Preparing for Winter V

Jellytotts

We found a decent bucket full of ripe elders last week, they went in with some blackberries and the last of the raspberries for a fruity wine, it smells amazing 

maryb

You can tell the year is turning - the Is Your Heating On or Off? thread has made it back to the first page of the Old Style Forum

Nargleblast

 My recipe for elderberry syrup is similar to Laura's although I add a few cloves and cinnamon sticks to the pan. Chucking the elderberries in the freezer till you are ready to make the syrup makes it easier to get the berries off the stalks. The syrup is lovely both on its own and added to hot water to make a soothing hot drink. And it's true that whilst nibbling the odd raw berry won't hurt, too many give you the bellyache. They don't taste that nice raw anyway. I have collected a few today for the first time this year.

cornishchick

just prepped a bag of windfall apples to make slow cooker apple butter, decided to experiment and add some of those frozen ginger blocks that I've had in my freezer for a year >
fixed my little greenhouse ready to have some winter crops growing in out the back of the house as an experiment.

maryjane87

cornishchick said:

just prepped a bag of windfall apples to make slow cooker apple butter, decided to experiment and add some of those frozen ginger blocks that I've had in my freezer for a year >
fixed my little greenhouse ready to have some winter crops growing in out the back of the house as an experiment.

Thank you cornishchick for the idea of apple butter, I have some apples that are a bit underripe, to use as they came from a snapped branch last week, do you think that would work? 

I just planted up some bits in my greenhouse to attempt to overwinter too, spring onions, mustard greens, lettuce, spinach, and some winter radish, and some very experimental late peas! Will be planting up the usual onions and garlic in October. What are you growing? I'm really curious for more ideas 😊

cornishchick

maryjane87 said:

cornishchick said:

just prepped a bag of windfall apples to make slow cooker apple butter, decided to experiment and add some of those frozen ginger blocks that I've had in my freezer for a year >
fixed my little greenhouse ready to have some winter crops growing in out the back of the house as an experiment.

Thank you cornishchick for the idea of apple butter, I have some apples that are a bit underripe, to use as they came from a snapped branch last week, do you think that would work? 

I just planted up some bits in my greenhouse to attempt to overwinter too, spring onions, mustard greens, lettuce, spinach, and some winter radish, and some very experimental late peas! Will be planting up the usual onions and garlic in October. What are you growing? I'm really curious for more ideas 😊

I've only ever used windfall ones, so can't be positive, but believe the ones I've used in the past have been a mix of ripeness, so should work.
I am planning on some more chard to supplement the stuff actually in the garden, pakchoi and winter radish and now you have mentioned it, perhaps some spring onions,:) I am wondering if I should put some bubble wrap on the bottom portion of my greenhouse, (it's more a cold frame with a longer base and doors lol ) but like a lean too,, if that makes sense. 

Greenglockenspiel

I’ve just started my mincemeat for Christmas, will put into jars tomorrow. It felt a bit autumnal here in Berkshire today but it was also 20 degrees so that might have been my imagination 🤣

shoppingobsessed2020

Got the winter candles from ikea today.  Contemplating making my own next year, I used to make them years ago when a teenager but not sure I want to go back down this route,  I do have a lot of plug in wax burners so my candles are more emergency no power.

the heating has automatically clicked on a few mornings here and I’ve sort3d out the car emergency boxes and made sure all our travel cups and flasks are accessible in the cupboard as they have migrated to the back of the cupboard rather than the front.

we don’t change bedding all year round, I use feather duvets so they keep us nice and warm or nice and cool naturally so they have been worth the investment as they were not cheap but they’ve paid for themselves multiple times over.

i have got a door hook on the living room door where I keep some blankets for snuggling on the sofa and we have been using them a bit more th8s last week.

i do need to sort out a blind or something about the window in my kitchen sink but I’m not sure if I want to put something there, I have got thermal curtains over the patio doors, but nothing over the back door or the kitchen window and not sure if I should be putting something in place.

the only thing I really want to stock up on is meat for the freezer but that’s a work in progress at the moment.

joedenise

We don't change our duvet at different times either.  We have a pure wool duvet which is warm when it's cold and cool when it's hot.  We had a cheaper wool one but that's been relegated to the motorhome now so we don't need to change that at different times of the year either now.  To be honest I think I prefer the older, cheaper one but DH likes the heavier weight of the English wool one.  The older one is New Zealand wool and is much lighter.

We've not needed to put on the heating yet and it hasn't clicked on even though the timer is set on it.  We put additional insulation in earlier in the year and it seems to have done the trick!  Our living room has been at a fairly constant 19-21 degrees during the day.  No idea how low it drops during the night though!  By the time we got up this morning about 7ish it was already 19 degrees and we're quite happy with that.

Laura_Elsewhere

We have feather duvets but we do swap between a 3-tog for summer and a 9.5-tog for winter - we've never yet needed to button them together to make a really hot one though! 
Our bedroom is often in the high 20s in hot weather, and in winter rarely goes above 13 or 14 all day, and we have the window ajar or open in all but the bitterest weather - we've occasionally kept the winter duvet all summer or the summer duvet all winter but only when it's been a really unseasonable season,  so to speak!