The building work is really ramping up a pace now, yesterday the back of the wall was neatened up, load after load of our topsoil was brought back over ready for a flower bed on this side of the wall, and Lovely Hubby has been busy sifting the soil for the net tunnel so that we could have some of the stones that he sifted out to weigh down membrane that is being placed at the very front of the wall, nearest the road, so that the weeds will not grow through where it will be quite inaccessible to get to.
Lots and lots of hard work.
AND.... the walls are almost up on the garage and workshop, the windows are ordered and even the white masonry paint for the inside has been bought. Today has seen us crawling with builders and brickies, all doing their own thing and needing regularly watering with cups of tea, coffee and cold drinks. but it's nice to see things finally coming together.
Hopefully by the end of the month it will be done and things will once again return to normal, although to be honest I've forgotten what 'normal' is.
Meanwhile, our usual day to day jobs go on, cleaning out the henhouse, walking the dogs harvesting the days food. The Perpetual Spinach that I planted must have been our best crop this year. Every couple of days I pick this much, we've been pretty much keeping up with the supply thanks to us having a Nutriblast at least once a day, but soon I have to start thinking about stashing some away for the Winter months.
At the moment I pick wash, spin it dry in the salad spinner and then store on kitchen paper in a 'stayfresh' bag in the fridge. To save it for longer it will have to be frozen. To do this I usually just wash it, put it into a pan with just the water that clings to the leaves and wilt it down quickly. It only takes a minute or so for each panful to reduce to a couple of handfuls of soggy spinach. Then I just squeeze it either in my hands or push down on a sieveful to get as much excess liquid out as possible before open freezing in usable size clumps in the freezer. Then once frozen it can be tipped into a freezer box or bag ready for use.
We must have saved a fortune on buying Spinach over the last few months, I even said to LH the other day, if I only had a tiny back yard or garden this is one of the crops I would make room for. It's so ridiculously expensive to buy washed and bagged, considering what it cooks down to.
Oh ... and I've just emailed all my entries for the Llanrwst Show which is on Saturday of this week, another 19 entries to mollycoddle for the week :-)
Sue xx
I have grown spinach for the first time this year, it just kept going to seeds and had really small leaves. Could you blitz the leaves and freeze in silicone ice cube trays.
ReplyDeleteYou can do yes. I used to have a larger cup cake silicone tray that had the perfect sized cups for mounds of spinach or kale, but I got rid of it by accident. Now I just used the squeezed handfuls as a size measure, one or two is enough to add to stews, quiches etc and more can be taken out if we are eating the spinach as the main veg for the meal.
DeleteDC. I no longer grow ordinary spinach as it always seems to go to seed so quickly. Like you Sue I grow perpetual spinach, which I just keep picking and picking. it is a biennial so don't dig it up "back end" leave it and start picking again next spring. it will then start to go to seed which you can save.
DeleteMine seems to be doing well so far, unhealthy eaten as creamed spinach but I do like it that way best. Your'e still busy with all the building work x
ReplyDeleteSpinach goes to seed in about 10 minutes here so I grow Chard instead, just as good and comes back in the spring for a while before going to seed
ReplyDeleteGood luck for the show....a much more prestigious one than ours xx
ReplyDeleteWell I thought yours was pretty special :-)
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