Friday 29 July 2016

Nuclear power

Can I just say thank goodness someone in Government is questioning the need for nuclear power stations in Somerset. 

Never mind the cost, the fact it will be run and owned by foreign companies, the 1000 years to get rid of the waste, the design that is unproved, the power will be more expensive for the next 50 years, and yet another large concrete blot on the coastal landscape.

Invest the £18 billion in green energy - building yet another nuclear lump on the coast where harnessing the tidal range could produce the same amount of power is crazy!!
Image result for images of somerset coastline


Wednesday 27 July 2016

Courgettes

Welcome to two new followers!

Don't take your eyes off these crops. - had to put 2 giant marrows on the compost heap today and there were still a dozen in the kitchen.


My recipe likes so far this season are
Courgette and Stilton soup = good way to use up the "marrow" ones that got away!  Hint don't add too much water, it is better thick!

Courgettes sliced and spiced and used as a topping on mince and tomatoes mix

Sliced little courgettes fried in butter with a few chunks of bacon and a slice of a large tomato; drained on kitchen paper then grate cheese over it and put under grill. 



Went with bi coloured pink sweet peas today!



I have been evaluating my garden picks, using by"eye" scale based on what you would buy on the market in those £1 bowls. So far it has recorded a value of
April    £30
May    £45
June    £55
July    £90

My husband has sold some bunches of sunflowers at the gate and made £10!!  Enough for next car parking fees at the beach and an ice cream.





Saturday 23 July 2016

Tomato harvest starting

The tomatoes have started to ripen. The first one is a plum cooking one.


This is s beefsteak variety and a slice cooked well on top of home made beef burger!

But you can't beat a Gardeners Delight in a salad!

I see Monty Don on Gardeners World recommends taking off all the lower leaves. I will have to get to that over the next few days.  I enjoyed RHS Tatton park coverage on BBC2 this week, in seemed like a show a bit less "high brow" than Chelsea.

On the sweet peas front - today I went with all the red ones today!  



Thursday 21 July 2016

Went with the blue sweet peas


My husband has been growing sweet peas of various colours but I decided just to pick all the blue ones.

I wonder what colour I shall have tomorrow? The problem is that you have to keep picking to make them keep flowering.

Harvested our garlic as the leaves were getting rust. They were laid in the green house to dry but when the temperature reached 45C n there I pulled them out, cleaned off the dry dirt and leaves and brought them to the conservatory which is slightly less hot. Its a bit of a tangy smell and it is keeping the bugs out!


I will pull dried leaves off when they are thoroughly dried out.


Wednesday 20 July 2016

Day out in Cley

Too hot for gardening so we went out yesterday for the day to Cley next the Sea (west Norfolk).  The village was very small, with little flint cottages tucked here and there, everywhere grew the most brilliant holly hocks. We explored the village, wandering down cool footpaths between the houses and avoiding traffic snarls in the very narrow through road when coasthopper bus service met large lorries.


The beach is steep shingle and was caressed by a light wind. Cooled feet!

Fishing fleet was pulled up on the shingle bank, with a wonderful collection of old tractors that pull them in and out.


We wandered into the lovely church to look at an art exhibition and lurking in the gloom was this scary sculpture. Made with kitchen utensils.


This is my favourite picture. Almost monochrome. Photos were allowed on this occasion.
Traffic was awful on way home around Kings Lynn.  

A thunderstorm has just arrived here and there is the wonderful smell of rain on the hot ground.


Sunday 17 July 2016

Home improvements

Do you ever start a small job in the house only to find it leads to several  other things like cascading dominoes?

I wanted to complete the painting of the interior of the sewing cabin.



First the tongue and grove MDF sheets that are going to line the conservatory being stored in there had to come out and be cut to size.
But before it could be fitted we had some left over sheets of insulating material which we were going to line the single brick walls of the conservatory below the new windows we had fitted some months ago.
But before that the batterns had to be fixed to the wall.

OK, got that prep done. But there was no step to get in and out of the cabin with the heavy sheets.

First we had to build a step.
That made a pile of dirt and turf.  That had to go to fill a dip in the front lawn. Not quite enough.
That led to barrowing more soil and turf from the stack in the back garden.
Finding the shady lawn seed we had for years in the shed and sowing and watering.

OK, got that sorted.  Back to the conservatory.



And back to the painting (eventually).



Saturday 16 July 2016

Food from garden


We are moving through the crops steadily. Always some variety.


These are the red gooseberries we have grown this year. They are very nice but when cooking don't add any water, you can see they are juicy enough in the crumble.

First runner beans!!  Ok not many, just enough for a taste. These had set right down at the bottom of the poles - very easy to miss.




Friday 15 July 2016

Sunflowers

Every July we enjoy watching the Tour de France cycling - the excited fans (over excited yesterday!), the ever changing weather, the scenery, the glimpse into ordinary lives, farming and countryside.  
We love to spot the guy dressed as the devil at every stage (been doing it for years). 
Being retired we can relax and keep up with the daily coverage!
One of our highlights are the sun flower fields. 

This year we have grown some cutting sunflowers and to celebrate week two of the race we have filled the fireplace with sunflowers.



It is also our tribute to the people of France and Nice on such a sad day.



Wednesday 13 July 2016

Home made coleslaw?

Do you buy that sloppy cheap stuff from the supermarket? I used to think "its just 45p, bung it in the basket" and slop it out willy nilly.  Then one day the tub was just liquid, the next tub tasted horrid and I went back to making my own. Have done now for several years.
homemade coleslaw uk from www.goodtoknow.co.uk

Shredded white cabbage
1 Grated carrot
1 very finely sliced onion (use a sharp knife but don't grate as it makes it too wet)
Basic mayonnaise (own brand, usually 45p for 500g)
Mix well in a large bowl.

Don't salt - there is usually enough in the mayonnaise.  Some recipes add lemon juice and/or mustard - I don't, we are quite happy with the plain version.

Make it in quantities to suit the next few days as it will keep in the fridge.

I spend around £2.50 on stocking up the ingredients, this will make several large bowls when needed (about 8 supermarket tubs) until the mayonnaise is used up, and then when fed up with coleslaw finish up the cabbage and other veg as a basis for minestrone soup.

Have you seen the new TV programme about money saving? BBC mornings? I caught 10 mins of couple of mornings (light relief from the politics) and could not believe they still keep finding people with no idea of monetary control or thriftiness. Today, it was the idea, of "managed debt" - manage? £100K on credit cards? I gave up and went to thin the swedes and think about cheap cuts of beef and filling winter stews for a few pounds a pot.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

No dinner. Cake.

At the end of my grandson's second birthday party at the weekend there was just a slice of cake left. He was sat on daddy's lap and had a small piece while we, and some lingering guests discussed politics. His mummy approached and there was a parenting discussion about his being tired, his dinner of lentils and veg being due, etc etc. All carried out above the little one's head. When a determined voice spoke up.

"No dinner. Cake."

We all laughed, out voted mummy, and he had the last bit of his birthday cake with great delight all round.

Probably was too much icing and colouring - two hours later still going like a mad Duracell bunny!!


Next morning he and daddy visited us in the guest bedroom where we had tea and our library books out for 15 mins of reading before getting up.  "What is this? " asked my hard working London city high flyer son.  In unison, please:

"Retirement"



Saturday 9 July 2016

Tay berries

The other day someone asked me about tay berries. They are a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. We only have one bush grown on wires at the end of our raspberries. I am trying to train the branches diagonally. to encourage extra shoots. This is its second summer.



You have to wait for the berries to go a deep red otherwise they are a bit tart.  So far the birds have not shown any interest, preferring to nibble the raspberries further along.

You use them like like blackberries.

On the other side of the tay berry are two cultivated blackberries - they are full of flowers and young fruit and have made much better progress.

Friday 8 July 2016

Change of diet

Welcome to new followers - will catch up soon.

What I like about growing to eat immediately is just as you can't bear the same thing for dinner yet again due to a glut, the garden moves on with its harvest and presents you with a new set of tasty treats!

We have moved on to broad beans and carrots!



Got to get through the bean  crop quickly as I have just spotted a couple of runner beans are nearly ready!

And in exchange for cucumbers which had all 6 had ripened at once in our greenhouse- neighbour leant us a mini mower and trailer to take hedge cuttings up to the bonfire. I had done   4 trips with the wheelbarrow already, each trip is 200 steps each way, and was fed up. The trailer went up twice and saved me 8 x 2 x 200 steps in more trips. Thank goodness we only cut this length once a year (after the hedge sparrows have fledged) as the rest of the time it provides a good place for the birds to shelter in any windy weather.






Wednesday 6 July 2016

Grandson's birthday

Welcome to new follower - from British Colombia! Now that must be a pretty spectacular place to live.
It is my Grandson's 2nd birthday and I have gone with a "truck" theme.  He had a truck card (from Cancer research shop £1) for his actual birth-day last week. We are going for the weekend and I have made him a "book bag" and I have found 5  books in charity shops (total £3) including a truck one!

We went for a wooden toy truck as we don't like plastic! And this matches his Xmas pressie when he had the car transporter. It was expensive, £12, but good quality.


The local hardware shop has loads of nice wrapping paper and of course there was one with trucks.
Meanwhile I have been writing a story book for him. Not trucks but about flying a kite. I have illustrated it with watercolour paintings. 


I hope he likes it. 

It was about all we could afford as just to travel by train to London and beyond costs £100 for the two of us, but I was determined to be at his (belated) party especially as its my birthday weekend too!

Gosh - RHS Hampton and Tour de France - thank goodness, a change from all that football!

Monday 4 July 2016

Strawberry Harvest

We seem to have done the main harvest of strawberries and I have recorded 22 lbs picked so far. That is about 30 plants in the poly tunnel and 20 out in the field.  There are more to come but it is slowing. Not all great quality and some marked but not a great deal of waste.

Our neighbour who has used his field as a market garden for some 40 years has got fed up and mowed all his strawberries off and ploughed in between the long rows to stop the runners. He has been disappointed in the quality due to the weather being varied apparently. We stood there open mouthed because as far as we could see they may not be great but there was plenty to be used for jam or puddings. People were still calling by looking to buy. Oh well, not our business, and despite a large local family network none seems to be interested.

I have now used my planned recipes, as well as having many bowls of just fresh recipes with ice cream or yogurt.
Strawberry jam (8 jars)
Strawberry lollipops (8) tin of light condensed milk blended with 400g of fruit and some milk. I used yogurt pots and left over Magnum sticks as I don't have any of those plastic moulds.
Strawberry mouse (about 6 servings) a lot of cream and marshmallows!
Strawberry sauce - brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and 200g of bits of fruit - simmered.

And a new one I found in an old magazine supplement that fell out of the bookcase when I was moving some books
Macerated strawberries (Hugh Fernley W.) I know it sounds the name makes it sound uck but it was very nice! Halved or sliced fruit has caster sugar sprinkled over and left to soak. Then add black pepper and balsamic vinegar and leave for a little while. Serve as room temperature with a biscuit like shortbread.

I have frozen about 4 lbs for cooking with later so I will be able to repeat all these puds later in the year.

Meanwhile the raspberries have started to ripen much to my husband's delight as they are his favourite.  Which do you prefer?
I was born in the south of Hampshire when it was all strawberry fields so I am a Strawberry girl.  My husband was born in Kent, surrounded by cherry orchard and fruit farms and is raspberry.


Sunday 3 July 2016

Gooseberry harvest

This is the harvest from our first bush, it has been in 2 years and was brought from a commercial fruit plant supplier so was very good quality. It has yielded 4.5 lbs.
This is the one fruit the birds have left alone, thank goodness. We will have a few in a crumble this week and the rest I will freeze. Apparently freezing them loose on a tray and then bagging up is the way to go.
We have some more bushes to come. Red, dessert ones. Not sure how many as this is their first year.
This is our first gooseberry growing ever and so far they have been quite an easy crop.

(Blueberries and tay berries are ripening slowly, but they are coming!)

Simple things in life

Some simple things make a big difference!
 These shoes were driving me nuts, they were uncomfortable with tights perhaps a bit loose; thin socks slipped down round your heels, and I was ready to bin them as they had not been overly expensive.

95p spent on a whim in the village hardware shop on these sole inserts while I was supposed to just buying some more garden string.

Problem solved!

Will make this pair of shoes wearable for the foreseeable.

Now I just have to ask why is not possible to make comfortable shoes fit for a bit of serious town walking  in the first place?

 I have to buy some new hiking/trainers and am dreading the experience of searching, the trying on, the compromise, the disappointment and the expense!

 I am the anti this of all those shoe-ahlolic!