Monday Morning

This mornings harvest from the polytunnel was slightly different, yes I got the usual colander of vegetables to add to the bits and bobs that are lurking in the veggie drawer of the fridge, ready to make a big pot of soup for the weekday lunches.  But this time I also came back with a tray full of used plant labels.

All year when I pick the last of something or chuck a tray of something that has died or not taken well into the compost bin, I retrieve the plastic labels, of which I have rather a lot .... thanks Dad.  I don't bother to wash them there and then but I save them up, and now is the time to give them all a wash, attack them with a pencil rubber and have them fresh and ready for re-use in the polytunnel.  It might only save a pound or two each year but it's these little things that add up.

They are drying on the Aga at the moment, along with the tea towel and facecloths that managed to stay on the washing line.

... the rest of the towels that were also out on the line in warm wind we have here today are back in the washing machine.   The strong gusts that have been coming every now and then were two much even for my storm pegs.  Luckily I was in the kitchen prepping the vegetables for the soup and nipped out to throw the trimmings to the chickens just a few minutes after pegging out the towels.  I did an almost comedy double take at the virtually empty washing line.  The towels were lying resplendent in the mud just outside Chicken World with pegs scattered all around.

It definitely feels like a Monday morning!!

Sue xx

My Ten Top Tips

I had an email asking me for my ten top tips for saving money (thanks B), and asking me if I really write about things I do or do I write about things I think I should do .... you little unbeliever B!!

Firstly YES I do write about things I do,

 Everything I write about here on my blog happens, sometimes once, sometimes a few times and sometimes, well mostly in the case of saving money, filling the freezer, cooking and day to day living over and over and over again.

So make yourself a cup of coffee, settle comfortably in your chair and read on .....

My Ten Top Tips ... That I Use or Have Used

ONE  For example tubes of hand cream are ALWAYS cut open and the cut off bit used a lid until ALL of the product is on my hands.

Containers are upended and drained, every last little drop into our main bottles or into the new one just purchased.  I have just worked out that we have had this pump top action large bottle of shampoo since 2008, filled and re-filled over and over again, but it still works so it will continue to live in the bathroom in daily use.

We pay for the packaging and the product inside it so it makes sense to get our moneys worth out of everything we buy.

TWO  Potatoes are dealt with as and when I buy them.  If I buy a full bag, because sometimes a bag is cheaper than buying just a couple of baking potatoes, I will use them for the week they are at their freshest and then I will process the rest and put them into the freezer.

These wedges were frozen raw and were eaten quite quickly (place on a baking tray, sprinkle with salt, pepper or a bit of paprika and roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes or so turning once during cooking).  But if they are to live in the freezer for any length of time I prefer them blanched and then frozen if I have the time.  To do this put them in a pan, pour over boiling water, boil for just a few minutes, five does the trick if they are chunky) and then strain them, put into a bowl of chilled water, dry and then open freeze.  If you have blanched your spuds you can reduce the cooking time by about 10 minutes.

I freeze chunky homemade chips, wedges, potato croquets, roasts, mash and potato soup.

THREE  Rubber gloves, 

I'm right handed so my right hand rubber glove tends to wear out first, rather than throw away a perfectly good left hand glove, I save it and then when the next right hand glove is no longer fit for purpose I turn one of my pair of left hand gloves inside out ... et voila ... a right hand glove.

Of course you can recycle rubber gloves even further and cut up the redundant holey gloves into gardening ties or elastic bands of various sizes by chopping them up with scissors, you get small elastic bands from the fingers and thumb and larger ones from the wrist section.  

When I have two leaking right hand gloves that I don't need to cut into bands I simply use them as a slightly more waterproof layer over cotton gardening gloves on days when I have to weed but the mud would make my normal gardening gloves wet within minutes.  (I hate soil down my nails so I always garden with gloves on.)

As a final resort I use them as a good whoosh maker for a garden bonfire, a dry rubber glove placed in with some twigs and paper will act as a brilliant firelighter.

FOUR  Open freezing lemons , limes or oranges is a brilliant way to get your moneys worth from those bargain nets of fruit.  They nearly always contain more than you actually need and by doing this you have a tub of ready to drop in your drink lemons, limes or orange slices. They flavour and chill your drink at the same time, if you like to start the day with a lemon slice in hot water, they cool the water down just enough to be able to drink it straight away.  And they are obviously very handy in the summer when it's Pimms season :-)

FIVE  Bread crusts never get thrown away in this house.  Quickly whizzed in the food processor with a handful of herbs they are ready for action whenever we need a topping for a Macaroni Cheese or a coating for chicken portions, fish or a veggie alternative.  Simply whizz and tip into a freezer proof bag or box.  They are usable straight from the freezer and stay free flowing.

If you don't have any herbs a few young, washed Dandelion leaves will work just as well for a touch of green freshness.

SIX  Buying supermarket basic lines.

Sometimes you can save money buy finding which of the supermarket basics your family will like. We have found that not all are good for our tastes ..... the beans swim in too much juice for us, the jars of pasta or curry sauce are too sweet tasting for me, I have lost my sweet tooth completely, but we do like the bran-flakes, the pasta is as good as many that cost three times the price and as for the custard, those 15p packets of custard powder in Tesco are so very, very tasty and turn a piece of slightly stale chocolate cake into a pudding fit for my man any night of the week.

SEVEN  Grow your own.

If you have a garden, or a yard with tubs and troughs, you can pretty much keep yourself fed with salad stuff throughout the warmer months, if you have acres of space or polytunnels you can feed your family and then some.  You could do what I do and sell your surplus at car boot sales and then use the money you make to buy next years seeds when the garden centres reduce them to 50p a pack in September.  Once you've done it the first year you are literally eating for free the next :-)

But what if you have none of that ..... a balcony or a window sill (inside or out) can still save you money.  Just buying yourself a packet of cress seeds for a pound or so can save you from having to buy a tub a week from the supermarket and you can grown these pretty much all year round.  So 52 tubs of cress from Tesco (priced this morning) would cost you £12.48 over the course of a year.  Not a lot, but when you start to add to your window sill and buy yourself a Chilli plant for a couple of pounds and then save yourself 60p a week for fresh chillies  (£31,20 for the year) it all starts to add up.

If you do have a small space to grow one successional crop make it salad leaves.  For the price of a couple of packs of seeds you can have fresh mixed leaves all through the Summer and beyond.  At an average price of one pound a bag, and saying you usually buy two packs of ready washed leaves a week, over the course of the Summer you could save yourself at least £50.

Talking of car boot sales brings me to tip number EIGHT

Sell what you don't want.  Whether it is surplus veggies, old clothes, clothes the children have grown out of, books and magazines you have read, furniture you have no room for or things you have Marie Kondo'ed from your house.  Sell all the things you no longer use or want.

If you have never done a car boot sale before visit the one you think you might sell at.  Check that it has toilets if it is an all day affair, talk to stall holders to see how successful they are when they sell there, find out what time it is best to arrive and how much it is going to cost you for your pitch, and then plan when you will go and sell your stuff.

Pack everything into boxes or directly into the car boot if you have a small car.  Remembering to put your table (or ground sheet if you don't have a table) into the car last so it can come out first ready for setting up.  Get everything ready the night before, so come the ridiculously early setting off time, you can quickly make a flask and grab the packed lunch or wedges of cake from the fridge to stop you spending your newly earnt money on over priced refreshments and then simply get in the car and set off.  

If  you simply cannot resist the smell of the bacon butties wafting over from the hot food vendors and you have to have one, make that your breakfast and then eat your pack-up for lunch to save you cooking when you get home.

NINE  Save your pennies.  They add up they really do.

  Make it a habit when you get home to empty your purse or your pockets of any coins you don't want to be carrying around.  I put anything less than a 50p coin into our Sealed Pot and it's emptied once a year just before Christmas.  

But if you don't want to save your pennies spend them!!  Start paying with the right money sometimes rather than just handing over a note and accumulating yet more change.

But the thing is treat the pennies and small change as though it is real money ... because it is and it's your real money earned by you, so make it work for you in a way of your choosing!!

TEN  Don't spend!!

This follows on neatly from the last one.  A lot of people email and ask me what is the first way to get debt free and this is it,  STOP SPENDING YOUR MONEY !!

If you don't need something to survive ..... don't buy it.  

Start leaving money at home when you go out to walk the dogs or pick children up from school.  If you fancy a coffee after you've walked the dogs .... wait until you get home, sit down and enjoy it and put the £2.50 it would have cost you to buy one into your debt repayment pot.   If you know the children will want sweets after school, you can honestly say "sorry I've got no money on me, lets go home and see what we've got there".  Let them raid the fruit bowl or the biscuit tin instead and save yourself pounds each week, put £1 a day everyday that you do this into your debt repayment pot too.  They will soon get in the habit of doing this instead.  

At the end of a week put the money in the pot into the bank and pay it immediately off  the debt you are tackling first.

Use money you would have normally spent on unnecessary things to pay down your debts and start snowballing.  I did this and it worked for me.  One extra pound paid off a debt is one pound you will not be paying interest on for the next few months or years.

And remember .....

I had another email asking me about the lack of foodie/shopping  posts recently ... that is simply because I have not been shopping on a regular basis.  We have been eating our way through the freezers and cupboards since January and we still have lots to use up, I'm sure you would be totally fed up if you saw pictures of our purchases over the past few weeks.  Apart from last week, which was party week, the shopping has consisted of milk, bread, salad things and fruit and vegetables.

I am hoping that soon there will be posts about growing and eating our own foods, but in the meantime we will continue to plough our way through the chest freezer, one thing is sure that once we reach the bottom it will be unplugged and not restocked until we have enough of our own harvested crops to go in there.

Sue xx

Imagination - Then and Now

Picture from The Optimism Revolution

 

I loved this picture, it brought back memories of playing make believe boats, shops, trains with my brother when we were both small. 

 

 Mum and Dad had saved their money, no mean feat in the 1960's with two small children to raise, and had the built in cupboards and drawers in the large alcove in our living/kitchen/dining room removed to replace them with something not a million miles away from ....

 

 

.... this. 

 

Completely modern in its day and full of useful storage for the 1960's family  Although theirs was a more modern version and totally snazzy in red, black and white.  It must have been heaven for my Mum who struggled to cook and wash up in a teeny tiny room that can only be described as a square walk-in larder with a sink, gas fridge and gas cooker

 

Well anyway the best bit of this for me and my brother was that we were each given one of the lovely deep drawers that had been removed to use as toy boxes.  Unlike the children of today ALL our toys neatly fitted into these drawers and were slid out of the way under our beds, nice and tidy.

 

Well nice and tidy until we discovered that the best bit about having a toy box WAS the toy box. 

 

Picture from Google Images

Similar to ours but ours were more than twice as long.

 

All through school holidays we would tip the contents out push them rudely to one side, except for the teddies that were to accompany us on our journeys and adventures, and play in the boxes.  We used them as boats, trains, lorries, we turned them on their sides and used them as shop counters with my little plastic till and paper money coming into it's own, we begged Mum to stop her baking and be our customer, although usually by the time she came in armed with her purse to 'buy' from us the boxes had been turned into something completely different and there was no shop to be seen.

 

Picture from Google Images

 

I would have loved this - but would it convert to a pirate ship or a delivery lorry!!

 

Our imaginations ran wild, all because of two large drawers and I honestly think that has set me up for life. 

 

When I see something, anything, I see alternatives, I see a million and one uses, a slight exaggeration but you know what I mean.  Reusing, re-purposing, re-planning it all takes imagination and I wonder slightly if with todays children being given everything ready made for them, in garish plastic usually, will they have the same imagination in the future, I really hope so, although in my heart of hearts I doubt it.

 

 

When I bought bargain fish fillets I saw that they came in seed trays, open freezing trays, trays that I could stand six plant pots on and catch the water that ran through.  Trays with so many uses that to throw them away or even pop them in the recycling would have been a crime.

 

 

My fish was wrapped in 'easy-leave' so we can take out single portions or many depending on the need and stored my nice sturdy box in the freezer.  Leaving my new 'trays' to be rinsed and set aside until I need them.  They are currently in the freezer with blackcurrants on being open frozen.   We didn't even know we had a blackcurrant bush it was growing where the old little tumbledown shed used to stand - result, free fruit!!

 

I have to go now and unpack an Approved Foods order that has just arrived much to the delight of the little doggies who always get a treat when they are nice to delivery drivers .... and boy can they be nice to folk when they know there's a treat to be had!!

 

 I wonder what I'll find in there that can be reused and re-purposed?  Perhaps I'll take some photos and show you tomorrow :-)

 

Sue xx

Supermarket Herbs

 

 

Supermarket herbs, so lush and green in their pots, more densely lush than anything you tend to find in your own plantings and even at the garden centre on occasion, yet you use them a couple of times and then they die.  So you go and buy some more ...... just like you are supposed to.... in the supermarkets eyes, a nice steady earner!!

 

 



 

A third time around Coriander

 

 

I have had to resort to buying supermarket herbs a few times this year as my own have been attacked by slugs in the greenhouse and then last week .... neglected by Lovely Hubby while I was away.  Of course it's all my own fault I didn't remind him, I forgot to erect the neon arrow pointing down to them that was obviously needed and the A4 sheet of written instructions in bright red ink.......Lol.....only kidding, he did amazingly well while I was away .....apart from watering my herbs!!

 

 

 

This Parsley is also on for it's third resurrection.

 

 

 

The ones in this picture,  Parsley on the left and Mint on the right, were fully grown lovely bushy relatively new plants when I left, I had used each two or three times and there was at least another couple of uses out of each one to come, and then they would have had this treatment.

 

After some of the comments yesterday and the emails asking for tips I got this morning I thought I would just show you how far I do cut my bought herbs back after they are all used up for the first time.

 

*** *** ***

 

When you first buy them they look so lush because they have actually been planted too many seedlings to a pot, this means that they have to fight for nutrients and water, and their roots are too closely entwined for each plant to really thrive for long.  So tip number one is ..... the first time you use them you should pull a few stems completely out of the pot, roots and all.  Of course if you were being really frugal you could try to transplant these uprooted seedlings, sometimes it works, but I don't bother with this, I use what I have pulled up in my cooking and put the little root bit in the chickens bowl.  Waste not want not!

 

This gives all the remaining plants more space in the light and more room for their roots in the compost.  I then look after the plants by checking daily how heavy the pots are and if they are too light, which means the compost is drying out I give them a drink, watering from below, hence the reason I keep them all in yogurt pots or planters.  As they are on the kitchen windowsill if they are leaning towards the light I turn the pot to give all sides equal access to the light. 

 

Once the herbs have all been used up or if they are starting to look sorry for themselves I give them the chop.  Literally right down to just above the soil and within one or two days you will see the start of new growth.

 

The first time you do this you are virtually guaranteed a second crop of leaves, and then if you are lucky you can do it all over again.  The reason this works at least once is that the plant has already got itself a good root system, so it can put all it's energy into making news leaves to replace the ones you've hacked off, and as it's the leaves you are after it's perfect.

 

Sometimes it's even worth buying the herbs when the supermarkets reduce them to 10p or 20p when they look like they will never recover, if the plant itself doesn't revive with a good drink, and they usually do, (why don't they even bother to water their living plants) you can chop all the leaves off and do this.

 

Give it a go and see for yourself.

 

*** *** ***

 

Maybe if Lovely Hubby reads this post he will remember to water my plants next time........ she says with a big cheesy grin on her face!!

Sue xx

Love Can Move Mountains

When we first moved into this house it was fronted by two wildly overgrown flowers beds and a mud filled area in front of them for parking on.  With dogs running in and out it was blatantly obvious we had to get something more substantial there so we bought a ton or 4 of road planings.  This was the immediate problem sorted out. 

 

Once we had done everything deemed more urgent lovely Hubby decided that now, before next Winter sets in, was the time to finish off around the house.  So with that in mind after he had finished his tractor renovations last weekend he began to work on the front.

 



 

Of course he had already laboured long and hard to get the right hand bed done so I could plant my Rocket Garden, it's doing brilliantly well by the way and we are eating lots of lovely salad leaves from it already.  So this time he turned his attention to the left hand bed that also leads around the side of the house. 

 

Edging around the whole area with wood left over from other jobs, digging up weeds, laying lots of cardboard as a natural biodegradable weed suppressant and then filling in with our homemade compost and a layer of top soil, he toiled for hours.

 

But it was worth it.

 

 

 

We are both really pleased with the results, it's looking much neater now and the oil tank is easier to get to ready for our Winter delivery of oil.

 

 

 

Of course now he just has a couple more mountains of road planings to spread around to finish off the parking areas around the house.

 

 

 

I always knew that man of mine would move mountains for me.

 

Sue xx

My Weekend in Chairs

 

 

 

As quite a few of you have left comments and sent me emails asking how I was going to revamp the chairs I thought I would dedicate a whole post of pictures to my method.

 

  We were lucky we inherited these good solid chairs from Lovely Hubby's Mum, Jessie, so they are filled with memories for him of growing up in the family home in Peebles.  Jessie came from a generation that kept it's furniture, didn't chop and change with fashion, simply bought what they needed after saving long and hard for it and then it stayed in the family and we are now lucky enough to have these as our 'forever dining chairs'.  As they were they didn't fit in with our style or taste, but that can so easily be altered.  The chairs may have changed but the memories are still there.

 

If you don't already have a  set of chairs to revamp this style of chair can be bought so cheaply in secondhand shops, I've even seen them being sold off for as little as £2 each at the end of car boot sales.  I got my material from Dunelm Mill from the reduced section, it cost me £28.50, but you could use any fabric that you have spare in the house.  Old jeans are brilliant for upholstering seat pads and they look fantastic and wear really well.

 

The top pictures shows the tools you need, I also used 1/4 of a tin of satin paint and 1/4 tin of grey undercoat, 2 paintbrushes, 1 large sheet of sandpaper, a damp cloth, thin pieces of foam and new fabric - nothing else required.

 

 

 

Take your chair.

 

 

 

Pop out the seat pad, a good thump from underneath is usually all you need.

 

 

 

Rub down with sandpaper then wipe with a damp cloth to get rid of all the dust.  Undercoat each chair, leave them overnight to dry, then lightly sand and wipe with a damp cloth again, this gives you a nice smooth surface for your top coat.  Paint with your chosen colour.  Leave overnight again to dry.

 

If you are happy with the coverage that's it, (I  was), if it looks a little patchy simply sand, wipe and give them all another coat of paint.

 

 

 

While the paint is drying you can now get on with the re upholstery of the seat pads.

 

Carefully remove the leather or old fabric, trying to get at least one of them off in one piece.  Use the wooden seat as a guide to cut out your foam.

 

 

 

 

 Use the old seat cover to cut out your new piece of fabric.

 

 

Make sure your fabric is good side down, place the foam and then the wooden seat on top if it.

 

 

 

 

Stretch the fabric round the wooden seat.  Secure with drawing pins at each side.

 

 

 

 

When you are happy with the tension, go round adding as many more pins as you need to hold the fabric securely.

 

 

 

Take time to do your corners, pulling the fabric neatly and pinning securely.

 

 

Ta Da.   Finished chair.

 

 

 

Our Summer look.

 

 

 

And I bought enough fabric for our Winter look. 

 

I thought it would make the kitchen nice and cosy, I also thought the fabric tied in nicely with our colour scheme and has a nod of tartan about it to remind the chairs that they are from Scotland.

 

 

Before

 

 

After.

 

Lovely Hubby said I had done such a good job he would go and buy some chairs from a car boot sale for me to renovate and sell ....... my words to him were completely unprintable on here!! 

 

 I won't lie it was a long and fiddly job, the painting of chairs is even worse for me than painting  window frames, you seem to have so many sides and awkward bits, but the finished article is well worth the effort.  I'm really pleased with these and they should last us a lifetime.

 

Now I'm off for a final sort through of all my clothes and the spare room, we are doing our final car boot of the season on Sunday and I want to be as clear as possible in the house.

 

Sue xx

Composting

This is pretty much our mantra here on the farm.  Not much leaves the farm in the form of rubbish for landfill. Glass jars, bottles etc if not able to be used for jam making or food preservation go into the recycling bin.  Plastic cartons, and tins likewise.  Paper and cardboard are saved for putting under new soil in beds to act as a weed surpressing layer, anything shiny and unsuitable goes in the paper recycling box. 

We feed scraps (food/weeds) to the chickens or the compost bins, when the chickens have eaten their fill their droppings go into the compost bins too to act as an activator to start the process more quickly.  After the compost bins have started the work of rotting everything down they are tipped into the worm beds, and then the resulting compost is put back on the land a couple of months later.  It works full circle.  A good circle.

A good way to think.

As well as guard dogs we have threats!!

I could be doing housework, I could be turning the compost bins out, I could be doing sooooo much, but I'm not, we seem to be having another day of Summer (shhh... that's three in a row, don't tell anyone they will turn the switch and the rain will be back) ........ I'm going out now to sit under the parasol on the patio, watch the weeds grow, drink glasses of icecold water and review the next book for my other Blog.  I wonder what we're having for tea tonight!!

I can't wait to find out.

Sue xx