Friday 30 October 2015

Financial effect of growing your own

As visitors to my blog will know the last 3 months have been especially good for crops from the garden, greenhouse and polytunnel once we got going in all areas. Besides feeding us and visitors we have given stuff to neighbours and any one not quick enough to run away - like the man collecting an e bay buy one day who got an out board engine and a bag of runner beans!

Today I had a look at our grocery spend over the last 3 months.

Aug 2014 £289.39         Aug 2015 £212.14 (including feeding family visitors for 10 days)
Sept 2014 £328.28        Sept 2015 £179.36
Oct 2014 £290.71          Oct 2015 £192.09

A significant saving pattern!






Thursday 29 October 2015

Sewing latest

Been beavering away on and off making a tunic top for Grand daughter No 2 aged 8 Having promised I would make them some new tops.

Another frugal sew!
Material free give away - 1.5 meters of cotton print - with a book purchase. Pattern from a book I got on offer about pattern cutting from blocks. No need for any zips or buttons on this design. Cotton thread in my supply tin.

However, it looked a bit uninteresting so I spent more time adding to basic tunic.

I used some red cotton/poly fabric to make a 2" frill round the hem, and then cut some of the red and pattern fabric into strips and made them up into squares. Cut these into two pockets, lined with pattern fabric and attached as two patch pockets.  Used red thread to machine embroider a ribbon motif up and down the front opening and a flower motif round the neck line to hold down the facing. I had reduced the sleeves pattern from full length to elbow but they were very wide; so I found some second hand elastic (rescued from a skirt I think) and threaded it through the hem of the sleeves into a loose gather.

Added a "Made by Grandma" label (some printed ribbon I brought years ago)  and posted off to Grand daughter in a far away city (£1.19).  Hope she likes it.

Wednesday 28 October 2015

Windfall money!!

Congratulating ourselves as being within electricity budget of £30 actual use (plus VAT and standing charge) my husband clicked on the email saying the bill was ready. £26???

Further investigation revealed we had got some sort of government rebate designed to reduce over sized electricity bills by £12.

Image result for fuel bill rebate

Wow. Thanks British government/power companies = like to give us back any more of the millions you ripped off us over the years. 

Monday 26 October 2015

Trellis work

We had a new oil tank in the summer and have just got some trellis to "mask" it. Keeping the minimum distance dictated by health and safety in case it ever suffers some accidental combustion!



Without being rude about the supplier - this was the worst piece of work in along time. It was not square (I know it is all squares, so how could they get it not square?) and the wood used was a mix of rubbish and worse rubbish. And it was orange. It did not mask the oil tank more emphasised it!

Found the last 4 inches of Wood preservative in the shed and just managed to cover it with a dark brown. We worked round the existing pergola as it was too much work to remove it and later I will get rid of the algae and paint that.   roll on next summer and we will plant clematis and honey suckle.

Meanwhile, wood orders are definitely going elsewhere!

Sunday 25 October 2015

Fish diet

We had friends staying last weekend and we probably over did our meat allowance a bit so even my husband was glad to pop into the fish wholesalers as we went into Kings Lynn at the end of this week.  I got just over a kilo of fresh cod for £10.00.  It was a lovely whole piece very thick and fleshy. Compares well to the £19 kg for pre-packed/fresh stuff we get on our supermarket delivery!

Divided up it makes 8 good portions (4 meals for 2 of us). Not bad for £2.50 a meal.

Our first dish was from BBC Good Food. It is for haddock but works just as well with cod!

Haddock & spinach cheese melt

Spinach just cooked in butter on the bottom.  Then the fish portion and topped with soft cream cheese mixed with a little mustard.  I put a gratin  topping of bread crumbs and oil on before the sliced tomatoes to add a crunch.  In the oven for 15 mins.

Second dish was some thick fillets fried. Not sure what to do next - fish pie with leeks?


Saturday 24 October 2015

Chilli Harvest

Its getting colder everyday and last night it was only 5C in our poly tunnel. Probably due to the fact we only have net on the sides as the actual polythene side panels have not been fitted yet. We are dreading and putting off that task.

So I decide to harvest 90% of the remaining chilli crop from the two bushes as it was red and ready!

I took advice from the internet and washed them in salty water and have left to dry out in the conservatory. Tomorrow I am going to string most of them into bunches, which may make nice gifts at Xmas. I may dry some on a tray but you need to leave do that at 25C and no where in our house is heated to that degree! I may dice some and put in an ice cube tray ready to pop into dishes.

I have enough chilli jam already so I don't think I need to do any more preserves.

There are quite a few peppers to come and some tomatoes still to ripen, we will have to see how they get on as the temperature lowers and if we get enough sunny afternoons to ripen them up.

Meanwhile as greens are a bit short in the garden I have been dipping into the store of runners and peas from the freezer.  I don't mind making some freezer space as it has been crammed in there for months.  We have some cabbage nearly ready and plenty of leeks plus spinach in the poly tunnel. The swede in the veg garden is looking very doubtful.  I dug 4 up before I found anything sound enough to eat.  Not a great success. I won't bother with a picture as they could well frighten you!


Wednesday 21 October 2015

Veg garden plan 2016

Leeks 3 rows planted autumn 2015 - in till early summer
Onions 2 rows  (1 in Oct and 1 in March)
Garlic 1 row (Oct)

length
3.5 mts
bed about 15 mts across
Roots
Carrots – 3 rows - early, mid and late
Parsnips
Swede
Celeriac 


5.5 mts
Potatoes – 5 rows
Sweet potatoes?
  
6.5 mts
Peas – 1 row on sticks
Broad Beans – succession sown


3.9 mts


This area divided in 3 across the plot

Runner beans – 2 rows          2 courgettes                          12/16 sweetcorn in block



3.5 mts
Brassicas and greens

  
3.0 mts


This is the basic plan for our field area of veg and we started to pick varieties today (promising oursleves we would dump the out dated seeds in the box and only use really good stuff this year). First order for sets and seeds up to Xmas was nearly £25. We need to order again just before Xmas and then for the late seeds. I am going to collect up the delivery notes and keep a record this year. 

The only saving grace today was that it was on line and we saved £5 of petrol and £10 on coffee and cake but not going to the garden centre!

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Enjoying autummn

Two lovely days in a row but the forecast is not good for the rest of the week.  The clear blue skies were broken by hundreds and hundreds of Brent geese migrating to the Norfolk sea marshes. They were in V formation after V formation and it was very noisy. We have seen them before but never in such numbers.  We were too far from the house to get the camera so here is a web photo!
Image result for brent geese in norfolk

We have been loath to spend any time indoors and have been pottering around the garden and field. Picking crops, tidying up flower beds and planting some pansies, viola and bellis for winter colour.

Still getting tomatoes in the poly tunnel although they are not ripening as fast. Enough to hand bags to the neighbours and make yet another pot of tomato soup for lunch for the next 3 days.

Yesterday I ran the slow cooker all day and produced enough pork and tomato stew for three days. As I didn't use the oven at all the SMART meter fell back 2%.  Today I used the oven to reheat part of the stew and bake some bread and the electricity meter went back up miles!  I am impressed with the economics of the slow cooker but am also worried that this new oven (18 months old) is not going to be as good as I had hoped. I must find the instruction book and check some of its claims for usage.

Wet weather forecast so some sewing and crafting lined up!  Except I think the husband is planning some DIY store visits as he is fitting out his new shed with shelves.



Monday 19 October 2015

Inca Berries

Blame James Wong and the BBC Allotment programme but we grew 8 bushes of these this summer.


Our weekend guests were brought up with these in their parents garden and lapped up the chance to have bowls of these freely available. The plants are very sturdy, the ones in the poly tunnel keep trying to escape and take over the world! Bit worried we will get lots shooting up next year as they are suppose to be bullies.

They are ripening rapidly now, and getting sweeter too. Eaten straight from the bush they are a nice snack food, bit like a sweet clementine. I have found that you can chop them in half and poach slightly with a spoonful of honey (no water).  This goes well with cheesecake!

I also make a quick pud by crushing 4 digestives or oaty biscuits and mixing them with a knob of melted butter. While that chills in fridge I mix basic soft cheese with icing sugar (75/25) and chill this on top of the biscuit. Then put some fruit on top.  You could do something fancy with shards of chocolate, crushed nuts or something!

Sunday 18 October 2015

World War 2 Excavation



Weekend with good friends led to an extra ordinary weekend. 

At the invitation of the organisers we went with our friends  to an open  day event at Holmewood Conference Centre just south of Peterborough to meet Wildlife and Wetlands Trust  and the Oxford Uni archaeologists who have just excavated the Spitfire crashed by a distant relative of our friends  in 1940 before the Great Fen is flooded to make a conservation area. 

The Great Fen is the lowest point of the UK and the plane remains were another 7 meters down!  A few hundred yards away is  the famous iron post is that measures the loss of peat in the fens over the last 100 or so years.
Image result for measuring the full in land level in the fens

The actual dig for the Spitfire was filmed and is being shown on Countryfile on 9th Nov. Great event where the family was welcomed by all the team with great enthusiasm and emotion as they had connected with the young pilots story.

Holmewood house is a lovely Victorian Gothic country house.




This is the dig site filled in over the weekend.




The log was under the plane and is 1000's of years old. We also met a lovely old chap who witnessed the crash as an 11 year old in 1940.

Super weekend and we sent our friends away with bags of tomatoes, chills, peppers, butternut squash and beetroot.   Enough to keep them until they depart for the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand in a few weeks time.

Thursday 15 October 2015

Technology - love it and hate it

Being driven insane by laptop which won't connect my BT account to Outlook any more, incensed by new super computer as it won't let me log into a live Mail BT account, and likely to explode at the old PC as it will connect to email but won't connect to the printer.

So I am here on old PC looking at emails and blogger with the laptop next to the key board on the Web downloading a free dress pattern from the Sew Magazine site which is a pdf that needs to be printed over 10 pages and stuck together with sticky tape. Half advanced skills, half simple skills.

I like this magazine and on the web site as there are loads of free patterns to download!

The dress pattern is for an 8 year old dress for Grand daughter number 2.  I better get on with it as I have just done one for Grand daughter Number 1 and there will be pouting if not treated equally. I think I have some material in my stash so will be a thrifty sewing project.

Girls Shirt Dress

Meanwhile a lot of cleaning and tidying happening as friends not seen for 18 months are coming for weekend. I like visitors it makes me clean up!!!


Wednesday 14 October 2015

Lingering Indian summer

These nice few days of Indian summer and we have abandoned the veg garden to do some flower garden tasks.
  • Planted two fuchia bushes as part of the screening round the new oil tank. One I grew from a piece I broke off from a bush down the road and propagated.  The other we had in a square tub for about 5 years and was definitely looking too strained.  

  • Took out the row of sweet peas and planted up a bed of 8 big lupin plants I had grown from seed. Should give a solid wall of flower next summer.







  • Took up the geraniums from the front bed and put in the wall flowers (wilted a bit in the sun but we will keep up the watering). Nice Penstomen established in the middle.

  • Took out the petunias and geraniums from the planter, used the spent compost to pot up the geraniums for the winter (recommended on Beechgrove gardening programme last week)


We are planning to over winter the geraniums, take some cuttings and save some money on next year's planting.

 I have grown abut 15 delphiniums from seeds and 4 peach coloured fox gloves for some planned new beds next year.  I am growing some pot marigolds from seed too for some bedding colour next year. I keep seeing these in people's gardens as I cycle round the village and they are so colourful and cheerful. The tagettes and french marigolds we grew this year were a dark colour and though plentiful in flowering they were not quite as bright as we wanted.
My husband pruned some roses and lavender and cut the lawns again.  Not too much grass collected this time round just a couple more inches on the compost bin!

Back to the veg garden tomorrow, if I cant find a couple of late runner beans I think I spotted a few early sprouts my husband will enjoy!
I have to do another tomato harvest tomorrow too. Not that I have dealt with all the pile in the fridge (about 8 lbs). The peppers are red so I should be able to get on with chili jam and tomato chutney.



Saturday 10 October 2015

Missing those plastic bags

Today is the first time I missed those plastic supermarket bags!  Its years since we have had many, been doing the canvas bags for ages, but we usually have a few around and use a couple a week for gathering up bits and pieces. Stood there today for a few seconds thinking what do  I use now?

We have a Saturday broadsheet newspaper about once a month as a treat and it lies about for ages until we have read all the sections till I finally recycle.  This week it has been cannibalized to replace the plastic bags. I have Googled the idea of folding the paper into useful bags.  This method looks handy -
https://thegreendragonfly.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/make-a-newspaper-bag/

Make a paper carry bag 
I have also started to look at any packaging as potential containers. I reuse the plastic square tubs the mushrooms come in to gather veg from the garden and these last for ages. I use the cereal packets for crafts or leave them in the kitchen for a few days as somewhere to pack the small bits of paper, card and plastic for the recycling bin.

I shall miss the plastic carriers next summer  as I used them to make flags on the veg garden. tied to canes they rattled and blew about nicely to scare the birds. 


I have been experimenting with tin cans cut into flowers and used as whirly gigs. Not very successful so far as I need to find something for the centres. The screw through a straw is not quite moving smoothly enough. I see one of my sewing threads is on a hard small cardboard cylinder and that may be useful when it is empty.

 


I carefully checked my on line supermaket shop and made sure I had the box ticked for no bag delivery.  If I had left it I could see the cost would have been an extra 40p on a £43 shop. Price of a tin of beans or tomatoes!






Thursday 8 October 2015

A few wet days and now its gorgeous

A few wet days this week allowed me time in the sewing room. I have been working on a tunic top for my eldest grand daughter using some of the fabric a friend of her mother's supplied and a free dress pattern from my Sew magazine. So a no-cost sew!

I used a pink lawn fabric topped with a nylon chiffon with a printed border, the chiffon is loose at float on the bottom half and I put slits in the sides as she does a lot of jumping around (aged 10). I was particularly pleased with the edges of the sleeves and round the neck, this looked too plain so I used the embroidery functions on my new sewing machine!
Today was actually sunny and warm and thoroughly gorgeous. My husband's new shed arrived and was put up (I photo it tomorrow) and a pile of logs arrived too!  We will be sorting these and finding them a home in the morning (in an old garage - no way will he be sullying his new shed).

I really enjoyed the British Bake Off, well done Naydia, she was so creative and produced some really good things. My bake for this Wednesday was not so successful - the banana cake was to much like batter and came out a bit flat!  I should have taken more notice of the comments on the web site which recommended just using 2 eggs instead of the three in the recipe.





Saturday 3 October 2015

A couple of days out sailing

We have taken ourselves off this week to the south of Norfolk to mess about in boats.  We are re learning sailing after a gap of two decades having promised ourselves we would revive this hobby in our retirement.
Its not an elegant Broads traditional boat but a good working sturdy Drascombe.  We did some more motoring checking out some of the Broads and then sailed on Hickling Broad with just the jib and mizzen (front and back sails).  We are working up to the full main sail! 
We kept out of the way of the other people under full sail, kept out of the reeds and didn't fall in - so it was all good!

Amazing number of old windmills, some with sails, and loads of cormorants to watch fishing. Loads of fishermen too but they seemed a bit grumpy and annoyed with small boats wandering by. We saw a crested grebe diving for fish too (my photo is not good enough to share).

Stayed in a local hotel (clean enough but some what sterile) and had a lovely Thai meal as it is our 44th wedding anniversary this week. Apart from the few days away I think our present for this auspicious event is a new shed!!

Menu planning

As the veg harvest and the weather are changing I thought I would do some menu planning before going to the butchers for the meat for the next 10 days. Here are my half dozen dishes I plan to cook over the next fortnight doing enough for 2 days from each cook, which I shall freeze till needed.  I may use my slow cooker for some or my lovely iron casserole dish which produces a very smooth cook. Everything needed to cook from scratch is in the store cupboard or can be supplied from the garden.

  • Lamb and potato curry (450gms of diced lamb).
  • Madras Lamb (450gms of diced lamb)
  • Chicken Marengo (400gms of diced chicken)
  • Bengali Chicken (450gms of diced chicken)
  • Hong Kong style pork in tomato sauce (300gms of diced pork)
  • Paprika pork (450 gms of diced port)

I have a fridge full of buckets and buckets of tomatoes and loads of chili and red peppers to pick so I am going to do sweet chili jam and tomato chutney next week.

This should keep me busy during the two or three days of rainy weather predicted for next week.

One of the vegetables coming on are summer cabbages. This one (which is a rather elegant shape and shade of green) was three times as big when I picked it but as it had grown enormous outside the protective netted area where the rest of the brassicas are I had to cut off a lot of pecked leaves!  Still more than enough to last the week, a slice a day fills our plates.