One of the unexpected, positive side effects of the cookschools, has been the amount that Rick and I have learnt from people who come to the classes. We've seen a hugely varied group of people over the years that we've been doing the classes - all of whom have done different things in their lives, and some of whom can unexpectedly be experts on subjects that we occasionally riff on. That means that we get to learn even as we are teaching - which I've always seen as a real bonus.
I tend to get excited about whatever my next great new idea is, quite regularly, and often discuss it during the classes, and as a result get all sorts of feedback. More often than not though, I'm usually humbled by the awareness, that something that is new and exciting in my life, may be something that other people have been quietly going about in their lives for aeons. So I shut up, take a step back and listen - and usually learn in the process...
Ever since we bought this property from my father I've been wanting to extend the gardens considerably - but time and money and expertise have always been limiting factors. We did plant a number of various citrus trees in our first year, and got totally disheartened by the destruction that the pukekos caused. But a reasonable number of trees have survived, and I no longer feel any guilt at all when our dogs deal to pukekos. But there is a whole heap more we could be doing, and sometimes the thought of how enormous it is, ends up being limiting becos I can't quite decide where to start.
We have an enclosure in the orchard below where we experimented with keeping pigs - all interesting, but not one we are in a rush to repeat. The daily committment of feeding, in amongst everything else we do in a day, felt like too much. But the fencing built for them has given us a dog free area which I've had designs on for a vegetable garden for awhile. My initial efforts weren't a resounding success - and like most things in life I decided I'd be much more successful if we went back to the basics - good soil. So earlier this year we installed a compost heap - whichin typical 'me' style, I'd prevaricated over for some time, over complicating what essentially should be very simple. A pile of decomposing food scraps. Have managed that with the house stuff, and have been wanting for some time to start on the restaurant food waste, but volumes there, are conspicuously bigger and I wasn't quite sure where to begin. So it was a good idea thats been sitting in the 'too hard for now' file. I'd tried a worm farm a few years back, for the house- bought a plastic layered job, but that hadn't worked.
One of our good customers is a worm expert having run a huge commercial operation - so he got quizzed the other nite when he was in, and dropt me round some coconut fibre the next day to use. Just what I needed to give me the impetus to get all fired up - so Rick started digging...
Becos of the volume of waste that we produce at the restaurant I'd suspected that farming worms in the ground was going to be better than the old bath style containers that lots of people use - and that is what we've started this week.
Some wonderful ladies who come to the cookschools, got us started with our first load of worms, but we realised quickly that they weren't going to be enough to break down the kind of volume that we needed, so I went to a commercial operation and bought 10 kilos as you do. My husband was heard to mutter in the background, that they were more expensive than whitebait! - but hopefully if we get everything right and they thrive, they will more than pay their way. And more importantly, it just feels like the right thing to be doing. I love the concept of leftover food not being wasted, but instead going down to feed the worms, who will in time produce a vermicast that we will use to feed our fruit trees and vegetables. I love the circularity of that notion- it has a symmetry that appeals.
However being us - we're currently agonising over whether we're doing things correctly, and the worms are inspected each morning when we take down the container of slops to see whether they're happy and eating and doing their thing.
Do we lie the food on top of them, or do we put it next to them?- will it go stagnant if they don't eat it soon enough? so should we be making sure that its broken down into more 'worm' size bites?
We start the next cookschool series next week, so I have this opportunity handed to me on a plate to quizz people who know more about these things than us. Perfect really!
