Flowers on the table this week have been a beautiful bunch of roses from Son and DiL for Mother's Day.
Son texted me Wednesday to ask if I was OK because DiL and both children had been poorly since Monday and I'd been there Sunday, but I seem to have avoided bugs again.
Day 19 of the Value Range Experiment
A potato, bacon, onion and tomato layer bake served with cabbage. This is something I'd not made since the children all lived at home when it was something we often had as it's a way to stretch a little bacon. The first time I came across it was when Colin's Mum made it.
Sliced potatoes are par-boiled for a few minutes and chopped bacon and onion fried but not too crispy, then layer up everything with a couple of tinned tomatoes and some of the juice from a can of tomatoes and plenty of pepper.
It's a bit of a faff to make for one person but used minimal ingredients from what I'd bought for the experiment.
I took a photo but it was only when I came to upload that I found the camera dial had accidently been on an odd setting and the photo was almost dark.
It's there somewhere!
It was good to have a mild and dry morning on Tuesday to get a bag of onion sets planted. After not planning to grow any this year until one morning I woke early and switched the radio on the farming programme where they were saying that last years' drought had put some farmers off growing onions this year and there might be a shortage. Despite the poor growing conditions and my onions being smaller than they should have been I've only just come to the end of what I grew last year so probably saved myself several pounds. So the sets are in and covered with one of the solid net frames that BiL made for me - hope it will stop the birds pulling them up or Crumble, next door's cat, digging them out. Something has already nibbled the leaves on the two new rhubarb plants.
I'm sending off for some small net cloche tunnels because I reckon it's the blasted pigeons. They've been sitting in the flowering cherry pecking the flower buds for weeks, it's a wonder there are any left for the header photo.
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| Pigeons are not my favourite birds! |
Back Tomorrow
Sue
I know it does not go down well with many people but perhaps we should be paying the farmers more, especially the supermarkets, to grow our own food.
ReplyDeleteThe supermarkets need to play fair, they say a price up front and farmers have to hope for the right weather - but they daren't as all their customers would go somewhere else
DeleteOur lovely little ones have chickenpox again, too many bugs going around.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to have two weeks well and then ill again - and now DiL works at a different school the bugs just go round and round
DeleteGorgeous flowers. That picture of them made me feel cheerful this morning.
ReplyDeleteThey were a lovely surprise and still look good a week later
DeleteWho'd be a farmer in such times as these? The subsidies are all to pot and there is cheap competition from other countries.
ReplyDeleteSome of the deals the government have done since Brexit will make things even worse
DeletePigeons are, indeed, a real pain.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you are fit and well. xx
Yep - I'm a hardy soul!
DeleteYour roses are lovely. We also have pigeons the size of fat hens, that are pecking the blossom buds of our plum tree. Best wishes Isabel
ReplyDeleteBefore the blossom was all out I kept opening the window every time I noticed the pigeons and frightening them away - for about 10 minutes!
DeleteI'm attempting shallots this year. My late FIL grew splendid shallots and onions - how I miss his wise gardening advice!
ReplyDeleteGood luck - mine were a fail last year - but that was my fault as they didn't get enough water because I gave all the water to the greenhouse plants
DeleteWe are still snow covered. I was given walking onions years ago and they come back every year. You can eat every part of them. More of a shallot. Very good.
ReplyDeleteCathy
I've heard of walking onions but never seen them available here
DeleteA cooks revenge...pigeon pie?! x
ReplyDeleteIf only I still had an air rifle and didn't have a house out the back!
DeleteThe flowers are lovely. Here mother's day comes in early May, so people take their moms out to a local now public, once private, gardens filled with azaleas as a trip.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a nice day out
DeleteAgree about the peskiness of pigeons! I don't grow onions anymore but always grow leeks - fiddly initially but worth it in the end.
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
I guess living in Wales growing leeks is a Must!
DeleteYour son and his wife chose a lovely flower arrangement for you. When you escape the bug, it means that your healthy lifestyle is serving you very well. Kids at school do tend to pass around the bugs; it seems unavoidable. Bacon, potato, onion with tomato sounds delicious.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed my roses all week - very colourful
DeleteI was dumbfounded by the sheer size of your wood pigeons. I'd never seen such a thing. Our pigeons are so much smaller.
ReplyDeleteThey are fat and greedy!
DeleteOur allotment onions developed white mould last year and were ruined so we're trying again in a new raised bed with fresh compost, and hoping for the best this time. I can't wait to get growing again. All we have in the bed at the moment is broad bean plants.
ReplyDeleteYour roses look gorgeous. I hope the kiddies feel better very soon.
We had some bad years with onions at the smallholding - in the end we stopped growing the over wintering sort as well as the spring planted sets which seemed to stop a lot of disease spreading
DeleteLovely flower arrangement. I love flowers. They always brighten any day.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have many pigeons here. We have lots of Mourning Doves though. Lots. Think it might be due to the trees in the back garden.
Maybe I need to see if I can squeeze a few onions into my planting plan, such as it is. We've just eaten the last of the leeks so all the beds are empty now, 'all' the beds ... all two of them, I must remember just how much we've downsized!! :-)
ReplyDelete