Month: January 2018

A Zucchini Problem

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

Hi. My name is Robinne and I have a zucchini problem.

They say the first step is to acknowledge you have a problem. I did that years ago with my zucchini addiction, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. Every year, I say I’m going to plant fewer zucchini. But in early July, with icy rain lashing the windows, the pictures in the seed catalogue are so alluring…

When it comes to planting time in October, I find I have four or five varieties of zucchini seed—how did that happen? Well, since I have the seed…

I plant only six of each variety—I use those little six-pack seedling trays, so it’s really the minimum reasonable number of any one variety.

Let’s see…six times four or five…hmmm…

At plant-out, I swear I’ll cull some. I’ll only plant the best-looking individuals of each variety. Two of each kind, just in case one plant dies (which, by the way, has never happened to me, but it’s always a risk).

But I’ve earmarked an entire bed for zucchini on my garden plan. I couldn’t leave part of a bed empty. That would be a waste of space. And there are plenty of plants to fill the bed…

As I say, I have a zucchini problem.

Master Chef Sedgemere

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

An every-day artful display of dinner ingredients.

My husband had just finished making pesto for our dinner pasta. He turned and surveyed the vegetables I’d chopped: yellow and green zucchini, three colours of green beans, baby carrots, fresh peas…

He laughed. “We live in a cooking show sometimes.”

“Yeah, like, every day around five o-clock,” I answered.

I exaggerated, of course, but only slightly. With a garden that produces beautiful vegetables year-round, how can we not end up with beautiful spreads of food in the kitchen every day?

So, hurray for the garden! All we need now is the camera crew…

Welcome 2018

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The new year is here, and I feel I should declare some resolution to go with it.

But the truth is, I don’t wait for the new year to make resolutions. If I feel a need to work harder, change my life, eat less chocolate (heaven forbid!), or whatever in order to be a better person, I just do it, as soon as I realise I need to. New year or old, it doesn’t matter. Why wait to improve your life or yourself?

And so I come to the new year with a list of to-dos that has little to do with it being 2018 instead of 2017. Oh, there are some big-ticket items there that might be construed as ‘resolutions’, but they’re really just the next step in a progression, and their appearance on my list has nothing to do with the change of year.

So, whether you’ve made resolutions or not, may your new year be full of growth and personal improvement. May you strive to spread love and happiness wherever you go and in whatever you do. If we all do that, think what a fabulous year it will be!