Bringing In the Cabbages

The high winds of the weekend took one of my little net wigwams off the Veggie Patch under cover of darkness ... where they took it too I have no idea, it's completely vanished ... so the cabbages that were safely nestled under it have been exposed to the elements and the critters that live on the hill, that last bit sounds like something out of a horror movie doesn't it  ;-)

Alan even walked along the road looking for the wigwam but no luck!! 

So I had no choice but to start bringing the cabbages in and processing them.  This first lot were soaked in salted water, rinsed and then shredded and whizzed in the salad spinner before being frozen as they are.  As we should be eating them over the course of the Winter I thought I would see if I could get away with not having to do a mammoth blanching session.

The Sweet Chestnuts in Nut Wood were falling off the trees so they have all been brought in and taken out of their very prickly coverings.  This is the first proper crop from these trees, we were really pleased to get so many/

In other news ... I still don't waste anything and this lone crust was whizzed in the Nutribullet ...

... just three seconds later and I had a tub of breadcrumbs for the freezer, the next crust I get I'll do the same to and fill the tub up to the top  :-)

Sue xx

Todays Harvest... and a Days Food

After shocking most of you with the top picture on yesterday's blog post I thought I better show you all how we really eat.  Yes, we have some of the crisps, nibbles and even the occasional chocolate bar, usually dark and homemade, but from time to time the odd bought one slips in, but by and large we eat direct from the polytunnel, which is where all of the above food, except the peas which grow just outside the doors, come from.

The Spinach is harvested every few days, washed, spun dry and then laid on kitchen paper and stored in a stayfresh bag in the drawer in the fridge.  This forms the basis of my Nutriblast each and every morning.  A lovely healthy start to the day and one that stands me in good stead in case it all goes downhill from there.  But it rarely does. 

Lunch, as indeed does most meals, usually features some form of Courgette, here I was frying them with some garlic and radish as a topping to some our our gorgeous crunchy lettuce leaves.  Simple but so tasty, and all I needed that particular day after being on my knees weeding the polytunnel for a few hours.

The  courgette plants are producing well, and up to now I've been eating enough to keep up with the supply but  soon there will be more than we can eat on a daily basis and it's then that I can start harvesting, chopping and freezing so that when the plants die back we can carry on eating this lovely vegetable for as long as possible.

My tea is usually salady .... and occasionally fish based.  

Here I had salmon on some homemade coleslaw with half a homegrown cucumber, another plant I'm just about keeping up with.  (Cucumbers and courgettes are also going into my morning Nutriblast.)

If I'm peckish at supper time, I'll have something simple.  A quick scrambled egg with some freshly picked tomatoes is good for supper or breakfast, and is always a lot more filling than it looks.

So despair yea not, I have not returned to the 'darkside' and started eating processed and packaged foods.  Most of what we eat has no food miles, it comes from mere yards away and is produced with my own fair hands.

You didn't really think any differently ..... did you?

Sue xx

Like Two Peas in a Pod

Most of the peas I've grown have been just normal sized and very delicious, and I have to admit that not many have made it into the house as they are a lovely thing to be snacking on when I'm in the polytunnel .... but I thought this one was totally cute :-)

Some of the peas that did make it into the house were added to Ratatoullie.

Tasty with some brown rice.

Hopefully soon I'll have all the ingredients homegrown for next batch of Ratatoullie that I make for the freezer.  I always make a huge pan full because it, and curry freeze so well it would be daft not too.

You can't beat home grown, home made ready meals.

Sue xx

Mushrooms, Vegetables and Funny Foibles

 

Walking along the edge of our side of the woods this week trying to dodge the worst of the rain with the dogs, these beauties caught my eye.  I have no idea whether they are edible or deadly poisonous, but I simply had to pick them to show to Lovely Hubby before the torrential rain rotted them away.  I also wanted to look in our mushroom handbook to see what sort they were, but the book's at the other house ..... as are most things we need and when we're there it's the same story, we go in a drawer or cupboard to get something out and realise that, yes ... it's at the other house!! 

 As it happened within an hour the rain stopped and we had a wonderfully sunny day, so I thought I'd photograph them for posterity and so I can check them out when I am reunited with my handbook later.

 



 

This week it's been all about the veggies, bringing in the last of this and the last of that.  The weird and wonderful carrots were all blanched and then open frozen, the yellow courgette and beans were roasted with other veggies from the fridge for tea that night.  The lettuce, the wonderful surprise lettuce, was my lunch today on a sandwich with a slice or two of cheese and there are a few more lettuces to bring in next week.

 

Yesterday saw me pulling up what was left of the Beetroot, Lovely Hubby had some with his tea last night and the rest was bottled up with some vinegar to eat once we have eaten the Pickled Beetroot from 2010 that we are manfully ploughing our way through at the moment.  Why didn't I have any with my tea, well the smell of beetroot cooking really puts me off it for a while, I think it smells dreadfully 'hot earthy' and just not nice.  But I love the taste of it, so in a couple of days I will be able to eat some from the jar in the fridge with no ill effects but in the meantime ..... YUK no way!!

 

I have  lots of funny little foibles ..... do you?

 

Sue xx

Water, and Pond Life

 

Everywhere is dry here at the moment, we have not had rain for a couple of weeks and with this intense heat things are drying out really quickly.  My biggest concern has been keeping us and our animals and birds as cool and watered as possible, tender plants get a drink when they need it, but most of my veggies I leave to their own devices.

 

I am a hard-hearted gardener, things get a good drink when they are planted and then they get another thorough soaking the week after, after that it's up to them to send roots down long and deep to find their own water.  If you give them a watering can full here and there you simply encourage the roots to come upwards towards the moisture and then they stand much more chance of drying out in any drought conditions.

 



 

 

I have saucers of water on the ground near my planters and the areas that I do water for little creatures to get a drink.

 

In amongst all the foliage and weeds there is a bird bath that gets filled each day when I water my herbs.

 

On the patio there are bowls of water left out in the shade for the cats and dogs, so they can quench their thirst whenever they feel the need, and  I'm sure these are visited during the night by many other little creatures too.  Over by Chicken World we have our hosepipe set up where we fill our buckets for carrying over to fill the chicken drinkers and I always make sure I leave a couple of buckets ready filled for us, knowing full well that deer and other larger animals from the woods will be able to get a drink if they so wish during these hot and stifling nights.

  

 

But the biggest source of water for all sorts of wildlife is in our pond.

 



 

I bit the bullet the other day and left the hosepipe running to add some much needed water to it, the level had dropped pretty low and it was looking still and dark.  Although our water is metered I decided that better a bigger water bill for us than lots of tiny little creatures meeting their maker for the sake of a couple of hundred gallons of fresh pure water.

 

There is a fountain in the middle which is slightly blocked but which churns the water up nicely adding much needed oxygen and movement to the water, it is a cooling sound on a hot summers day.

 

We've been rewarded for my extravagance with the hosepipe by the pond springing back to life in a magical way. 

 

Pond Skaters skim the surface, big fat tadpoles have appeared yet again and the fish are now swimming back and forth.  Dashes of bright blue signal the return of the mating Dragonflies and the air is thick with insects of all types

 

There is indeed magic in the pond ....

 

... and the sun rays catch the water in beautiful ways ....

... making me want to stand and stare, and drink in the beauty of a precious resource for nature.



 

I'm so glad I filled it. 

 

 If you have a pond and you can, top up it's level and watch it come to life.  If you haven't, try and make sure you fill up any bird baths you have in your garden, and if you have none of these put out a shallow saucer and a big bowl of water for any wildlife you have visiting your garden or yard, there will be lots of them whether you know it or not and they all need water.

 

The very least we can do is share what we are lucky enough to have.

 

Have a good weekend and enjoy the sun.

 

Sue xx

 

 

It's That Friday Feeling .....

 

This is just how I feel this morning.

 

It's been a good week, a short week due to us only getting back from our mini holiday on Monday, although that seems like an age away already.  There's been lots accomplished in the Veggie Patch and we have made great inroads into our large supply of mixed leaves, and this is where my favourite gadget really shows its value.

 

 

It took me a while to get round to having a salad spinner, but I would say it's one of the most used items in my kitchen throughout the Summer months.  Yes, you can dry your leaves on kitchen roll, which costs you money or in a clean tea towel which then costs you money in extra washing, although am I weird in that I love to see a line of towels blowing in the breeze on a Summer's day (must hark back to the pleasure of a dozen white nappies drying in the sunshine).  But this little beauty, in almost my favourite shade of green did you notice, is brilliant.

 

 

 

Every day I am picking around this amount of leaves to have with our evening meal, I sneak a few out to have with my lunch and the rest sit in the spinner until tea time.  The routine for this month is fetch the eggs in my bowl, go and pick all the ripe strawberries, placing them carefully on top of the eggs and eating a few while I'm picking.  I'm getting around 400g a day at the moment, I'm very impressed with my plants cropping ability, and then I top up the bowl with leaves from the Salad Bed. 

 

It's a nice little routine and makes me feel very self sufficient,  it drives home to me that at the moment we could completely feed ourselves. There are suddenly lots of crops available for the picking with the Courgettes getting big enough to eat now and I have some wonderful Spring Onions.  I have to admit to being a bit lax though and I have hardly any Radishes left, the Tin Bath has been picked clean of them, so I need to get sowing some more over in the Veggie Patch, the good thing is with this nice warm weather they will be going straight into the soil , no need for transplanting and fiddling about.  I also need to get in a few more lettuces so I don't end up with a Lettuce gap, I think some nice crunchy ones will be good for later in the Summer.

 

This is the Salad Bed over in the Veggie Patch, Lovely Hubby covered an old cold frame skeleton that we found here last year with some plastic mesh for me and made a brilliant job of it and it keeps the bunny rabbits out a treat, so most of the more tender salad crops that I plant in it we actually get to eat.  This was how it looked a couple of weeks ago and now that I am on the verge of mastering my new camera I will go and take some more shots around the place this weekend.

 

The forecast for the weekend is really good, so for us it will be a day of work around here and then Sunday we will be car booting and then having the afternoon off, reading on the patio and generally winding down after a busy but enjoyable week.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Sue xx

 

Replenishing the Tin

 

Yesterdays car boot sale went well, really well.  We managed to sell most of the things that I had sorted, including lots of books that I had decided to jetisson. 

 

 

While I was there I came to the conclusion that there are more books that I can easily let go of ...... my fiction books. Since moving to this house I think I have read one book off these shelves, yes, ONE book in over a year. Why have them all then gathering dust and taking up space. They look nice but they are not serving any other purpose than waiting to be read by someone who has neither the time nor the inclination to read them at the moment.

 

So before the start of July and our next car boot sale I will be sorting through them all and choosing my favourite twenty titles, the rest will be boxed up and either sold at the car boot sale or dropped off at the Oxfam charity book bank at our local supermarket on the way home as this will most likely be our last car boot sale for this year.

 

 

 

We made a total of £211 from our books, knick knacks and clothes and a surprising £55 from selling food stuffs sorted from the cupboards and including £13 for Chocolate muffins, made from the large bag of Chocolate Sponge Mix bought from Approved Foods last year.

 

So that's £55 paid back into the tin, it's looking a bit healthier now again.  I am going to sit and work out how much I have to spend in coupons and vouchers and see how little I can take from the tin this month using the vouchers instead to buy any fresh foods we need.  It always feels like a new month is a fresh new start with the £2 House Keeping Challenge, with accounts being tallied, finances checked and inspiration running high again.

 

 

 

We also ate the first food from the tin bath, three lovely tasting radishes (and their leaves) added to the lovely colourful salad we had for tea.

 

And yes there is some fish on my plate as well as Lovely Hubby's!!

 

For the last couple of months I have been eating fish as I had been really craving it, so officially I was no longer a Vegetarian but a Pescatarian instead.  I've found it difficult though at times though, and although I do love the taste of most fish I was on the verge of stopping eating it and going back to my completely vegetarian way of eating which suits me so well, I was dithering a bit and then I watched this ....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRNNzMZgrzs

 

... and it made my mind up for me completely.  It was popped on Facebook today by my Blogging Buddy Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes and shows the remarkable realisation by a very clever little Portugese toddler where some of his foods come from.  A truly wonderful little clip and well worth a watch.  It is translated into English with subtitles so pull it up on your big screen and sit and watch and be amazed, I was.

 

My mind is now completely made up and any fish in the freezer will be on Lovely Hubby's plate and NOT on mine :-)

 

Sue xx

The Tin Bath Challenge - Update

On the 6th May I planted out the tin bath (see THIS post for details) and I thought I had better post about how it's doing now, three weeks later.

 



 

Well it's looking really good, surprisingly the peas have germinated well.   Last year I had a virtually nil pea crop and I half expected that it was in fact the peas I planted that were too old or something wrong with them, but they obviously like this situation much better, in the open air but in the sunniest place we have and they have virtually all sent forth luscious little pea shoots, some of which will be on a salad later today. I always think thinnings are the best nutrient dense little tasty titbits so I tend to let things grow slightly too close together so we can eat the 'in-betweenys' in our salads.

 

There are teeny tiny Spring Onion seedlings coming through too now and the Lollo Rosso lettuces are just starting to get their next couple of leaves although they are so tiny you might not be able see them in the photo (click on it to enlarge it).

 

Of course the Radish seedlings that I popped into the front of the bath have romped away are almost all ready for eating, this one and a couple of his friends will join the pea shoots in the salad later.  So tea tonight is Baked Breaded Camembert (yellow stickered bargain sometime ago) that I found deep in the depths of the chest freezer and some homegrown salad, and if this lovely sunny weather continues we will once again be sitting outside and soaking up the sunshine while we eat.

 

Hope the sun is shining on you today, after all it is officially the first day of Summer.

 

Sue xx

Miserly March -Thrifty Thursday Tips - Week 3

 

 

My name is Sue and I am a 'growaholic'. 

 

 

Tips for the first week of Miserly March were all about using your freezer wisely, then we moved on to using your leftovers and wasting nothing.  What comes before these things ..... well in my world it is growing the food that will live in the freezer and become some of those leftovers.

 

 

This 'growing thing' crept up on me slowly and pretty slyly, it made it's first appearance many years ago when my boys were small and it was a necessity to put fresh good food on the table.  Then I went out to work and built a career of sorts, there was no time for much gardening and growing of foods so I handend over my cash and bought from markets and shops.  Then suddenly I had an unexpected life change and my green fingers were once again called into action. 

 

Luckily although I had disguised it well the green was still there, and I have managed for the last four years to grow the majority of our veggies and some of our fruit.  Last year was a disappointment as it was for so many gardeners in this country.  The weather defeated all but the very best of us.  Losing my polytunnel on our move (the wind ripped it to shreds just before the move and then we decided not to re-assemble it here as we will hopefully not be staying too long), scuppered my chances of growing under cover, so I was at the mercy of the elements apart from my draughty, slug infested greenhouse.

 

 

 

So what's this got to do with Thrifty Thursday Tips I hear you asking.

 

 Well do you honestly expect me to be the sort of grower that throws money at the garden, that has posh wigwams of shiny steel for her beans to grow up, that buys hundreds of little pots to start off her seedlings.  That heats the greenhouse to temperatures warmer than the house.  Now don't get me wrong if that's what you want to do go ahead, you will still save money in the long run, lots of money and your plot will look beautiful as well as productive.  But I started cheap and I continue to do things as cheaply as I possibly can, indeed with each passing year it gets cheaper and cheaper.

 

The plan above was done on the computer for me by Lovely Hubby taken from my quickly scribbled plan of the Veggie Patch and made all posh.  Thank goodness we noted down the positions of all the trees and fruit bushes in the tyres around the edge of the plot because some naughty little geese have chewed off all the labels from them.  Now we have to rely on this plan.

 

So at the start of the growing season I get out last years plan and see what worked and what we enjoyed eating, what went where and for how long and generally bring myself up to speed on things.

 

 

 

Then I get out these.

 

All year we save up all the inners from toilet rolls and kitchen rolls (and so does my lovely Mum), these are kept squashed in bundles ready to be brought into action at planting time.

 

 

 

 

I cut each toilet roll inner into half and kitchen roll inners into four, and then I plant virtually everything we grow into these first, this way each and every seed gets it's own little pot to send out those delicate first roots into, and that vital little infrastructure is never disturbed as I plant the entire thing undisturbed into the ground when the conditions are right.  The cardboard disappears completely after a few waterings or heavy showers of rain and adds its nutrients to the soil.

 

You can leave the tubes full sized for peas and any other plant that likes a long root system, but half sized works well for most things.

 

 

 

Sometimes I plant in what comes to hand ...

 

 

.... and I waste nothing.  Icrecream tubs and margarine tubs make excellent plant markers.  Just cut them to size and write on them with permanent marker and you have a weatherproof plant label. (But not puppy or goose proof - they just run off with them!!)

 

 

 

The fruits of all the hard work make it all worthwhile, and a stroll around the veggie beds on a Summers morning lets you know what you will be having for tea that night.  I used to plan the meal and then go and pick the veggies to go with it, but after a couple of years I switched this around.  Now I go out and pick what we have the most of, what is the ripest and ready for eating, then I bring it in and plan the meal around it.

 

This way nothing is wasted and everything is eaten at its very best.

 

 

 

There are some wonderful treats available when you grow your own.

 

 

 

 

I don't think I fully appreciated just how much money I was saving until I did the workings out for Below the Line last year, it blew my mind.  The post HERE gives all the costings of what I had to eat for the five days of last years challenge, and this is the homegrown food that I used to bulk out my shop purchases, luckily after the year before's challenge I had thought to save myself lots of veggies in the freezer as the challenge is slightly early in the year for most of what I needed to be large enough to harvest.

 

All the above food came in at less than 5p (4.8p to be exact).  I was queried at the time at how could this possibly be so cheap and this was my answer -

 

This shows just how cheap it can be to grow and eat your own produce.

My brother said I should add the cost in of the growing, the compost and the fertiliser, as well as the price of the seeds so I sat and had a think.

I grow (plant, dig and weed) because that's what I enjoy doing - FREE. The compost we make ourselves from scraps, waste and manure (horse and chicken) - FREE. The fertiliser we make ourselves from Comfy, Nettles and worm bed run off - FREE. The water for the plants we use is saved rainwater - FREE. So the costings of the veggies really is just for buying the packets of seeds, which I do in the sale at the end of the Summer usually at 50p a packet. So the costings are based on the price per plant obtained from the seed planted, and, believe it or not, always rounded UP.

 

 

 

 

It really puts things into perspective when we see just how cheaply we can grow our own foods. And you DO NOT need lots of land, although we currently live on four acres, only a small plot of this is our Veggie Patch, I purposely made it the size of an average largish garden or a normal sized allotment plot so I could see how little land I would be able to get away with for growing food at our next and final house move.  As you can see from the picture the beds could be squished a little closer together or be larger and therefore be even more productive, but there are only two of us (and the chickens) to grow for and I had the space so I went for larger pathways.

 

So my Thrifty Thursday Tip for this week is to grow your own. 

 

Whether it be turning your whole garden over to fruit and vegetables, using just a small part of it, planting in amongst the flowers and shrubs or planting in tyres, containers, troughs or pots.  Use your hanging baskets for trailing tomatoes as well as, or instead of flowers.   If you have no outdoor space use those lovely sunny windowsills in the house for herbs and 'cut and come again' lettuces, move them away onto a table top on the hottest of hot days so they don't scorch or get too leggy.  One packet of seeds could see you in herbs or lettuces for a whole year and save you an absolute fortune. 

 

 Think about it, a nice Parsley plant at the supermarket will set you back anywhere between one pound and three, and for less than that you can buy a packet of seeds which will give you hundreds of plants.  You could get together with a friend or two and each buy a different herb or vegetable and then share the seeds out between you.  So for the price of one packet of seeds you will all have two or three different herbs or veggies.

 

You save lots of money, you reap the rewards in cheap, nutricious, tasty and fresh foods and you get the satisfaction of feeding your family with something you grew yourself.  Involve the children in growing with you and who knows they may even want to eat more veggies each day.  Happy time spent together in the fresh air and good food as a reward, what could be better.  And it's about time more children learnt that vegetables come from the ground and not out of a plastic bag from the supermarket!!

 

I'll be back next Thursday with the final Thrifty Thursday Tips and it's all about YOU.

 

 

Sue xx