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
It's a very good year for strawbs which is surprising after the awful winter and dismal spring
ReplyDeleteI used to have a salad spinner but I found myself drying leaves on a tea towel and not bothering with the hassle of getting the spinner out,using,washing and drying it.
ReplyDeleteJane x
Lovely Hubby should go into business and export them here. How cool is that bed cover. I've got a factory full of sheetmetal guys and i am booking me one of those. I'd have to make it a fine mesh as it sparrows at this end that eat everything.
ReplyDeleteWonderful Friday post, your weekend sounds like it will be lovely. Strawberries here are really good as well, it's such a luxury. Last year they were almost non-existent, so I think we are due some!
ReplyDeleteThat is an excellent frame to stop the birds.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the name of the strawberry plants? Mine seem to be doing nothing. I wonder if they are too old?