Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Farway

I'm in both PN & MSTM camps on CFO, but leaning more towards PN & eat to live side. I'll eat & enjoy fancy food if it's plonked in front of me
Reading PN corned beef & tom sarnie saga, yep, sounds like me, but since a bad experience with manky toms I now bin them instead of cutting bits off. I found the manky bits can taint the rest

Up fairly early, wanted to get the runners & rest of the pots watered before the heat really hit

Breakfast was back to porridge, banana, honey & HM yoghurt

Runners all watered, loads on the way now, the bees seem very busy, I was concerned about lack of them earlier in the year, but this weather seems to have pleased them, saw one covered in pollen from my Evening primroses, and loads in the Runner & French bean flowers.

I'm pondering what to do with my red currants, not enough for jam / pie etc, thinking about cook with sugar & stir into porridge sorta thing, cheapskates' CBA coulis

Lunch, still have cold cooked sausages lurking, I'll use them for lunch, with brown sauce

Dinner, too hot to worry about that, I've taken a couple of eggs out to get to room temperature, could be boiled eggs with something or other

caronc

It's an absolute scorcher out, yesterday's cool breeze has become a very warm breeze. Foolishly thinking it would be quite refreshing out I went for a trundle round the block and I'm now melting, I think I'll be doing a lot of not very much for the next few hours. I need to do some tidying in the front garden but I will wait until the bit I need to work on is in the shade. I don't want a repeat of yesterday's frazzling:eek:.


Farway my runners seem to be heading in the right direction now but my cucumbers still only have one fruit across 4 plants. It's nearly ready but I do hope to get more than one this summer!


I'm neither craft-minded nor musical but agree you're never too old to learn a new skill. I keep thinking I should find another hobby but so far nothing is tempting me so I'm sticking with my three passions of cooking, gardening and reading for the time being anyway:D

moneyistooshorttomention

Tend to agree with you Caron - same 3 things as you.

Some aspects of gardening I think I've got a fair handle on by now and things are looking pretty lush overall. I think I could keep everyone on the thread supplied with blackcurrants this year and that and another berry bush I have are keeling over with the weight of so many of them. A friend here is very partial to blackcurrants and been told to help themselves as wanted - but they havent made a dent on the number I have. Next visit by them will be "....and DO take loads for your freezer too".

Must figure out what (if anything) to do re pruning berry bushes and when.

Must also figure out how to do better at growing things from seeds - I really didnt do at all well with them. All dead - apart from a couple of miniature sea beet seedlings I'm hoping are going to do alright. Time to amend my methods on that front then...

[Deleted User]

money you need to prune 1/3 of the old darker wood, they will have berries on and many people prune now and pick from the cut stems, it is much easier. The berries today were perfect and that is just what I did this morning. Prune as low as you can get, right near the rootstock. Sharp secateurs are enough

bouicca21

OK, not too old to learn a musical instrument but old enough to know I won't put in enough time and effort!

caronc

bouicca21 wrote: »

OK, not too old to learn a musical instrument but old enough to know I won't put in enough time and effort!

That's me to a "t"


Smelly cheese problem has been solved, it's in my stomach:rotfl::rotfl:. To say it was very ripe was an understatement but boy was it tasty. I discovered that I had never frozen the rest of the pineapple and it was lurking cut side down in a bowl at the back of the fridge. It was just fine so it also is now in my stomach:D

Farway

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Must figure out what (if anything) to do re pruning berry bushes and when.

That was one of my self set tasks at RHS Wisley yesterday, I know how to prune, remove old wood etc, but I fancied growing them space saving style, like my soon to be standard goosegogs

Wisley has them as V shaped cordons, laden with fruit. And that is the way I'm heading once I've picked this currant:D [sic] lot

Too hot to even go out there and look hard at them, but at least I have a plan

Lunch eaten as planned, the eggs are still there, now looking like stinky boiled egg sandwiches for dinner with his heat

Anyone got NOW TV? I have Netflix but I've seen most of it that is worth while, and with Wimblebore starting and a threatened summer of sport toying with idea of NOW to try out

PasturesNew

Sooo hot here, 83°F/28°C that the PC rebooted itself... or it could just be about to die.

Curtains have been closed all day...

For the first time ever I'm using a fan. I bought it a few weeks ago (was always on my list of things to one day buy), but I'd not yet been brave enough to use it (fear of electrical goods) ... but I snapped and it's on, on low, set on the timer for 30 minutes.

Having two hot sausage rolls for dinner probably didn't help me...

moneyistooshorttomention

kittie wrote: »

money you need to prune 1/3 of the old darker wood, they will have berries on and many people prune now and pick from the cut stems, it is much easier. The berries today were perfect and that is just what I did this morning. Prune as low as you can get, right near the rootstock. Sharp secateurs are enough

I was wondering if that was the idea as to how-to.

Right = prune off older wood and then pick from it. One of my bushes is currantly (sic!) with ripe berries on and I'll make a start on that one.

I guess I leave the other one till its berries have ripened and I'm wanting to pick them?

Just sent someone else out into my garden and told them to help themselves to however many currants they want from the one that's ripe now and friend that's particularly partial to them coming round tomorrow and will be sent out to pick some more from the ripe one and then I guess I'll "cut & pick" on what's left on that one and stick those berries in the freezer.

So I guess these bushes "work" by pushing out new "branches" next year and those will be the ones getting next years berries will they?

[Deleted User]

money 1/3 or you won`t get much fruit next year, I would say that 3 would do, the darkest wood