.

The raspberry plants, most of which I bought from Poundland or have spread naturally, have also been producing lots of berries. I've not had to buy raspberries for a few weeks now. We've just dug up all of the potatoes too, but there was a lot of slug damage that we've had to cut away. We're still going to use them the best we can. I haven't and won't be buying potatoes or frozen chips for a few weeks, while we use the ones harvested to make wedges instead.

I feel like I want to get serious about growing as much food as I can at the moment. I've even got plans to grow salad during the winter, especially as it seems like were due for an extended Indian Summer. I just need to get around to getting it all set up correctly. Planting only what we actually eat has definitely worked for us this year and reduced wastage.  The only exception has been the rhubarb.  We just don't use it, so it tends to go to waste as no-one likes it.  I've offered my plants to other plot holders, as we're digging them out this winter.  Someone who actually likes it may as well benefit from it.  I've got a couple of people interested in a plant each.  In it's place we can grow more strawberries or raspberries, which are much more useful to us.

Finally, I've recently bought a couple of black grape vines to go in at the allotment. I'm hoping that they will grow well up against the back fence and possibly give us another type of crop at some point in the future. The possibilities are endless and it's quite exciting to think about it. It makes me feel much more positive than reading the news anyway.

What do you do to keep yourself feeling positive, when things going on in the world around you seem so gloomy?