Fruit bushes finally in the ground

Posted by louisa on Monday 14 February 2011 in growing | 4 comments

I spent what felt like all Saturday but was actually just four hours in the garden – it seems I’ve lost some stamina over the winter! It was hard work and I ached in the evening but I finally got all our fruit bushes in the ground. Well, fruit sticks which will hopefully one day become bushes. These are, respectively, one of the raspberries (Tulameen) and one of the redcurrants (Jonkheer Van Tets) that I bought as part of a super-cheap deal from Aldi last week.

The four blackcurrants look a little more alive – not just bare sticks — probably a sign I should have planted them out a few weeks ago…

I had two pairs of blackcurrant bushes – two from the Aldi batch, two from elsewhere – and there was a very clear difference between the two — even though the other ones were still cheap, their roots looked a lot more established. I guess I’ll have to see if that makes a difference in the long run. (For my future reference, they’re planted Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond, Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis – with the Ben Lomonds from Aldi.)

I also *finally* potted on the lingonberry (Ida) and cranberry (Pilgrim) bushes that arrived in the middle of the snow a month ago.

They were in ok-sized pots anyway so I just left them as they were in the greenhouse while it was cold outside. Now they’ve finally got room to stretch.

So that’s eight fruit bushes in the ground, and two in containers. Fruit-wise, we’ve also got eight trees planted this year, with a spot prepared for my cherry tree (which will hopefully arrive soon), and my strawberry runners seem to be going ok too. I think that’ll be all the fruit we’ll go with this year – now to concentrate on veg!

What fruit are you growing this year? Any new additions to the garden/plot?

The year of ….

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 1 February 2011 in growing | 5 comments

A few days ago, someone started a discussion on UK Veg Gardeners about themes for the year:

“2011 is the “Year of the Raised Bed”. Last year was “Year of the Redcurrant Protector” (not a very snappy title I admit!) and 2009 “Year of the Shed” (much more successful).”

I replied that for us, 2011 is the “Year of Fruit”: “to be accurate it’s going to be Year Minus One of Fruit as most things won’t actually produce anything until next year – but all the work has to be done this year.”

But it’s actually the Year of lots of things here – I think that contradicts the point of having a “the year of” but nevermind! It’s:

• The Year of Fruit – six apple trees & two pear trees are in, a cherry tree to follow; also, two blackcurrant bushes, a lingonberry bush, a cranberry bush and 12 strawberry runners (all which are displaying new green growth today – hurrah!) are also in, with maybe gooseberry & raspberry to follow. Fruit a go go!
• The Year of the Front Garden – those new planters should help out a lot out there
• The Year of Vertical Growing – baskets & wall planters & balcony window boxes & tiers of pots
• The Year of Efficient Bed Usage – some beds were empty for a long time last year; not this year!
• The Year of Perennials – the fruit is part of this; I want to start getting things in that’ll last so each year on, I can concentrate on other stuff
• The Year of the Greenhouse – since it didn’t arrive until July last year, I intend to make the most of it this year – cucumbers, chillis and tomatoes, oh my
• The Year of No More Plastic Tubs – not such a catchy name but last year, when I was setting up on the cheap, I bought a lot of plastic tubs & troughs. No more from now on though, and as they need replacing, I’ll do so with non-plastic options
• The Year of Not Getting Overwhelmed – by planting too many of each thing specifically. But looking at the rest of this list, I think this might the hardest to achieve ;)

What’s it your year of?

January – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Monday 31 January 2011 in goals, less than 12 clothes challenge, meta | 13 comments

Just a quick post reviewing my progress on my various goals/spending, and about tracking other stuff that I may or may not have mentioned.

(I mentioned this on Twitter – I’d had this bunting for a while and John surprised me by putting it up in our dining room. Pretty!)

Goals in 2011 progress

I haven’t really achieved any of my goals for 2011 yet – early days, early cold days. I think we’ve baked something every week so far though and I’ve also started tracking of usage of more consumables (FYI – but possibly TMI too – it takes us 6 days to use a toilet roll), so that’s a start. I also built some things from wood for the garden, which will help me with my piece-of-furniture making goal.

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

I haven’t bought clothes this month so my tally for the year is still at zero. (More info about the challenge…)

I did look at stuff in the sales online at the start of the year but wasn’t persuaded by anything. And last week, I went into a few shops that sell clothes amongst other things (mostly charity shops) – but I put my blinkers on and went straight for the other stuff – homeware things – instead of looking at clothes. It’s quite a poor area so the vast majority of the clothes are cheap makes – I don’t mind buying some of my items from charity shops but I want to avoid poor quality clothes wherever they are sold.

Growing stuff & the chickens

Since it’s still chilly winter, not much is happening on the growing front. I sowed some winter gem lettuce near the start of the month and they’re still tiny, but getting bigger by the day. We also had some fruit trees delivered – six apples and two pears – and John’s planted those out now. I also bought two blackcurrant bushes – I feel like we’re making good progress in the perennial fruit situation now.

The chickens have enjoyed the factionally longer days and the mostly warmer weather – and the two black rocks both started laying mid-month. Lime is still moulting and Buff is still refusing to give up the goods, but we’ve had a solid five eggs a day from the other five nearly every day for the last fortnight. We’ve had 109 eggs in total for January – not bad going since it was just one or two a day at the start of the month! (Also, in late breaking news, some of the chickens are currently grounded – I let them out to play again yesterday and someone, Ginger I think, led the parade into the wooded bit of our garden – it took me about half an hour to catch them all again!)

Kate from Living the Frugal Life’s Desert Island Dinners

Posted by louisa on Thursday 27 January 2011 in desert island dinners | 2 comments

I mentioned earlier that I had a bit of a wacky idea a few days ago – “Desert Island Dinners”. Basically Desert Island Discs but with a frugal/simple living theme instead of music.

I picked Kate from Living the Frugal Life to be one of the first castaways – since she’s got such a great, inspiring blog and I wanted to get my hands on some of her simple living secrets!

First up, the premise:

You’re about to become a castaway on a desert island. The desert island will provide you with misc edible vegetation/wildlife and items that can be fashioned into basic pots/pans/utensils — but just before you’re whisked away, you have enough time to grab a herb or spice from your store cupboard; a special kitchen gadget/tool/utensil or piece of equipment; a cookbook; and a packet of seeds to grow on your any-climate island paradise. What would you pick to take with you? And which of your simple/frugal living skills do you think would be the most valuable while you’re there, and why?

And here are Kate‘s replies:

Herb or spice: Unequivocally this would have to be fresh garlic. I use it constantly and am galled when the stores of our homegrown start to get sprouty (round about this time of year), which leaves me with the dilemma of either buying store-bought, or making do only with our dehydrated garlic.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets my answer is pretty boring. I’d take a good knife. A good knife in combination with good knife skills will answer so many needs in a kitchen. I’m not much for gadgets, and a good knife would be very hard to improvise. For preference I’d take the Japanese made santoku my husband gave me as a gift a few years back. It pretty much instantly became my most heavily used knife. I’d been skeptical of santokus up to that time.

When it comes to cookbooks, I’m more of a skimmer than a follower. Almost invariably I end up departing from written recipes when it comes to cooking. I trained as a chef, which provides the confidence to do so. But when it comes to baking, in which I lack formal training, that’s a very different story. In baking you must follow fairly strict guidelines, prepare your dough, and then relinquish control to the oven. So perhaps I’d take a baking cookbook. Tough call between Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia, and Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking. Very tough call. Forced to choose, it would probably come down to the first though, since it’s so comprehensive.

One packet of seeds would be tough to choose. I’d agonize over the choice, but would probably end up picking Tuscan kale. It’s reliable, healthy, tasty, versatile, and has a very long season.

Most valuable skill – I probably couldn’t predict which of my skills would turn out to be most most valuable. Whether well founded or not, I have a pretty high confidence in my ability to do most things at least passably well, so I’m willing to try anything once and unlikely to give up in despair. I think I’ve learned to improvise fairly well, which would surely be a useful skill on a desert island. I consider myself a decent observer of the natural world, which would also be useful. I can garden and cook and am quite content with solitude. Again if forced to choose, the first skill, confidence, would be the one I’d predict to be most valuable. On the other hand, I have absolutely no sense of direction, so my exploration of the island would be very slow and cautious.

Thanks so much to Kate for taking part – I’m really interested in learning about santokus now so I’m really glad I asked! I also can’t believe I forgot garlic when I was having my cumin or chilli conundrum! How could I cook without garlic?!!?

Anyone else want to join in the mirth and merriment? :)

Desert Island Dinners

Posted by louisa on Thursday 27 January 2011 in desert island dinners | 0 comments

Wacky idea time. I thought it might be fun to play a variety of “Desert Island Discs” – but about frugal/simple living instead. I’ve jokingly called it “Desert Island Dinners” ;)

For those who don’t know, Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio show that has been going since 1942. Each week, a celebrity is asked what eight records or pieces of music they’d take if they were going to be marooned on a desert island (they’re also allowed to take a book and a luxury). Basically, it’s a framework to interview these famous people about their lives (“I first heard this song when I was working in a shoe factory in Bangor”) and what gets their toes tapping.

Instead of talking about music though, I’d like to find out more about my favourite bloggers & commenters frugal/simple living tips, skills and obsessions. This is what I’ve come up with:

As with the radio show, I thought it might form a fun way to find out more about everyone – let us share our cooking/growing tips, hints, secrets and obsessions!

As it’s only fair (and to give people an idea about what I mean, if they’re not familiar with the premise or whatever), here are my answers:

A herb or spice: it would be a toss up between dried chilli flakes and cumin seeds. Probably the chilli since it’s more flexible but mmm, cumin.

A kitchen gadget/utensil/tool/piece of equipment: my cast iron casserole dish because it’s good for cooking all sorts of dishes – casseroles, preserve and baking, as well as a heavy bottomed pan for general cooking.

A cookbook: I don’t really use cookbooks – I use the internet and memory more – so would probably say my own cooking notebook with my “recipes” web bookmark folder printed out into it. If I’m being strict with myself and insisting on a printed book, it would probably be Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz as it’s a fascinating topic.

A packet of seeds: Perhaps I should pick chillis so I could have cumin above…! No, I think it would be butternut squash seeds – yummy and versatile.

Most valuable skill: Hmm, tough one. My boyfriend John says my “chicken husbandry” but I’d say gardening skills, even though I’ve still got a lot to learn.

Next up being sent to the island: Kate from Living the Frugal Life – her answers to follow shortly.

Anyone else want to join in the fun? :)