Cooking for one (Mark Three)

moneyistooshorttomention

Lunch is likely to be out today (says she looking out at the weather a bit nervously). Dinner - the other one of the stuffed mushrooms and not sure what I'll have it with (guess I ought to start picking some of my leafy greens from the garden - they look like some of them have got to "edible size").

Am gobsmacked at how some of the stuff in the garden seems to be growing literally inches each day:D. I just haven't got it sussed yet re starting from seeds - need to do some more reading about that. Some of the seeds may be a bit old (I've been waiting to do this for a while:cool:) and I've got suspicions that what is sold as potting compost is as lacking in "vitality" as much of Earth's soil now is. Will have to think on on that - and see whether I'm starting seeds off right on the one hand and think about maybe adding "summat" (perhaps some rock dust?) to potting compost on the other hand.

I read somewhere the other day that plants were all MUCH bigger centuries back and the reason they're all so much smaller now is we've taken a lot of the goodness out of the earth over the centuries. Add that I guess there must be something in it (even if a tad exaggerated possibly?) re food grown at Findhorn being so big (ie because it was looked after so well). So - I'm reasonably confident that I can get things to fair size now once they've actually got going in the first place.

EDIT; Just been out measuring my fig tree and it's grown another 1" literally overnight. I'm now calculating out that it will take another 10" growth to be visible from garden at back of me (I have my reasons for wanting them to see quite clearly that mine is a garden and getting a lot of use as a garden - ie don't ever build on yours, as I'm enjoying my garden not having any neighbours that close at the back iyswim). Should be about a fortnight at this rate before it tops the wall behind it....by the end of the summer very clearly visible ...if the same rate of growth continues. Jack and the Beanstalk 'r us LOL.

Brambling

Money I think gardeners used to add far more 'nature' fertiliser to the soil. I remember as a child my dad feeding the soil with well rotted mature but only certain times of the year, as well as doing stuff like double digging to dig it in and open up the soil. I think a lot of old gardening tips have been lost because a lot of people stopped growing their own in the 70s. I remember the old boys tasting the soil before planting and adding what they thought was required (not suggesting you do that) certainly when I had my allotment the old guy next to us shared tips he had picked up from the old guys who helped him with his first allotment in the 60s. The hard work is preparing the soil and keeping it fed, we were 'shot' if veg peeling etc didn't end up on the compost heap, which grew the marrows they knew whether the soil was acid or alkaline with out testing kits.

My dad left home at 14 and got his apprenticeship as a nurseryman but WW2 took him to work on my great uncles farms and he never went back to it, I just wished I'd had asked more questions but as a teen gardening wasn't cool and we probably resented having to help

PasturesNew

I double checked the freezer... found one lonely muffin in the bread drawer, so, in a bit, I'll have a toasted muffin with beans and scrambled eggs

[Deleted User]

I went to get a few strawberries and came back with lettuce, chard, baby beetroots and small carrots as well as strawberries. I love the bounty at this time of year, so clean too before the beasties get going. Beets and carrots are cooking now and they will do for 2 days, so meal plan is abandoned. I will take a tart out of the freezer and have the veg assortment with that. I lifted all my garlic too, looks tremendous, nature waits for no man


argos disappointed me, bought a very large really useful box yesterday, massive one, got home and took the lid off, the bottom was cracked near the wheels. Another wasted 10 mile round trip. They ordered another from a local small town, came this morning, driver and I examined it, was cracked on the bottom and there was no way to get my money back except via another wasted 10 miles. Argos is pants. I will have to go today

Farway

As Brambling suggested, in previous times a lot more was added to the soil, maybe some of us remember the envious looks of neighbours as your granddad beat the rest to the milkman's / baker's horse's poo with his bucket?

I remember part of my "training" as a nipper was lugging buckets of pig muck from the sties back to Granddad's allotment and trying not to slop it down my wellies:eek:

Money, glad to hear your fig is romping away

Back to CFO, woken up at 0430ish by the birds shouting their beaks off, I leave window open these hot nights. Luckily dropped off again

Standard pot of tea, with usual porridge, banana, honey & HM yoghurt for breakfast. A question about loose tea on MSE has set me thinking about trying another supplier, i'm using W'rose Assam at the mo' I'll mark tea search down as work in progress

Because my weekly weigh in was no change, at least not up, despite fish & chips, lunch is destined to be a bacon, lettuce & tomato sandwich, with mayo

And the bananas earmarked for a loaf are now squidgy enough I'll make a banana loaf later

In the meantime, time for a cuppa, T bags this time, and maybe water the pots out the front

Brambling

Faraway - my dad had a friend who owned a pig farm, so I remember the joy of a 'delivery' dumped in the road and having to help transport it into the back garden several times a year. If I remember correctly there was always an early winter delivery to dig in for the winter something about letting it work over the winter cold.


If I remember correctly there are some nitrogen enrich plants that is good to dig into the soil at the end of the season, rather than clearing from the garden, but at this current moment in time can't remember which, runner beans could be one


A little annoyed this morning we were ready to start work at 8am so the data centre could fit in server maintenance work before we could start what we needed to do and someone forgot to turn up !!!!! we had people ready in the US and India as well as 2 of us in the UK, will still be working on and off today but this could mean a later finish than we wanted probably 7pm.


Currently no idea what to eat today will need to be fitted around work, so nothing which will take too long, as usually as soon as the cooker timer goes sods law will mean so will my Skype asking me to test something and that can't wait as we have people waiting on us.

[Deleted User]

I never use any manure, I make black gold compost in my hotbin, my comfrey heats the bin up fast and thousands of worms do the rest.I have to use a lot of paper shreds too as the worms eat everything so fast. Comfrey contains at last the same or more soil nutrients than manure. People on my allotment put horse manure on and every year produce a mega crop of weeds. I never dig either, I grow green manure when I clear a raised bed and later chop it up and lightly turn the plants into the soil, then I cover and by next spring have a beautiful rich tilth. The type of manure depends on what rotation is following and I choose between phacelia and mustard as they are both easy to handle when grown. I can trace my organic credentials right back to the start of my plot, no-one who uses manure can. No co-incidence that I have the best plants and produce


yes brambling, it is beans, they have nitrogen fixing nodules, hence a careful rotation being so important ie to use the nitrogen


I loved my lunch, no tart but I put some pinto beans at the end of stir frying the chard, tossed with aminos and added warm beetroots and baby carrots, what flavour! just don`t get that in winter or supermarket bought

moneyistooshorttomention

I've heard about manure and got offered some at one point - but I don't think it was from animals dealt with organically. I've read tales of problems with crops that were "fed" with manure from animals that had had antibiotics/etc and didn't want that.

I chuck on things like rock dust, "chop and drop" of other plants and "gone over" organic food, that mushroomy type stuff that's supposed to help establish a sort of fungal layer or summat underneath the soil that helps their roots grow well. Pretty much anything organic I can think of in fact.

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Anyways - had lunch out. Was a bit of a disappointment - focaccia (which I like - but wasn't keen on that one). Oh well - and a healthy chocolate brownie is still in my bag - so I'll have that later (as one of my very occasional sweet treats).

I suspect dinner is going to include a couple of glasses of wine (finishing off yesterday's bottle). I've discovered Aldi has started to stock organic wine:) - so I bought a bottle, instead of making do with non-organic. After all - I thought there wasn't a vast price difference between £4+ for standard wine and £5+ for organic wine.

Farway

Back after banana loaf fail, under cooked in the centre despite poking knife in to check Now back in oven to see it it will improve things

Good news is I have the first tomatoes setting in the conservatory, Balcony Yellow, very MSE because it is self saved seed every year dating back about 10 years, not same seeds, same offspring

Dinner decided,CFO standard of LOs. My meat loaf blob from YS mince, LO beans, probably with a couple of fried eggs and fresh tomato

[Deleted User]

money, this is the stuff that can be in manure, it is used of grassland and gets in hay and silage unless the animal is from an organic farm. Nasty sruff. Could also be in horse hay but manure is best if used, as cow manure because of the two stomachs. Weed seeds just go through a horse

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=477


I kind of wish I had tomatoes growing this year again, at one time I grew 19 plants in rings in buckets on the patio but tbh don`t want any blight hastle any more