I sat on stage, I thought I’d be more nervous, but it suddenly dawned on me…this is my life, I know this shit, I’ve lived it. After that realisation I seemed to be a little more at peace with myself, and so asking questions with Joel Salatin became pretty much like a talk over a farm fence. He’s an amazing bloke, and I feel blessed to have been asked to interview him on stage. The best part though was our pre-event chat, microphones off, just the two of us, agreeing with each other. That was amazing.

It was like having your teacher at school confirm that you’re on the right track. It was a special approval of sorts. I felt stoked.

After the conversation on stage was over, I mingled with the crowd, and got to meet another favourite person of mine, Costa, the larger than life brother who hosts Gardening Australia. He’s such a hard worker for the cause of sustainability, I was honoured to have a chat with him about various things.

Coming away from the event I feel re-charged, inspired and more driven.

I’ve worked two days straight catching up on veg garden maintenance, as I’ve done bugger all over the last month and a half while being focused on book events, media and such.

I’ve installed a new garden bed for the soon-to-be-planted tomatoes, built a climbing frame for scarlet runner beans and caught up on weeding, separating and thinning plants like parsnip, onion, carrots and beetroot. It’s all back in running order now.

And it needs to be, because we’re on a tight budget now that I don’t have a money-earning job. I’ve been made redundant from my job and have committed myself to be the house’s sole provider of food. This is the old way, this is serious business. We’ve decided not to buy any more food for a while and to just live off what we have in stores. It’s an experiment in frugality. I know I wasn’t raised in poverty so I don’t have a cultural hangover of poverty, but I’m financially in that bracket, we all are. Four daughters, two adults. All living together, trying to survive the best we can.

It’s more imperative than ever for me to be right on top of food growing this summer.