Off on My Travels

Here's the Tin Bath as it was this morning, before I picked lots of the peas for tea tonight.   

 

We've been eating quite well from it and it's been really handy having it close to the house for last minute pickings.  There are still some peas left after my picking session and lots of radishes at the front, there are also the Spring Onions which are yet to really get going.  Maybe they don't like being so overshadowed by the magnificent pea crop we have had this year.

 

 

Herb corner is alive and well .....

 

... and the two sinks are lush with growth even though they are picked through for most meals and juices.

 

In fact everything is looking rather lush. 

 

The rose is slightly past it's best, it looked even worse yesterday but has rallied round after a nice cooling shower overnight, I can't quite bring myself to snip it off when it looks so lovely and adds a dash of colour to the otherwise green jungle.

 

The eagle eyed among you will note the mass of weeds and slight air of neglect, which is in pronounced contrast to my nice neat veggie beds.  I am a veggie gardener through and through and first call on my time goes to the edibles we grow and I'm afraid any flowers, plants and other bushes get left to their own devices.  I used to panic having acres and acres of land to tend, but then I found out that if left to her own timetable nature does it for you.  The masses of weeds shrivel at the first frost and a quick tidy up can then be done to keep the weeds at bay and leave the plants and shrubs to snuggle down for the Winter.

 

It feels strange mentioning Winter, but this last couple of days there has been a marked change in the atmosphere, it's feeling quite autumnal here on our little patch.  The nights are starting to draw in, something we note daily when we pull ourselves from the sofas to go and lock the birds up for the night.  The dampness of the mornings stays around for longer meaning that wellies are called for to let the birds back out of their houses and the dogs come back from their patrol of the grounds with wet legs and tummies, poor little things it must be so hard to be only a few inches off the ground.

 

I am desperately trying to hang on to Summer though, and each day I look for breaks in the morning clouds that will herald a warming of the ground and signal that yes, it will be fine to get the washing machine on ready to fill the line with sheets to dry in the promised warmth of later.

 

I'm off on my travels today, in fact the whole of today is looking very good.  In a while I'm off to visit a Blogging Buddy and have a relaxing coffee and a chat .... put the kettle on Karan, I'll see you soon.  Then after a whiz round the shops and a quick spot of ironing it's time to pack my bags, have some tea with Lovely Hubby and then hit the road to Manchester and Mum's house for a couple of days.

 

We girls have a spot of house hunting to do, Mum's house is sold and now she needs to find her own new place. I do like house hunting,  it tends to include lots of legitimate nosing around other folks houses, and then visits to coffee shops to discuss the pros and cons of each one.  There's lots of moving houses going on in the family at the moment, our niece has also just bought her very own first place to live up in LH's home town of Peebles, so I can see lots of scribbling out and new additions in our address books before this Christmas comes knocking at the door.  Ooops...... I said the 'C' word.  Must go and wash my mouth out with soapy water :-)

 

See you all next week when hopefully I will be able to report that Mum has a new place of her own and is not destined to live in a cardboard box under the arches in Manchester.

 

I know it's extremely early but let me be the very first one to say to you all - Have a nice weekend!!

 

Sue xx

It's now ......

 

It's now isn't it, the best bit of the Summer.  

 

We have had just enough hot days to love the sun and the heat but not moan, because we will ... we always do it's the British way!!   Just enough water left in the soil that the plants are not drooping before our eyes and demanding watering when we are at our hottest and tired-est.

 

Now really is the time to enjoy it.  To down tools for the hottest part of the day and do jobs in the cool of the house or snooze away an hour on the patio if we are that lucky.  And that is just what we did this weekend.

 

 

Everywhere is lush and green without that full, dusty over-blowness that will come by the end of the month.  My lavender garden is coming into full bloom and the bees are loving it.  I stand amongst the plants, pulling out the odd weed, nothing to taxing now in the heat of the day, the sound of their buzzing fills the air and the dragonflies whizz by on their way to the pond.

 

It calms the soul.

 

There is the second tin bath that used to live behind the old shed catching rainwater for the greenhouse, now turned over and drying out after it's many years of service.  I hope to be able to take the baths with us when we go, I'll have to have a word with our landlord.

 

 

The planted Tin Bath is doing well, the Radishes have all been eaten and I have just planted a new row (I must remember to add 12p to the planting tally to keep things straight on the sidebar), leaving more space for the Spring Onions this time, they are still pathetic little hairs of green, the poor things have been starved of sunshine by those big blowsy radishes for too long. 

 

We have no radish to eat at all at the moment bad planning and laziness on my part I fear, a good veggie gardener always sows little and often, I have phases and gluts, oh well there's always something to eat now so it's not too bad.

 

 

But really at the moment it's all about the Strawberries :-)

 

Eating with the seasons means making the most of what is there, no hardship at all when what is there are luscious big red juicy strawberries.  Usually I would be jam making and sauce making to preserve their deliciousness for Winter but this year we are eating what we have while we have it.  With the move creeping closer we are aiming to empty completely and then switch off the big chest freezer, so I am fighting every urge to pop more things in.

 

A bowl of strawberries each night is a fine reward for a day spent weeding and tending, and while they last we will enjoy.

 

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

The 'Eating from the Tin Bath' Challenge

Every year I plant seeds, some in the greenhouse (the coldest and draughtiest greenhouse I have ever known), some by mid May straight outside in the beds of the Veggie Patch.  This was cobbled together last year to be the same size as an average back garden so that I could see how much productive space I would need at our forever home to grow enough for us and the chickens to eat throughout Summer and as far beyond as possible.

 

Last year was a poor year to do any sort of experiment and we were lucky to get anything from it.  This year it is in the process of being made ready, with the paths being weeded and the raised beds weeded and turned over ready for the seedlings from the greenhouse.  The fruit trees and bushes are looking good and up to now (touch wood) we have had no hard frosts since the blossom appeared, so we might stand a chance of getting more than one cherry and more than the three apples we got last year.

 

 

As well as having the Veggie Patch I have pots of herbs and other edibles nearer the house and last year I planted Tomatoes in this old tin bath.  They didn't do too well, it was too wet and chilly for them and I think we only got about a handful to eat.  This year I pondered what to do with the bath, after all it was  half full of reasonable compost and just begging to be used.

 

Then I had a little brainwave. 

 

So many of my lovely readers say how they wish they could grow just some basic crops for themselves but that they haven't got the space to do it, so I got to thinking what if I had only a tiny yard or a picture perfect garden that I didn't want to turn over to veggies how much could I actually grow in a tiny space to feed myself and my family and for how much investment.

 

And so was born .....

 

 

This tin bath was here at the house when we moved in so it cost me nothing, I guess you could find something similar if you put your mind to it.  At the tip, at a car boot sale, rotting in someone elses garden. If you can't find something similar think differently what have you got that you could use, plastic boxes, old washing up bowls, the children's old plastic bath or paddling pool, whatever you choose all you have to do is put in some drainage holes, tip in an inch or so of stones gathered from around the garden, it's amazing how many you find while you're weeding just keep a bucket next to you and put them in, (or raid the gravel on the drive, no one knows if you smooth over the holes you create). This Challenge has got to be cheap and easy so rather than tip in more compost to fill it up to a more plantable level I tipped in one full lawnmower bag of grass clippings and stirred it all around, it made the soil more aerated and less dense, better for little seeds to grow.

 

Then I looked through my stash of seeds and picked out the real basics.

 

Lettuce (Lollo Rosso) - Free when I joined in with 'Dig-In' last year

Spring Onion - 50p (bought in the August seed sale last year)

Radish - 50p (ditto)

Half a pack of Peas - 25p (ditto)

10 Radish Seedlings that I couldn't fit in the bucket with the others - 5p

 

Pretending I was a bit more of a novice at this planting lark than I am, I simply made a line in the compost at the back and sprinkled in all the peas.  Then two more lines for the Radish, and the Spring Onion seeds and then I got arty and made two circles of seeds with the Lettuce seed at either end.  I planted the already growing Radish seedlings in a line along the front, I wanted the bath when it is in full growth to look nice as well as being productive.  I covered all the seeds with a layer of sieved compost and then gave it a good water.  Then I put another layer of dryer compost mixed with some of the grass clippings on the very top to stop the water evaporating (believe it or not the sun was out when I did all this, totally unlike today).

 

So the cost of planting out my free tin bath was £1.30.  The price of a single lettuce in the supermarket last week.  Lets see what I manage to get out of it, I will post pictures of the bath weekly and keep tabs on what and when I harvest from it and we will be able to see what value of crops we manage to raise in this small space.

 

You know how much I like a good challenge and this is a good challenge.  Have you ever done anything similar and did it work well?

 

Sue xx