Bulb Planting and Buying in the Sales

Harvesting the veggies will hopefully go on all winter

I’m still enjoying drinking the liquid feeds through the blender. So much so it’s inspired a whole new planting plan for the polythene tunnel. I have delved into the seeds that didn’t get planted this summer and sown very late crops of peas, spinach, cress, mange tout, lettuce  and ....  I’ve also been planting up chard, which certainly brightens up the place when the sun shines through the stems.  The idea is to grow the crops as a pick and come again variety. When the peas get to about 3 inches I’ll nip them off and use them as the base for the nutriblends. I’ve had them in for two weeks now and they have shot up to about two inches so they are nearly ready. If I’m lucky we’ll have fresh veggies to use for a while yet, even after the frosts if I’m lucky.

I found some carrots planted in pots that I forgot I had this week. They are small and a bit scabby but once they are put into the blended you wouldn’t notice. I have found another vegetable to put into the machine.

Still Sprouting

Just before the end of the summer I cut off a sunflower head to use as decoration. It’s been sitting on the wall on the patio for ages and I noticed that even these seeds have started to germinate. They are still in place and sprouting happily. I’m throwing those into the blender too.

The hanging baskets are looking a bit dishevelled at the moment so I decided to give those trim and tidy.  There are a few perennials that are still sitting there quite happily but the sweet peas have had their day.  I noticed that even these seeds are sprouting whilst still inside the pods so they have gone into modules in the propagator for growing on and putting outside in late spring. These are not edible so won’t be blended in the machine!

Seed Collecting

I have other seeds collected too. We had a good run on nasturtiums and marigolds this year and I have collected a couple of bags of seeds from the spent flower heads. I really should have saved some of the peas and beans but it looks like we have eaten them all, if I can find a few pods when I clear them up later I shall keep them. I like to leave the pea and bean plants in until they die down as they fix nitrogen into the soil keeping it balanced. I do have some tomatoes still hanging on the plants outside but I’m undecided whether to save the seeds of those as they weren’t the most “flavoursome” variety. I might save a few.

In The Sales

It’s full steam ahead for winter and spring planting and I have been busy in the sales.  Most winter/spring plants are half price in the shops and bulbs have been reduced in price. It’s my favourite time to shop.   

For the pot grown plants I chose primroses, biennial cineraria and dianthus combined, with a few variegated ivy thrown in. I actually only bought one ivy plant but managed to get four plants out of it.  Growers tend to put a few smaller plants into a pot than one large one.It gives the growers bigger looking plants faster, which benefits their cash flow and gives us the opportunity to do a bit of division. 

I have cleared out the geraniums from the baskets to make room for the new stock, potted them up in my terracotta pots and put them into the tunnel. They will keep flowering all through the winter if I can keep the frost off them. I might have to bring them indoors for a spell if it gets really cold. I didn’t change the soil in the baskets, but did add more compost and put in a bit of slow release feed. 

Bulbs

I bought a few bags of miniature daffodils and mixed regular varieties to plant as well as some other interesting types to interplant in clumps around the front garden. I have purple Allium, blue Muscari, white Brodiaea (like Alliums) and some pretty chionodaxa called snowglobe. Planted together they should give an attractive display in early spring. Bulbs too are something that wouldn’t be good in the blender as a majority of them are poisonous, apart from onions of course, I might try one in the machine.

Making an Autumn Leaf Bowl

My autumn creations being made from fallen leaves.

I’m really enjoying my art evening class course. We’ve moved away from paper, bleach, coffee and fabric dyes to clay. The idea is that over the next five weeks we will come away with a sculptured work of art depicting something moving. I originally was going to do a study of one of our dogs. I needed images from  360 degree angles but as soon as I point the camera at either of them they run off thinking I’m going to shoot them (that’s my theory anyway) So I am opting for something that stays in one place when it’s photographed, a car. Not just any car though.

Buy and Sell

Over the last few weeks I have spent quite a lot of time on internet buy and sell websites and online auctions and came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t.  I seem to whip myself up into a frenzy when I see something that looks good value for money and buy it. This isn’t usually an issue as it’s only a few cacti from Poland or a few house plants from Holland.

This week I surpassed myself (in the name of art) and bought 7 antique brass wheel hubs that came from horse drawn carriages. They are beautiful pieces too and all have the builder’s names on them, OGorman’s of Clonmel, Briscoe Dublin, Cleery and Breen and P. Hogan, Limerick. They are only small and fit nicely onto the table to be drawn. They certainly don’t move either when I try to capture their image.   

Impulse Buy

That’s not the biggest thing I bought his week though. I spotted an old 1965 Morris Traveller (for those of you that watch Corrie it’s Roy and Haley’s choice of motor)  This car was in Tipperary and looking neglected. I phoned the seller and asked a few questions (not enough as it turned out) then asked if he’d take Paypal – he did, and I got an old jalopy delivered to the door the following day. It’s rusty, smelly and rotten has lots of charm and nostalgia and will be ideal for my latest foray into clay sculptures as this thing isn’t going anywhere fast. 

I’m creating an image of the car sinking at 45 degrees into the ground with the back doors wide open like its screaming. It’s quite an accurate reflection of how I feel parting with money, too easily, on something that will probably end up being a chicken coop in the back garden. Jalopy or not though I have still spent a week polishing it! (Update- I sold it to someone who is going to renovate it to it’s former glory so we are all happy!!)

Autumn Bowls

My creativity knows no bounds this week and I found myself creating some autumn bowls made from fallen leaves.  I followed instructions from a video of a very happy looking person making their bowl in the glorious American sunshine. The glowing red maple leaves casting a warm glow over her face as she held it up to the camera. My attempt was a little less sunny, far more pva glue over me and even more cursing. I don’t know if you have ever tried to glue leaves together onto a bowl. It’s not that easy!  

Here’s how it was done:

I used a large glass bowl, cling film, WD40 (any household oil is good), leaves, PVA glue.

Firstly I had a walk around and collected some brightly coloured leaves, the bigger the better as I found out. I then cut off the thick stems as these would take forever to dry.

 I thought I would try both putting leaves around the outside of the bowl and then the inside to see which was the most successful, these were all stuck down with copious amounts of PVA glue. 

The leaves on the outside I secured into place with a sheet of cling film and on the inside I just pressed them down hard into place.  After a couple of days I removed the leaves from outside of the bowl, leaving on the clingfilm to keep the shape and put that and the bowl in a warm place to dry off the excessive amount of glue (I overdid it a bit).

They are not quite the bright coloured maple leaves that the demonstration recommended but my selection of beech and sycamore leaves picked up on the roadside look quite pleasing in the sunlight.  They are not particularly strong or long lived but they will serve as good fire lighters when I have finished drawing them for my art class.

We do have a very wide range of maples here, also known as Acers, these trees have wonderful displays of autumn colour. If you are lucky enough to have some near you maybe some of them could be made into bowls before being thrown into the compost bin.

Does It Blend?

My new toy, the Nutribullet has changed my eating habits for the better.

I was chatting to my brother a short time ago and he was telling me about his “diet” Well, it’s not a diet as such as we know none of those really work. What he has is something called a Nutribullet. This is a glorified name for a blender (or extractor to use the sales pitch) that’s shaped like a 12” cone and does more or less the same thing as a coffee grinder except you put raw fruit and vegetables into it and it is very easy to clean.

Messy Juicers

I’ve tried juicing fruit such as apples with a very complicated juicing machine before, but at the end of the process you have used up half an orchard, been left with a bucket load of pulp and have two hours worth of cleaning the sieve ahead of you after drinking the juice.  The Nutribullet, my brother claimed has totally changed how he eats and feels great on it. I thought it sounded interesting as it’s more of a lifestyle change than a diet, which as we all really know, is how to lose weight. I had to buy one.

Simplicity

The idea is simple; you fill half of the large cup with raw green leafy vegetables. I started off with some of our own home grown kale and broccoli but found them a bit too ‘flavoursome’ so I put in spinach and shop bought broccoli. My brother then tends to put whatever is in the reduced to sell section of the supermarket or what he can get at the country market and as he is in Australia it’s usually exotic fruits like papayas, mango and bananas.  The mixes, I’ve found are never the same. I like to add nuts and berries into mine as well as sunflower seeds, sprouted seeds, and one of my favourites at the moment is frozen peas, it makes the drink sweet and also chills it.  Of course the drinks are as healthy as you want to make them. My lads opt for the biscuit, milk, peanut butter and chocolate spread option.

Breakfast

I have taken to having a ‘Nutriblaster’ as the marketing division call it, for breakfast and I must say it has made a bit impact on my morning.  I used to have a colossal amount of porridge for my start to the day (think one whole suet pudding in a bowl) and all I wanted to do afterwards was sleep. I also found that I couldn’t bend over, say when I needed to weed, as I got acid heartburn (I thought it was an age thing) That’s all gone now, I don’t have an energy lull mid morning and I can bend over in the veggie patch all day now without any bother.  The Nutriblasters are surprisingly filling too as you have all of the fruit and vegetables. When I say all, I mean all, you can put in the skins of everything such as oranges and lemons (including pips).  It’ll grind almost anything up to make the food easily digested but there are a few things that are recommended not to grind such as apple pips (the core is OK) as they have cyanide in them. It’s take a bucket load for you to feel ill but it’s a cumulative effect in the body so best avoided.  

Favourite

My favourite up to yet has been the one where I added lettuce,raw mushrooms, home grown tomatoes, avocado, banana, carrots, garlic and chilli’s. I thought it was delicious but for some reason no-one else in the family agreed. It’s the weird combinations that seem to work (for me anyway) My brother has had at least two of these blends a day for the last three years and he swears by them.  I’ve been on them for a couple of weeks now and I must say I am feeling the benefits. I occasionally have one instead of a cooked meal and of course for breakfast. They are good in the evening too as it’s so tempting to grill the cheese sandwiches for supper. One cup of the raw fruit and veg is a great substitute and takes away any craving for sweet food.

 

Made to last

I’m hoping it’s not going to end up in a cupboard like the Ronco food chopper or the Brevil sandwich maker as I do think it’s a great way to get the full amount of nutrition from fruit and vegetables as everything goes into the cup (which is the only thing to wash as you can drink it straight from that!) The marketers (and my brother) have done a great job at selling the Nutribullet to me and without wanting to sound like a repetitive infomercial – You eat LOTS of healthy raw food, there is NO waste whatsoever, everything goes in seeds, skins, unsightly bits and you can add in things you normally wouldn’t eat (in my case chicory).

There’s one added bonus too, it doesn’t matter if you have teeth or not!