make do and mend for tougher times

shegar

mardatha wrote: »

This year's been a disaster for everybody fuddle - and last year up here was the same. lack of sun and warmth. If this was the old days there would have been a famine in the north, that's for sure.

Well ive got a great crop of runner beans, each day more are getting longer, same with my tomatoes they are coming on lovely and mine are grown outside as I dont have a green house............Fresh veg is so luvly straight out of the garden into the sausepan..:D

Been hot today and even hotter tomorow at 30 degrees so that should ripen a bit more food.............

Mrs_Chip

Been ghastly all day here - warm and very very wet:(. The runner beans will love the rain - I am picking every other day, and getting a little fed up with stringing them to freeze, but I must not complain! Also supplying the lady over the road who had a total of 5 beans on her plants, she will reciprocate with tomatoes, she has a greenhouse, mine outside are pants.

I have found that using one of those sheets of stuff for the bottom of ovens over the freezing tray makes bagging up a doddle, no sticking and you just pick up the sheet and shoot them in a bag.


Wilco have camping stuff all half price at the mo, if anyone needs to stock up. I was very tempted by the survival kits, £17 something full price, so something over £8, but I got some very dark looks from OH so thought better of it .

Pooky

Had a great time at the beach, skating and paddling but it was silly hot so we didn't stay as long as we'd have liked, the car thermometer was registering 36 degrees on the way home. According to the met office it's going to be 22 over night here, which I can well believe, there's not a breath of air.

My aunt gave me a big batch of runner beans yesterday, I've frozen them down into 5 portions, lots of tomatoes have ripened on my plants so will make HM pizza tomorrow with lots of sliced toms and some left over spiced chicken.

ginnyknit

kittie wrote: »

http://cache.lionbrand.com/Newsletters/55792.html?utm_source=20120817_Aug17&utm_medium=Emails&utm_campaign=Weeklynewsletter&utm_content=ViewinBrowser

nice free knitting patterns for children

lol, ginnyknit, it was Dave talking about the increase in his `passion` that did it and his pointing downwards man to man. I nearly spit my sides laughing. It is the only cookery prog that my dh watches. I love the way they show a bit of their sensitive sides and health probs

I like that too, they show they are human, and how genuine they are when they meet people. Simon is particularly sensitive, isn't he? I found it very interesting how they tackled the change of eating habits.

Kittie I tried de-hydrating potatoes but they went grey, where am I going wrong? everything is a huge success so far, from banana chips to peppers. Not tried tomatoes yet, do you leave them dry or pop them in oil? Sorry to pick your brains but I follow your lead with lots of things - I am your pupil you know

GreyQueen

fuddle wrote: »

I know, me too. Life has got too easy. I remember my dad once saying, I was only a child as I lost him when I was 10, that we expect times to be a lot easier because we think we deserve it. He said that life and surviving was always the same if you take away stuff.

I think that's true, essentially we live on planet earth as an individual. We need basics to survive. Those basics never change, what changes is how we get those basics. We've had everything at our fingers for so long - isn't progress great? Every single piece that is in our lives to make it easier (petrol, Tesco, electricity, water on tap, imported clothes etc) can be taken away because it's just stuff.

If you can see that, strip it all back and work out how to survive without the stuff I think you can at least feel some sort of security. Does that sound a bit strange? I think what I mean is, If I learn how to survive as best I can without the stuff helping me out then I can have some sort of control. I guess it's about knowledge = power.

Everyone around me is clueless. The headlines, shortages, oh dear. It isn't resonating because Tesco will never run out of food. I was at my sisters house yesterday. She went in her under stairs cupboard (I have cupboard envy, shelved throughout) and it was full of carp. I said that she could store food in there like I do. She said why does she want to be like me, that's it's weird, shows signs that I'm insecure and anyway "where will I put all this stuff" I laughed inside. It's just stuff.

So yeah, looking back at times when they didn't have the stuff we do, when they really had to provide for themselves is really interesting. I would like to learn from the previous times too.

Growing my own in pots is what I have to do. I've just chosen the wrong time of year to start.

Fuddle, hun, you're a star. Couldn't agree with you more. So many people are sleepwalking through this world and they'll watch the news and see the corn frying in USA and the wheat washed away in Russia and they'll never stop to think where the stuff in their grocery baskets comes from. So many people are so completely disconnected from the basic realities of life. One new allotmenteer (who was a semi-pro gardener, but obviously not of veggies) asked me if you deadhead the pea flowers once they've gone over?:rotfl:I was almost speechless and that isn't something you find very often.

jamanda wrote: »

We had dreadful problems with spuds having lots of wibble holes in them. We now plant Kestrel which, although an acquired taste, actually give us a crop (although a very small one this year) without manky holes in. It might be worth a try for you.

After some considerable experimentation over a few years, I've settled on Kestrel as my potato variety. It crops heavily (I have had 9 kg back for every kg in) and stores well. Folks have half my crop and they report that they like the taste. I find it fine.

Have been happily picking up tips and recipes from this and other threads tonight and will be out and about tomorrow getting in some supplies (teabags mainly, the staff of life) and poking around the end-of-season sales to see if there's something bargainous which should come home with me. A sensible shopper works the seasons.

Thanks so much for the recommendations about the Pouindland meshes for dehydration, I've been pondering how to have a go at this without committing to a dehydrator and feel at those prices I can have a play around.

Kittie, have you experince of drying broad beans? My mini freezer is full of the first batch of them and the second batch are coming along and will be ready soon. Have had a rubbish year on the lottie and am well supplied with only 3 things; tatties, broad beans and pot marigolds.

And SLUGS and SNAILS but the less said about those blighters the better...........:rotfl:

Pooky

GQ - very jealous of your broadband bean crop (as they're called in this house), they're my faves.

Pythagoras had an issue with broad beans declaring them evil as they represented eating your father.....or something like that.....not sure he was the brightest bulb in the box when it came to anything other than triangles.

GreyQueen

Pooky wrote: »

GQ - very jealous of your broadband bean crop (as they're called in this house), they're my faves.

Pythagoras had an issue with broad beans declaring them evil as they represented eating your father.....or something like that.....not sure he was the brightest bulb in the box when it came to anything other than triangles.

Broadband beans! Yes, I'm stealing that. You'd be welcome to share. I find them a very polarising vegetable, so many people profess to loathe them but those who like them reeeellly like them.

It is said that the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagorus could have avoided his death at the hands of an angry mob if he had escaped through a field of fava beans. Why didn't Pythagorus run? Historians believe he suffered from favism, a painful blood condition brought on by eating fava beans or by inhaling the pollen of the flowering plant. Evidently, Pythagorus chose the lesser of two evils. Favism is caused by an inborn error of metabolism, a genetic defect, which causes the red blood cells to rupture after consuming fava beans or breathing in the pollen. Favism is thought to affect up to 35 percent of some Mediterranean populations and 10 percent of American blacks. Symptoms of favism include dizziness, nausea, and vomiting, followed by severe anemia. People susceptible to favism should definitely avoid fava beans.

Well, pleased that favism isn't part of my genetic makeup but I'm a bog-standard anglo saxon peasanty type. Think that by the end of summer I shall resemble a broad bean. Oh, the runner beans I shoulda had this year............weeps softly and shuffles away.

VJsmum

He obviously hadn't heard about the liver and the nice chianti!

:rotfl::rotfl:

GreyQueen

VJsmum wrote: »

He obviously hadn't heard about the liver and the nice chianti!

:rotfl::rotfl:

Lol, I was ages before I twigged that fava is Americanese for broad bean. Doh! You've been there, can you tell me why they call aubegine "eggplant"? I've always wondered about that...........

Mrs_Chip

There is a variety of aubergine that is white and,err, egg shaped:D
They say what they see!

Eggplant