Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

cheerfulness4

Just been looking through last seasons piccies on my tablet. We moved early summer but I was determined not to miss out and dragged most of my pots and seeds to the new house.
This year will be the best ever!



I am so envious of you all with large gardens. I know I'm better with a little manageable one now but I think little gardens are harder to get right.
Ah well, another challenge I guess.

My spends :
Yesterday was a no spend day and today I spent £2.19 plus I got £5 worth of free shopping by using my Match and More £5 voucher from Morries that DH got at the garage. :T

I shall pop the details up in a sec. I'm all fingers and thumbs because I'm rushing. Trying to get ahead for tomorrow I thought I'd cook the liver for dinner tomorrow this evening but it smells off. :mad:

cheerfulness4

TUE 17 MAR/WED 18
DAY 17/18

Money Spent Today - £2.19 Vouchers Spent - £5.00
Money Spent in Total - £47.19 Vouchers Spent in Total - £6.80
Money left in purse - £6.81 Float left- £0.17/£15
Jan non-foods left- £6.12/£15
Good news for me as I went through my previous days spends. I suddenly noticed that after my NSD of Saturday 14th I didn't add my £3 to my purse the following day and just spent what was in there. Now I've added it and have a lovely healthy budget of £6.81 leftover today. Phew. I need that. I want to restock chicken breasts and have some money for YS bargains as I catch them.

Today we spent our £5 voucher and £2.19 combined on YS pork joint @ £2.05 (thats roast for the next 2 sundays sorted, one freshly cooked and one frozen for quickness), 1x YS Kingsmill Crumpets @ 25p (heart shaped ones for breakies tomorrow), 1x milk @ 88p, 1 x sugar @ 69p (!) 1 pk YS 12 Richmond thick sausages @ £1.19 (yuck but they wanted them), 1 x Hartleys Strawberry jelly @ 54p (again ! but DS's treat) and 1 x 15 eggs @ £1.59.

Must nip for those chicken breasts in the morning once I've delivered Grandkiddies back from their daddy to mummy. I would love to buy some of Aldis condensed milk on offer too at 89p as I could make that Key Lime Pie I keep getting nagged for.


Once DH goes to bed tomorrow afternoon I must set to with a freezer inventory and a good menu plan. I've got distracted by other things and I'm all at sea without a proper list to follow.

Lynplatinum

Evening All

Welcome to new folk. The people on here are very inspiring and friendly - today they have inspired me to (finally - bought from a Plant seed swap organised by local garden club in mid Feb:eek:) plant my tomato and red pepper seeds. Am being very MSE and MMM - my 'cold frame' is on top of an old workbench - under the awning my son built. The frame is made from an old drawer (without its base) and some plastic that was used to wrap a new mattress a couple of years ago! The plastic wraps under the draw (to waterproof it from the bench) and then up and over the back and can be opened up or shut - where it goes over the front edge of the drawer it is held in place by a brick. The drawers arrived form my friend - whos neighbour was re fitting their bedroom and throwing stuff out!

I know I am a bit behind other folk - the packets say not to plant lettuce and oregano until April - is that right? it sounds like some of you have already started down that route? Advice folks?
Cheers all

cheerfulness4

Ignore the packets Lyn. They know nothing. Some of mine do say from March onwards and that's normal for me to start then. You should be fine.
Now you've reminded me about my Sweet Peppers again. Blow it. Totally forgot again. I found a little foil packet saying 'Pepper, Marconi Red' kicking around on the floor under my table. It must have slipped on the floor when I was sifting through my seed box. Must get that sown as its new and I love trying new stuff.

Cosmos and French Marigolds still not sown. I can't keep pretending I'm letting the compost warm up a little more. Been in for a few days now. :whistle:

GreyQueen

Morning all.

For those with a garden which is intimidating them, all I can say is you is a mammal, they is plants, you move faster than they do, girl. OK, there's more of them than there is of you, and they're on duty 24/7/365, but where would life be without a challenge, hey? People with hand tools only have cleared continent-wide forests, why should a bit of grass, nettles, brambles and runaway shrubbery baulk us? And wild flowers won't grow in such a mess, because they need the interaction of grazing animals to break up the grass cover to allow them to thrive.

When first looking at my allotment, which was derelict for several years and was just 300 sq m of rough tussocky grass, chest high, I thought Where do I start?! It was a hybrid between a neglected field and the city dump.

The answer is, you set your feet somewhere and start there, and then chisel your way into bigger and bigger areas. The trick for me, mentally, was not to look at the big picture. See it all at once and you're tempted to bottle it and give up. See the little picture, say to yourself, there's a bit about 1 m square and I will do that bit. And on the next time, I will do another bit alongside it. And you get there in the end.

If I ever feel the allotment is starting to get away from me, which can happen in the blink of an eye at peak weed growing time, I follow my Dad's advice and get the hoe out. 30 mins' work with a hoe is achievable and you can majorly discourage a lot of weeds in that time. Particularly with the wickedly-sharp swan-necked hoe I use.

Then, for morale, I will re-edge the grass path up the side of the lottie with the spade and the garden line. This was a trick I got from a gardening book, somewhere. It's an excellent way of establishing a bit of order and makes the whole thing look a lot better quickly.

If confronted with a horror of a garden or allotment, assuming that it's actually passable (otherwise you start hacking in from the house, as said up-thread), my priorities would be.

1. Drag out very large non-organic items such as washing machines and other misc. If you can't get them away immediately, pile them neatly at the place nearest the gate and aim to get them away piecemeal.

2. Pile up random pallets/ bits of wood. Be realisitic about what is too weathered and rotten to build stuff out of, which will be most of it. Stand it up so the air can circulate to dry it for a few weeks before burning it.

3. Using something like a hand-sickle or scythette, if you haven't got a strimmer, give the place a radical haircut. Burn the hay if you haven't anyone with a use for it.

4. Remove smaller bits of non-organic rubbish revealed by the haircut. There will be still more buried, or semi-buried.

5. Set your feet and start in. I highly recommend the use of a mattock to break up overgrown ground and dig out brambles, I certainly wouldn't want to be without mine.

6. That rough tussockly grass is probably couch grass (sometimes pronouced cooch grass) aka spear-grass, foul grass. It's a PITA because as well as regular roots, it has spear-like runners which is how it spreads. You cannot compost it successfully. Shake the soil out and dry it out. Burn it or drown it for months in water to kill it or get it off-site to the green waste section of a tip. Treat it as toxic waste, it's that bad.

7. Finally, never give up. Even if you can only do 30 mins' gardening, just do it. Morale is critical. Mark milestones in the clearance with celebobs of your own or even a small social gathering. Some explorers have seen the Darien Gap, you finally found the back fence - it's worth marking the occasion.:D

vhalla1478

Morning All,

Carolinerunner, thank you very much for your suggestion on the Geoff Hamilton book; I'll be looking that up later today when my head is together.

GreyQueen, first of all thank you for making me smile this morning and secondly a big thank you for giving me such good practical advice. I needed to know what tools to get and as I think I have said before, I'm not unfit so I really have no excuses it's just that it's so daunting because of its size: but I shall take your advice and do a little at a time. There is no rubbish to clear, it's not that bad and I have made a start. The only tools I have at the moment are hand tools and a fork, but I'm going out next Tuesday so will now go armed with a list and report back periodically on my progress.

Many thanks once again.

Viv xx

vhalla1478

Well that's Geoff Hamilton ordered - now to sort out those tools. Do I need to add soil to my existing flower beds? They were dug over and had soil added to them last year and I have weeded them this week. and can I plant seeds outside at this time of the year or do they have to be in seed compost(?) inside. I am ignorant!! When I had lots of money I just used to go to the garden centre and buy loads of plants and the law of averages ensured that some of them thrived; I've also had sheltered gardens in the past, which this one is not as I live at one of the highest points in Lincolnshire - yes, contrary to popular opinion, Lincolnshire is not entirely flat - try walking up Steep Hill in Lincoln - there are handrails to help you.

Speak later; I'm now going to become a gardener!:T

Viv xx

Thank you in anticipation.

Viv xx

[Deleted User]

mrssnowy wrote: »

Hi JackieO
The pattern I have got says DK wool,3mm needles and cast on 42 stitches.
That is trial and error according to tension needles etc,measure against your own hand.
6 rows in 2x2 rib(K2,P2)
Then you work 26 rows in stocking stitch ending on a purl row.
Thumb shaping
row 1:K19,place marker,M1,K4,M1,place marker,K19
row 2: purl
Increase row: knit to first marker,slip marker onto needle,M1,K to second marker M1,slip marker onto needle,K to end of row
Continue making and increase row on every K row until you have 16 stitches between the 2 markers ending on a K row
Cast off thumb:P to 1st marker,cast off the 16 stitches between the markers and purl to end of row
close up thumb:K18 stitches,you should have1 stitch left before the cast off edge begins,K into back of stitch on the left needle,then K the stitch that is left on the right needle Bit fiddly but twists stitches together to make strong neat join.
Continue another 8 rows stocking stitch then 5 rows 2x2 rib.
Cast off.Sew up.
I do adapt the pattern depending who I am doing them for,and like to add a couple of rows 2x2 rib on thumb before casting off but then you would have to fudge the close up thumb bit-IYSWIM
Good with longer wrist rib
They look lovely in whacky stripes
Have fun,hope you don't get too addicted!
mrssnowy

Thank you so much I have printed it off and will have a go with some left over wool as I fancy some stripey ones myself
Cheers JackieO xxx

vhalla1478

Here I am again, Folks, I've done more tidying up in the garden; got rid of old broken plant pots etc and finally finished sorting the shed. One more question - on my list for garden implements I have swan neck hoe, spade, mattock, strimmer. Do I also need a rake or anything else for that matter? On the far side of my drive, there is a pretty place under the trees - or it could be if it wasn't choked up with nettles every year. They've obviously died back at the moment, so was wondering whether it would be a good place to rake out and grow? My landlady sprays the nettles with weed killer every year so they are an unsightly mess.

Just to give you a rough idea of the size of my backgarden, it's about 80 metres square and my drive at the side of the house is around 12 metres wide. The garden from my kitchen window is around 14 metre square.

Will post a recipe later when I've warmed up a bit. Time for a cuppa!

Viv x

Prinzessilein

Afternoon all!


I am absolutely exhausted! Mum had a GP Nurse visit today so I went with her (we are lucky really, the Practice has two sites...one of which is just around the corner from us.)...and then Mum suggested that if I felt up to it we would go back home via the town centre.


Mum had seen some lovely storage boxes on offer...but they were on offer as a multi buy. It was ridiculous...Mum wanted 2 of the boxes, and it actually turned out that it would be cheaper for her to buy the multi--offer of 6 boxes and throw 4 away!!!! (Do shops really think about their 'specials' sometimes?) Well there was no way she was doing that!....so we picked up a set of 6 boxes and took 3 each.


I also spent money at M&S today...but I got a good bargain so I am happy!
I bought some meat....M&S is always good quality - but I keep an eye out for YS and other offers.
Today I bought :
2 large chicken breasts in garlic/lemon marinade (when I say large, I mean each breast makes two meals...so that is 4 dinners sorted!)
1 tray of chicken breast strips in a ginger and coriander marinade (another 2 or possibly 3 meals)
2 large gammon steaks (each steak will make one meal plus enough trimmings for a second meal...so another 4 meals)
Original price totalled £13....BUT I paid a grand total of £5!!!....So, meat for at least 10 main meals sorted!


Chicken is now in the freezer (which is once again filled to bursting!)....gammon in the fridge...I will cook one piece for dinner tonight (with pineapple, baked wedges and green beans I think) and there will be easily enough 'trimmings to go in a pasta dish for tomorrow.


I made a fresh pot of joghurt last night....I have everything I need to bake a couple of loaves of bread (One 50/50 wholemeal.....and one fruit).....enough fruit and veg in to last for the next few days.....so with luck I will not need to do any food spending until after the weekend! (Apart from milk...I bought one today...might need to get another on Saturday)


No opportunity for me to do any gardening/allotmentng...but I WILL be having fresh herbs this year!...I don't even have a decent windowsill for growing a pot of chives - however, Mum lives just across the way and her place just happens to have 3 good windowsills! And she has just planted 10 different herbs.


Of to settle down with my knitting...the walk out this morning has really taken it out of me (especially with that heavy cold still hanging around the chest) and I could do with a quiet hour or two.


Have a good day folks!