Veggies!

I thought I would blog about something other than sewing this week, because there's been a lot of sewing posts lately. I am still working on my Alison swimsuit, but it has been a tiring effort. Everytime I have to stop and unpick something, I tend not to pick it up again for another week. My latest hitch is as pictured below...


Yes - it's lopsided! Argh! Despite carefully cutting, pinning and (I thought) stitching it evenly, it didn't work out that way. So, a little more unpicking for me.

Anyway, onto more positive things. Something excellent that we have done lately is join a fruit & veggie co-op. Basically it's a group of people who live in the same area who share the fruit & veg shopping and save money by doing so.

Just look at this delivery of goodies we got last week!



I thought I would share our model with you, so you can start up a co-op in your neighbourhood if you want. It's so great! I highly recommend it!

Firstly, you need to suss out a farmer's market in your area that sells fruit & veg in bulk. You get your best value by buying boxes of veggies and dividing them up.

You will also need to rally up 6 households in your area who are keen to join. Then put together a 6 week rotating roster of whose turn it is to go do the shopping. We started a Google group to keep track.

When it's your turn to go to the market, you spend $120 (that's $20 per household, per week) on a range of fruit, veg and herbs that are in season and look yummy! Then you take them home, divide them up, and deliver the boxes to your fellow co-op members. No money changes hands, and you only have to do fruit & veg shopping every 6 weeks. Brilliant!*

We have found that we are getting so much fruit & veg that we can barely eat it all! So we are trying out new recipes, eating more meat-free meals, and (hopefully) getting healthier.

It's a great model if you can set it in your neighbourhood.



*credit to our friends in the Chelmsford St, Newtown area that came up with the original system