Trendy organic shopping at the BluBird market
October 29, 2010
Posted in Lifestyle
The past couple of years have seen a boom in the number of organic markets in Johannesburg, from the long running Bryanston Organic Market to the relatively new Jozi Food Market, which we wrote about some time back.
This past weekend we headed out north, to the BluBird Wholefood market in Birnam, to take a look at what this market had to offer.
The food market is held at the trendy new BluBird shopping centre which is just off Corlett Drive and down the road from Wanderers cricket ground.
The food market is held every Sunday morning from 9am to 2pm and has a range of foods available from fresh breads to home-cured biltong and cheeses to pates, spices and olive oils. There’s Thai food, Indian spices, samoosas and croissants, all gathered together under the architectural eves.
Although relatively small there is still a wide enough selection of foods in offer at the market to make it worth a trip on Sunday morning. It’s perfect if you’re looking for something for a light Sunday lunch.
Our personal haul this time around included a couple of loaves of bread (including a fantastic rye loaf), a jar of sweet pate, a bag of biltong which was finished before we left the market, and some haloumi cheese.
The BluBird centre is unashamedly upmarket and you’ll have to mingle with the well-heeled enjoying Sunday breakfast, but for the food it’s worth at least one trip.
Quick wins in the garden
October 19, 2010
Posted in Garden
We go on a lot at Treevolution about growing and eating your own food. Sometimes we might make it sound a relatively easy thing to do. And usually it is. But there are times when it can be exceedingly frustrating and you wonder if it is all worth it when you look at your less-than-abundant crop.
It’s easy to be disheartened.
If you’re feeling this way then go out and get yourself a few lettuce seeds or seedlings, some tomato seeds and a couple of basil seedlings.
As far as I am concerned these are not only the most rewarding of plants to grow but also the most essential for summer.
Lettuce seeds – we tend to use the Lolla Rossa variety – are among the easiest seeds to grow. Fill a couple of seed trays with vermiculite or seedling soil, plant the seeds and water them every few days, keeping them lightly damp at all times, and within a week you’ll see signs of life.
This year I am using vermiculite for most of my seeds. It’s sterile, holds a good deal of moisture so seeds don’t dry out and I’ve had fewer problems with disease. You can get vermiculite at most hardware and gardening stores and you can use it on its own or together with a good seedling soil.
Tomato seeds and basil seeds are just as easy to grow. Both take little longer to sprout than lettuce seeds but once going they’re pretty robust. If you can’t wait then get a few trays of seedlings which will also do the trick.
The loose-leafed lettuces like Lolla Rossa are perfect for the family because you can pull off a few leaves at a time and they just keep on giving. They have frilly leaves and grow loose, not in in a round ball.
Basil, once it’s got going, grows like a bomb. The beauty of basil is that it’s one of those plants that loves being picked. Rip off a few leaves for dinner and it’ll start growing back immediately. At the end of the season, before they die off, pick the remaining leaves, toss them in a liquidiser and freeze them in icecube trays for use throughout winter.
Tomatoes also take a while to get going – plant them in the garden for full effect – but once they do, and if you’ve got a good number of plants, you’ll have enough to last you out the summer.
There’s not much like a weekend lunch made up of freshly-picked lettuce, basil and tomatoes. Add a bit of good cheese and it’s almost perfect.
Good music and cellphone recycling
October 6, 2010
Posted in Lifestyle
We’ve all got them: Old cellphones with dead batteries and archaic chargers piling up in bottom drawers and in cupboards. If you’re like us then you probably shudder at the thought of simply tossing them out with regular household waste. And so you should.
Cellphones are electronic waste and not only can many of the materials be recycled for future use but they also pose a potential chemical hazard when simply dumped into landfill sites.
So, if you’re in Joburg or Cape Town this weekend why not go along to the Rocking the Daisies (Cape Town) or Rocking the Gardens (JHB) concerts and drag all your old cellphones along? Nokia, a sponsor of the concerts, will have recycling bins available at the venues ready to receive all your old mobile phones.
They don’t have to be Nokia phones, any make of mobile phone will be accepted and Nokia has also committed to planting a tree for every 20 phones collected.
More on Nokia’s blog
Coming soon … the book
October 2, 2010
Posted in site news
That’s right, we’re working on the first edition of a series of guides to living a greener life. The first of these guides is planned for release in October 2010. The first release will be a new-look, easy-to-read guide to recycling in South Africa. This is built on the long-running online recycling guide that we have had since Treevolution started.
We plan to release new versions of each guide every three to six months so that we can incorporate feedback, new information and the most up-to-date resources.
If you would like to be among the first to know when the first guide is released, add your email address below and we’ll email you when the guide is released.
