Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
A very pleasant morning walking around a fairly local beauty spot. Mr F took some lovely wildlife photos & it was good for my step count. A few money saving wins today:
*Like a pair of tightwads, we changed today's planned outing to a different venue when we realised we had a full loyalty card & could get a free coffee!
*Stayed out of the gift shop & onsite garden centre.
*Did meal plans for next week & wrote shopping list, inc our monthly pantry stock-up at A*di. Apart from a Sunday roast (from which I will gwt a minimum of 3 days' meals, I've prioritised food we already have in our freezer. 
*Spent a couple of hours re-hanging pictures which were taken down for redcorating. Bit of a shop from home when we found ourselves thinking what we could get for the top of the stairs, but Mr F suggested swapping current large picture with another one which hasn't been on display for several years & it looks really good. Result! 
*Have shunted tonight's planned meal to next week as we have lots of courgettes & basil, so I'm going to make courgette pasta instead & cut some rocket to go with it. Will feel like a free meal. 
*Picked a posy of flowers from our garden for my favourite vase. Free room fragrance too. 
Have been chatting to you from my pondside bench. Just need to get today's steps to 7000, then time for a chapter of reading. 
Love F x

Sun_Addict

I’ve also got lots of courgettes and basil, good job I like them. My salad leaves did very well in the greenhouse and I was enjoying cutting leaves and seeing them replenish. After a few weeks I noticed tiny black insects on them which put me off somewhat so pulled the lot up and binned. I don’t really want to use pesticides. Where did I go wrong, should I have transferred them outside? 

foxgloves

You didn't do anything wrong, @Sun_Addict. Leafy food crops (& others) often get pests. I presume yours were some kind of aphid or maybe those annoying little compost flies? They are not unusual & harmless. We don't use pesticides either as we are organic. When I cut a batch of leaves, I tip them straight into a bowl of cold water & leave them there a couple of minutes before swishing them about & putting them in a colander for a thorough rinse. The only reason tiny critters do not turn up in supermmarket lettuce is because it is one of the most sprayed crops (according to an article I once read). I'd rather take my chances on unknowingly ingesting an aphid than all that pesticide!
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Enjoying some sunshine - it's just appeared out of a so far dull grey day. A few useful bits of money saving today:
*Did our monthly pantry stock-up at A*di. Amazing how much can be purchased for £44 when it is mostly store cupboard ingredients. Market stall for fresh stuff & Waitrose for last few bits & pieces, half of which turned out to be on offer.
*Another free loyalty card coffee - no sneaky cake as am still doing Traffic Lights (diet).
*Spent a good bit of time sorting our shopping into the pantry. Topped up various storage jars & generally had a good look right to the back to check nothing urgently needing to be used.
*Prepped & blanched several carrots which were entering the bendy phase. Froze to avoid waste.
*Sorted through candle drawer. I have 1 scented candle left (birthday gift). Intend to use up all the last bits of wax melts, recycled scented wax left from candles & lone joss stick before burning it (i. e I don't need to start ogling this tempting product category in shops!)
*Mr F sawed up that huge loofah we bought recently & it has made 32 environmentally friendly washing-up 'sponges'. Loofah cost £9.99 so this works out way cheaper than buying more of the two-packs I bought to try. They can go on the compost heap afterwards.
*Managed to make quite a nice lunch from crispbreads & 4 use-it-up items from the fridge.
Looking forward to tomorrow - first proper city centre shopping trip since before Lockdown 1!! Be still my beating heart!!
F x

Blackcats

Even the mention of scented candles tempts me and I find myself wondering what scent of candle you have in your candle drawer.  I bought my last purchase of scented candles from an independent candle maker in Devon that I visited a couple of years ago.  I decided to support a small business rather than the obvious yank*e variety.  When I ordered I had a nice chat with the candle maker and in the depths of lockdown was able to remember a happy day in beautiful Lynton and Lynmouth. 

Sun_Addict

Enjoy your trip into the city centre @foxgloves, thanks for the thoughts on the salad leaves.

@Blackcats I can recommend the Aldi scented candles, currently have the Amalfi Lemon one and it’s one of the best I’ve ever had better than yanks  👍

foxgloves

Well m'dears, a bit of unexpected money saving this morning, as we decided due to weather forecast & annoying roadworks that we would postpone our city centre trip until later in the month. So Mr F has been out clearing a problem area of garden (dodging the deluges) & I've made a batch of my hot chilli mango sauce. It is incendiary stuff. Too hot for me until it begins to mellow a little, but as I always say, Mr F has an asbestos gob! Anyway it has used up some more of an old bag of scotch bonnet chillies from the freezer. I can feel my hands tingling even rhough I wore gloves to chop them. It was a huge crop the year I grew those & I froze too many really. I shall make a chutney recipe which contains a few, save one for a slow cooker beef recipe I want to try, then compost the rest as will need space in the freezer for this year's produce.
Time to rest my dodgy ankle now & read my book. I bought a chunky crime hardback from the charity bookshop - 'A Dark so deadly' by Stuart Macbride. I didn't know this author but took a punt on it at £1.99 for a book in pristine condition & am enjoying it. An intriguing story so far, for sure.
Mr F is cooking tonight, so I shan't even need to do that.
Take care all... & stay dry. Hoping we get some thunder here. 
F x

Tescodealqueen

Probably a sensible decision. We were going to have a wander after our opticians appointment but came straight home instead. I have read the Inspector Logan books by Stuart McBride and quite like them ( came to him via Val McDermid) but this standalone isn't familiar. Mostly set in Aberdeen and the surrounding area i think if his others are anything to go by

Baileys_Babe

Thank you @foxgloves & @Tescodealqueen for the author recommendation I have added Stuart McBride to my list 👏

MissRikkiC

foxgloves said:

@MissRikkiC - I do like gardening. I started with my Mum when I was about 8 or 9. She was very knowledgeable. Yes, I do grow my lettuces on in modules because my pastexperience is that if I plant the seedlings straight out into the garden, they are at high risk of being scoffed by birds or molluscs. So my method is to sow the seed in my greenhouse, then pot the best seedlings on into module trays. When they have become sturdy little plants, only then do I plant them outside in my lettuce bed. Yes, you can just chuck the thinnings into a salad. I usually do that but this year, I've tried something different. I am potting up the feebler seedlings into a flowerpot & letting them grow into a living salad pot.... as in stick it on kitchen windowsill, keep it watered, then you can snip leaves off as required for sandwiches, etc. Thinnings only supply about two mouthfuls (or one if it's Mr F!) so I get more from my pot method.
Hope this helps, 
F

Morning, Apologies for the delay in coming back to you.

Thank you for your insight, my seedlings are either being nibbled or ate entirely by slugs and snails hence my question. 

Ive done some of them in grow bags this year and i think theyre a little too close to the ground hence theyre being eaten. Ive actually put a little net over a few of them now (from a 5 bag of lemons) which has helped, but i want to continue sowing fortnightly to keep a supply, even more so now theyve been eaten!

Im tempted to bring them indoors for a little while (whilst its so wet out!) as you say but im not very delicately handed so worry i might ruin them by transplanting however have plenty of pots and trays from the garden centre. 

In better gardening news, i took 3 raspberries off the plant this morning. I'm counting - its a very small bush and didnt get cared for well last year (id just had my little one) and so 1 was very surprised to see a few flowers/fruit on there a few weeks back. 
Watch this space as that's probably going to do the best this year given all the creatures in the garden!