What small DFW things will you do this week - w/c 16th October?

foxgloves

FVD- Yes,I concur with Dawn that garlic will grow in big pots. We plant ours in October up here, but the folklore around winter-planted garlic is to plant it on the shortest day & harvest it on the longest, so you've got till 21st Dec to make up your mind! It needs a few consecutive nights of cold weather to encourage the separate cloves to form.
I have had some success with growing Japanese onion sets in containers this time of year. They don't get huge but you will be eating them earlier than Spring sown onions.
Re herbs. Parsley usually survives tho it may die back to roots if it gets really icy. Parsley is a biennial so you sow it in year 1 & harvest leaves as & when. It will come back again in year 2 but will then run to seed. You can delay this by cutting off every flowerhead. Look out for self-seeded babies as it's a good way of starting off your next plants.
Basil won't over-winter. It doesn't like the cold but is also an annual.
An often overlooked forgotten old herb which I really like to grow is winter savoury. It comes back reliably every year & I'm always chucking it into slow cooker stews. It dries really well too.
Salads.....I have just sown lamb's lettuce myself & often grow rocket & mizuna over winter, though mine are in an unheated greenhouse as I'm a lot further north than you.
Hope this helps a bit.
F x

allydowd

FatVonD wrote: »

I. Hate. Amazon.

I really, really hate Amazon.

They make it so, SO difficult to contact them if you (as a seller) have a problem. In the end I rang the customer service number and asked to be transferred. They still have no idea where my stuff is as they are moving it from one Fulfillment centre to another and don't expect it to be on sale until 20th. A man from some far flung corner of the globe told me that as soon as they find it they can transfer it (again) to the correct Fulfilment centre for small and light if I enrol it now. Except it won't let me enrol it now (although I have successfully uploaded two others now I have the right programme), I suspect this might be because it says I have zero of them on account of them playing pass the parcel :grrrr:

I am so close to just closing my account and putting them on eBay instead.

I am messaging you a solution to this.

foxgloves

Greetings Saturday Savers,
A few bits & pieces today:
*Parked on outskirts of town & walked in to save paying car park charges.
*Wilko's still had cat's fave brand of meat at £3.25 for a box of 12 pouches. RRP is £4.85. He recognised the box as soon as he saw it come out of the shopping bag & thought he was on for an extra meal. Nope! Sorry puss, not money saving!
*Successful last grocery shop of this month's budget. Aldi, 2 big bags of fruit & veg from local market for £8 & just our coffee from Waitrose which was on offer at 2 bags for £5. Mr f availed himself of a free latte while we were in there.
*More about our market fruit & veg....while unpacking it, I noticed there were more tomatoes than I would expect in a 1lb bag. Weighed them & there were over 1.5lbs......also a lot over on sprouts & a truly massive cauli. Overall price also rounded down to nearest £, so I did think we got a good deal.
*Bought 2 more Christmas baking ingredients to spread the cost. As soon as the 'use by' dates on butter are showing as December, I will get plenty in for Christmas baking as the price keeps going up week on week.
*Continue with my bullet journal. La E, I know what you mean! I so wanted to get going with it that I've designed mine to start from Nov 1st! So far, my pages are a calandar for each month, daily pages for my task lists, monthly grocery budget tracker, monthly meal plan page & a tracker page for my step count & calorie burn daily target. There'll be other stuff too, but I'm starting by getting these pages set up for each month first.
So....must get back to my coloured pencils.
Wind getting up here & we're nowhere near the stormy regions. Take care, all.
F xx

allydowd

The wee elf is still alive and money-saving and doing particularly well with homemade, healthy packed lunches for work.

Super-busy time in work right now.

No time to post, but you all know where I am if you need me.

x

FatVonD

Thank you all the gardening people!

I'm thinking now of taking the bay and rosemary out and putting those in the pots vacated by the courgettes (courgettes will be grown in tyres out the back next year) and reverting to the pots I originally had for all the other herbs.

DS is out with his mates tonight so I have the house to myself, it's nice and windy outside and I'm warm and cosy under the bedcovers putting my aching feet up, bliss!

I'll get up shortly to bake myself a jacket potato with some lovely YS extra matured cheddar on it and put the dishwasher on etc then back to bed!

Have a good evening everyone!

DawnW

Evening all
Felt awful and went to bed this afternoon, but feeling better now
Not much going on today apart from a bit of cooking-
Made an apple crumble
Made some scones
Made this year's mincemeat, which I would normally do a bit later on, but I wanted to take advantage of gifted apples now rather than buying them at a later date. This is pretty easy, once the apple is cooked (it was) it is just a matter of measuring and mixing. I have covered the bowl and left it on the dining table for the night. I will pot it tomorrow

Apart from that, a couple of surveys and sleeping, not much has happened
It was a NSD though

determined_new_ms

Morning Feeling really motivated today have already folded up yesterday's washing. Done another load and hung up. Will strip the beds & wash once oh is up to make the most of the dryer being on.

Today we have planned to have a massive sorting out the gardens session to get it ready for winter

We're having roast with hg veg Will divvy up the meat to stretch it as far as possible :money: make an apple cake

Need to do my work stuff as want to get it off my mind and just unwind with madam next week :A

want to finish off leg bit of 2nd sock today - finding I'm much quicker with this one. Holding the needles and the motions make my hands ache after a while!

madam will probably get cabin fever at some point so we'll go out for a bit. Not sure what maybe a walk/scoot

list a couple of things on fleabay

make some sugar scrub and put together these blinking hampers!

Ok that's my main objectives for the day!

foxgloves

Morning Sunday Savers,
Well, I've been told to stay in bed while the lovely mr f plies me with coffee & breakfast! I rarely stay in bed, but after the stresses of the last few months, I'm not going to argue!
Quiet but useful day planned:
*Staying in so no fuel used or temptation re spending.
*Cake from freezer I'd forgotten about for coffee break.
*Make tomorrow's packed lunch.
*Load washer for cheap overnight laundry.
*Planning session. Synchronise diaries & calendar & do our holiday planning lists, esp food supplies we need to take with us.
*Plan out a few more months of my new bullet journal.
*Knit some more of these boot socks or they won't be coming on holiday.
*Continue thinking about how to increase our savings/pay down loan we had to put towards car last year.
Ok, will read a couple of chapters of my book, then get up & get started.
F x

Happy_Kitties

1LL for the items in '3' try cex. I'm just sorting out most of my DDs old games now and have sent most there. I've got the console ready to send there and the extra controllers and bits went with some games. It's shocking to see how little everything is worth now but money useful now DD is a starving student(Not!! She's catered and being spoilt by the looks of it......cooked breakfast every morning).
Also received my RM stamps yesterday, they are great for sending parcels to family, saving them for Christmas parcels to send.

Got stuck into a load of paperwork yesterday after doing everything I could to dodge it. Going to try and do a bit more today.
Cat cleaning all done.
Really need to get some housework done.
Was hoping not to go out but need cat litter. At least the weather has calmed down, still a little windy. No other spends to do just cat litter.
Wrapped the next lot of birthday presents last night. I swear October is worse than Christmas in present production. Feel more in control as I have let things slide a bit when not well.
dawn hoping that you continue to feel better. I love hearing everyone's Christmas production. Used to make a lot when I was younger but don't do anymore as family is so scattered and I wouldn't eat it. I have been sorting out the freezer ready to store certain bits, my mum has requested certain desserts this year.
Have a great day everyone x

carrielovesfanta

Morning all,

I've been catching up with the last week. Big hugs to everyone that needs them.

We flew off to sunny Croatia last Sunday. We almost didn't make it though. Saturday morning, OH went off to Crossfit. I decided not to go as I had a huge list of stuff to do before the holiday. Got a phone call at 9am... he had fallen off one of the 24" boxes and heard a loud *crack* from his shoulder. He was in terrible pain and couldn't lift his arm :eek:

Cue a trip to A&E. Cannot fault the folks at Arrowe Park. We were in and out in about 40 mins tops. He has a ruptured AC ligament, but luckily no break. (Grade 2 injury apparently).

Unfortunately it was £30 in taxis (I don't drive). Also OH can't play guitar for at least a couple of weeks so we are about £400 down in gig money. On the plus side, we won't be going out and about anywhere so will save on the fun fund and diesel. OH's mum is going to take him to work and bring him back which saves us on train/bus fares (also good as OH not good on public transport. He gets very anxious).

On the plus side, we had a nice little break and he is slowly getting better.

Yesterday was my first Saturday off. I have a plan of military precision to basically cook for the entire week on Saturday, thus freeing up my Thurs/Fri for nice things and making it easy to cook on my long days.

Yesterday I made:

• 4 portions jambalaya
• 4 portions boiled salad potatoes
• 1 roast lamb joint
• 4 portions of potato wedges. Parboiled and seasoned then frozen in ziplock bags
• 4 portions curry (in ziplock bag ready to cook)
• cooked 2 chicken legs and stripped meat ready to add to jambalaya when heated
• prepped stuff for bento bowls
• 1 loaf of bread
• bacon/onion/mushroom for hot salad later in week
• sausage and onions for pasta later in week

I also did an hour of housework and gave the kitchen a good clean. This is my Saturday from now on. It was tiring but good.

today's mission:

• Meals from plan - done
• Work first long day - done
• charge phone in work - done
• Bit of crochet on m-I-l's Christmas present
• walk to and from work - done
• Not going out anywhere!
• Update budget sheet and pay off holiday cc. Slight overspend as they had OH's fave aftershave for only £27 a bottle.
• look for high protein, low cost recipes. Poss meat free or low meat. the food spends are getting silly. Unfortunately we have popped ourselves into an awkward position of buying high welfare meat and a fair bit of organic (and non-supermarket) veg. I need to start looking out for ys bargains but I find that our Asda is pretty pants for them. At least, pants for reducing things that I would want to buy or to a price that made them worthwhile. - done
• Email the gym about incorrect payment... yep it's wrong again! - done
• Ask the good folks on Ravelry about a crochet pattern - I'm struggling with one line of it. Just doesn't make sense! - done

Have a good one all

clf x