SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

By Natacha Lee, Gisborne 

They are Kiwis eating food grown and produced within a 200 km radius for 30 days of April in theHappyzine Eat Local Challenge.

pioupioukids

Not everyone has a garden to supply them with their need in vegetable, nor an orchard to provide fresh fruit or even animals to provide meat (if you’re a meat eater) or access to the sea for seafood. Let’s face it, most of us probably have a few of these sources, fewer of us have it all.

When we first moved to Gisborne 7 years ago, I had never had a proper garden, it was all a learning curve. Our first aim was to eat at least one meal a week where all the vegetables would be from the garden. It happened eventually. This year I have managed to provide most of our vegetable needs over the summer. Luckily, there are people who are far better at gardening than I am, and even better, I know where to find some of them: the local Farmer’s market.

In Nice, France, where I come from, local markets run 6 days out of 7. It’s a way of life for a lot of people and an income earner for others. Here it only happens once a week but that once a week is already huge. We have this hub where local growers can sell their goods, we can buy fresh food and best of all, build a relationship with the people sustaining our needs.

Here are a few of my favorites:

seedlings of a wide variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers… for that one time your seeds got thrown out the window by the kids or the dog knocked over the pots.

Tags: eat local, eat local challenge