2024 Frugal Living Challenge

fionaandphil

The conversation has spurred me on to repot the basil plants on our kitchen windowsill today. We had a respite in the weather just after lunch so I went to the greenhouse for a potter about. I split up the plants and also planted  an extra bit which I'd rooted. Hopefully this will keep us going for the year. This was a supermarket plant which was repotted as soon as I brought it home and I think this is the 2nd year after splitting it several times.

Just need to find some shooting spuds now 😃

Siebrie

Re the low light in the windowsill: regular window washing helps

I wish Too Good To Go had a feature where you can block the shops where you've had an unpleasant experience or where the products were not to your liking. I would add two bakeries and a supermarket In 1 bakery the products were plentiful, but it was all rather tasteless and greasy, the other bakery asked if I could come back the next day as he'd all sold out, what he then gave me was very little and not nice; tonight's supermarket told me they'd just thrown away all the leftover bread and I should have come earlier, but it's them that set the time!

suzeesu2000

Bluegreen123 I, only using the lights to start my seeds off. No way would I use them for “proper growing. This is just to set them on the way to being good strong, healthy plants that grow me lots of veggies😄 Once they get to be the right size, they will go outside for a while to harden them off and then be transplanted to raised beds/pots/baskets as appropriate. 

2023 courgettes did ok but toms struggled with lack of good quality light in my kitchen, being east facing and having a house side on behind us means kitchen doesn’t get good light and I don’t have anywhere else to put them.

Glittering_M

Ooh yes! I completely forgot about the chives! They are very low maintenance.

I like growing spring onion ends from the supermarket too but I don't have much luck growing them from seed.

suzeesu2000

Frugally knitted some old fashioned knee warmers as I suffer with arthritis. Knitted different patterns - no one is going to see them as I will only wear in the house. 

Cost nothing as using up my stash.  

Next onto making a nice stuffed blanket for kitty cat Frankie. Oddly he likes crocheted blankets over fleece or fluffy. 

Katiehound

Lemon balm is a handy herb to have. very tough, smells lovely. Self seeds. You can make great lemon balm tea with the fresh leaves.  You can do the same with mint leaves/stalks- put in a mug , pour on boiling water and leave for a few minutes to infuse..

see if anyone is growing any balm near you- folk are generally generous with giving roots/ bits away!

amber03

Finally managed to get the washing out on the line in the garden today for the first time in ages. Felt good seeing it, was fed up trying to dry it in the house.xx

Cas

Evening everyone. Haven't managed a NSD this week as we’ve had lots of small spends every day – bus fares, milk, etc. On the plus side we took 2 bedside tables and a display cabinet that we no longer need back to 1kea which netted us a £38 store card and got confirmation from HMRC that I’m due a £53 tax refund and the cheque’s in the post.     

I’ve wrapped up my undamaged windfall apples individually for storage in the garage and the rest will be turned into apple jelly at some point over the weekend. There’s also some puff pastry in the fridge so I might try my hand at apple turnovers.     

Sunday’s roast chicken has kept us going for much of the week. 2 main meals each, 5 portions of chicken & sweetcorn soup (carcass used for the stock), added to couscous for DH’s lunch and the small amount left has been popped into the freezer and will go into a paella next week. All the ingredients came from the fridge, freezer or store cupboard so that’s help clear a bit of the food mountain.     

Potato growing bags arrived today and I’ve picked out a few potatoes from the supermarket ones for chitting.  I'm a bit early with this so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Cas

Katiehound said:

Lemon balm is a handy herb to have. very tough, smells lovely. Self seeds. You can make great lemon balm tea with the fresh leaves.  You can do the same with mint leaves/stalks- put in a mug , pour on boiling water and leave for a few minutes to infuse..

see if anyone is growing any balm near you- folk are generally generous with giving roots/ bits away!

I forgot I have both lemon balm and mint growing in the garden!  They're not in containers and whilst the lemon balm behaves itself the mint had broken out beyond its bed between 2 trees...  It gets harvested every year and used to make mint straciatella gelato (mint choc chip ice cream) for DH's birthday.

Katiehound

The old fashioned method for growing mint was to curtail it's running ability! you would  sink the top of a bucket or take out the bottom of an old washing up bowl (sink that) & leave part of the rim standing proud above the soil. In theory it meant that the mint could not easily spread everywhere! I tried it but my mint died!! partly due tio the fact it wasn't the best place........

I am hoping my current mint survives- it might be apple mint or Bowles  mint. Grows tall & has furry leaves.