Botanical blunderings on a budget - good life starts here.

Kittikins

Well, yesterday was a great day, I did spend but not too much, must find the receipt!

Brekkie - toast and marmite nomnomnom
Lunch - hmm......not sure, but want something fresh and healthy and salady, shame i forgot to buy any lettuce yesterday!
Dinner - errrrr, might be going out to dinner in a restaurant.......eek! Well, kind of want to make the most of being child-free and going out having fun with friends.......or cooking tofu thai curry if my friend comes over to help with the garden later.

I took £20 out of the cashpoint yesterday and had to get a prescription, grrr and spent about £5 on food shopping and sparkly water to take to my friend who cooked me dinner last night. The rest needs to stay in my purse, until I decide whether I'm eating out or not. My head says no but my heart says yum

OH is on the plane back home, yippeeeeeeeeee Shame we won't see each other until tomorrow, as they'll all be tired after travelling this evening, but I'm sure I can just about wait another day for a hug

Keiss_21

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

Just heard my evening class teaching will be going ahead *gulp* I'm going alone this year - eek - 'veggie gardening taught by a dummy!' so thats one hour for 12 weeks I'll be gainfully employed at a decent rate an hour (good show) lol! - on hour a week down, more to go

And,they are trying to get me a bit of something to work on some 'hort' stuff at work, so hanging on in there might have paid off, I've annoyed them enough to be thinking, OK what can we make her do as she's clearly not going to leave.

Great news Pippi, see, perseverence does pay off in the end !! :T:j:T Now lots of prep for you to do, that'll keep you busy for a while!!!

MatyMoo

:T To finishing the thesis :T
:T To evening classes :T
:T To Mr Stripes coming :T
:T To the possibility of hort work :T
:T To starting the poly tunnel :T
:T To time spent with DS outdoors :T
:T To the meal challenge :T
:T To the cats :T

Seems to be lots of positives in here this week Pippi:T

Pippilongstocking

Maty that is a rather fine list thenk you for that - all I'm sat here thinking is yeuch - the house needs a clean/hoover

Thats far more cheery I hope you are well

Got back from town with petrol (£1.51 ltr) and no food - yay to the no food, yikes to the petrol.

KK hope you have fun whatever you do, lifes about fun remember - that can be frugalesk

Keiss well done on the extra work, it would appear that holding on with fingernails does indeed pay off - evening class has been developed over the past 2 years with guru guy - so I've only to fill in the blanks of his bits of teaching, which, I might have recorded during that time on my dictaphone, yey! But, you're right, lots to do.

KC the children inform me that in France they (the family there) ONLY use walnuts for pesto - tastes ace allegedlly and they have walnut grove, lol, - and much cheaper than pinenuts and sounds like that will do you good for your arthritis.

Tooooooooooooooooooooo midge out there to even consider trying to do anything - therefore imposed prisonership tidying up.

Thank you lovely lot

Karmacat

Hort work would be great!

I'd love to pick my stuff off a tree the rellies in Zim do that with avocadoes and mangoes, but walnuts would be very acceptable too.

I know you've got Mr Flowers coming soon, Pippi, but could I ask you about the basil in your HM pesto? I picked some of mine, and froze it, but .... it didn't seem very nice, it seemed a bit discoloured .... do you do anything in particular with it, store it in the oil straight away, anything like that? Does it still look fresh when you unfreeze it?

Any rabbiting about frozen basil gratefully accepted

Pippilongstocking

KC when I freeze basil, I only use it for sauces as the leaves discolour when frozen they look a bit dark and not nice, seem to taste OK in sauces.

Oddly enough when frozen pesto, its been grand - I don't know what the change makes it stay so lovely for?

When I've made pesto (once!) I used fresh basil, oil, nuts and parmasen. It froze OK and looked nice when unfrozen

Hope that rabbiting helped?

Cheery_Daff

I read somewhere that if you freeze basil in oil (eg pesto) it doesn't discolour - no idea why though! (sorry, that's not new info at all!)

Been thinking ofyou today Pippi, taking inspiration from you, been hanging herbs from garden to dry and been blackberry picking and making jam! :T :T :T

Pippilongstocking

yay chhery what fun! Ive been copying you and took oodle of photo in the garden and of lovely wild life x

Karmacat

The rabbiting does help, thanks Pippi! Cheery too To be honest, I thought I'd done something wrong when it discoloured, oops...

Lula-Hula

Hello again,

sadly willow planters are too wide even for our generous windy sills, but they are now stored in the shed & will be a nice surprise for when spring comes around.

I recently bought a thyme & rosemary in small pots & am wondering if I should bring them in doors over winter ? They will go into larger pots rather than the garden due to distance from house.

Any advice greatly appreciated, thank you