Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Honeysucklelou2

Enjoy reading about your gardening exploits. I’m juggling window sill space at the moment and waiting for DH to finish the porch refurbishment so I can get my table and plants back into the warmth!!

ArtyJ931

My children are now all adults so I have tentatively put my name down for an allotment as I just have a small terraced house garden. However I have tried and failed to have an allotment 3 times now so I am a bit worried and reading your list made me think oh !!!!!! I shouldn’t do it!

Despite many years of trying I’ve never retained any knowledge about how to actively garden/grow and so I always chuck things in soil and then see what happens. lol

My plan was to start with spuds, broccoli, spinach. They’ve always been fairly hardy and even survived me. And they’re the veg I use the most.

bra wise - if anyone is looking for functional-not- pretty and very comfortable not underwired but hold everything where you want it to be then https://www.marksandspencer.com/flexifit-non-wired-full-cup-bra/p/clp60438189

will be your dear dear friend.

edit - it comes in smaller sizes too if you search for it.

Suffolk_lass

I have one small heated propagator on the kitchen windowsill, with my latest set of chilli seeds in a half-size tray with a cover on - five have germinated in the Jalopeno pot, just seeing loops in the Cayenne pot - nothing doing in the Tabasco pot - around 6 seeds in each pot. All planted a month later than ideal. They will go to the unheated greenhouse as soon as they are at proper seed leaves and grow on there. My tomato seeds have germinated and moved out. 3 Sungold cherry tom plants have been potted on. I am away for the weedend but then it will be all go with squash and bean seeds. Like you @foxgloves, the overwintered garlic, shallots and strawberries have fended for themselves and are really foing for it. Potatoes (Charlotte - 2nd earlies) are in and radishes and salad seeds sprinkled in that bed for an early crop if the rabbits don't scoff them all

Moorviews

@ArtyJ931 - funnily enough I have been considering that very bra! It’s great to have a recommendation.

Foxgloves you have reminded me that I have no idea where my seed potatoes got put by Mr MV. They won’t be laid out anywhere that’s for sure! Hopefully I can rescue them and get them in the ground asap. I hope Ash’s limp gets better soon. I haven’t done any seeds yet but the greenhouse is ready, which is a start. I enjoy hearing about your garden goings on 😊

PennysIntoPounds

Thanks for the recommendation @ArtyJ931, I clicked on it and the pop-up said '24 people looking at this right now', made me smile that probably two thirds of those people are foxgloves' pals on this thread 😁

ArtyJ931

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81964317#Comment_81964317

😂

foxgloves

Thanks for your comments - replies below. Hope I haven't fogotten anything!

@Makingabobor2 - Difficult to be precise about timings for putting tender veg plants out into unheated greenhouse. A good rule of thumb is that tomato plants don't like temperatures below 10 degrees. That's ok now most days, but nights are still dipping below this - our car needed de-icing twice recently. Mine are all in the greenhouse now - they have been since April 1st but because of the above, I am still covering them with sheets of bubblewrap at night.

@Honeysucklelou2 - I really hear you on the plant-juggling. We couldn't use our dining table for weeks because it was covered in all the plant babies……now I have no room in the greenhouse!

@ArtyJ931 - Thanks for the bra recommendation. I will aim to try one on next time I am instore. My new one hasn't arrived yet so I can't report back on whether it's up to the job or not! BTW, re veg growing……I knew how to grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce & strawberries as my Mum grew them but everything else, I had to learn. I bought a really good book on the subject - 'Successful organic gardening' by Geoff Hamilton, a lovely 'TV gardener' who used to present Gardener's World. This became my bible for growing food. It's accessible, has everything I need to know & even after many years of growing, it's still the first thing I consult if I want to try growing something different or if I can't remember the best time to sow something. I think this book will now be out of print. I've occasionally seen it in charity bookshops although I bought my copy new back in the Spendy Era (& thereby hangs a tale from the day I bought it, which I think I have already probably shared on here). I follow a few FB groups - foraging, veg growing, etc, & I think that while these can be helpful, the amount of different advice given by multiple people can be overwhelming for new veg growers. For example, recently, someone posted a photo of her tomatoes which looked very puny & asked what was wrong with them. The different answers included, too much water, too dry, not enough light, too much sun, sown too early, too cold, compost is rubbish, wrong variety, etc, etc, when really, all that had happened was that the seedlings had been growing too tall for their stems because they were trying to reach the light. Several people said 'throw them away & start again'. Not necessary at all & I did think that if this was me on my 1st go, I'd feel like giving up with all the confusing opinions! I think that's the good thing about having a trusted book - it cuts out all the 'noise' from too many people having their say. So I wanted to say don't feel you have to remember everything to do with veg growing procedure - it's perfectly ok to use a good reference guide & you can always start fairly small. If you do get an allotment, you could start with say just 3 crops & build your confidence that way.

foxgloves

And to all Thursday Frugalistas….hello from Foxgloves Manor!

A productive day today. A no-spend day I'm thankful to say so I shall start with that on today's list of efforts:

*No money has been spent.

*Tough love on fussy cats. They both wolfed their pouches of an own-label meat last night. Ash nearly took the ceramic glaze off his bowl so much did he enjoy licking up every last trace. So excuse my lack of sympathy when, given the same variety again this morning, they both reacted with, 'What. this gruel?" Soot's tummy got the better of him mid-morning, but Ash held out, just taking the tiniest drama-queen lick & trying not to shudder about every half an hour. He too caved at lunchtime when his biscuits were served on top of the offending meat & he forgot he was supposed to be ignoring it. I was NOT going to waste 2 bowls of meat!

*Baked bread.

*Dinner in slow cooker - sausage hot pot, enough to feed us tomorrow too.

*Did a few financial updates & reconciled my credit card statement which landed today. Remembered to transfer builder's deposit from our House & Garden Pot. A few other Pot transfers needed doing too, mostly for very dull but necessary household stuff including THE BUCKET!! Yes, we used to be a 2-car household & now we are a 2-bucket one! Found a little 2/3 size one in 'Rhymes with Toys' which is perfect for sitting by the sink gathering grey water for a 2nd use.

*My half of a small royalties payment from Dad's music unexpectedly arrived in our account today so I have pinged it to our Leisure/Entertainment Pot where it will be used to book a December concert. I know Dad would love to think we are still going to concerts as they were a big part of his life (both performing, conducting & attending) & he always enjoyed hearing about any that we had been to.

*Cleared a few emails/general admin but ran out of steam on this so will finish it tomorrow.

*Entered a competition.

*Did a couple of surveys.

*Potted up lots more plant babies - loads of verbascum, lupins, echinacea, more cosmos & a few other odds & sods. I need another really good go at this tomorrow, as well as other greenhouse tasks. Cold frame also bursting at the seams. If Mr F can get the broccoli planted out this weekend as planned, that'll free up a bit of space, ditto the 2 trays of plants I have ready to give to a neighbour.

*Interest now added to both building society accounts. We had a discussion about this & decided that we would both prefer it to stay in situe to carry on earning interest over the next year.

And that's it for today. I did enjoy stopping for a proper lunch hour in which I read 2 chapters of my current book (Tim Spector's one about fermented foods - v interesting) & managed 6 answers in last Saturday's crossword - think I was caffeine-assisted by then!)

Cheers,

F x

Makingabobor2

You days are always so productive, you put me to shame.

foxgloves

Awww, @Makingabobor2 - I'm sure that's not the case. I'm not very good at doing nothing. I can do my hobbies for hours - genealogy, reading, crafts, etc, but even then, I seem to need to get up regularly for a walk around, pop down the garden, do a few quick-win jobs. Apparently these are now called 'Movement breaks' & are good for us!

F