Apart from that mistake of the shelf unit, purchases have been virtually non existent. .
A pack of charity Christmas cards for £1 and that's it! [except from a few plants].
I bought a red pepper plant for £1 when none of my first sowing germinated. [Now they've eventually appeared I'm going to have plenty!] I wasn't going to bother with aubergines as my preferred way to use them is in a aubergine and tomato pasta sauce and just one aubergine makes quite a few portions but then someone had aubergine plants also for £1, I just bought one. Finally two courgette plants again for £1 each as I hadn't got around to sowing any. I have got enough cucumber and tomatoes through so won't need to buy those. Someone was selling 3 sweetcorn plants for £1 which I thought was a bit expensive but I'm sure there will be some cheaper later..... for some reason I forgot to get seeds....or peat pots to sow them in......
I'm not sure why my gardening mojo has vanished this year - maybe it's due to the years of having everything ruined by next door's cat, pigeons and slugs.
Back Tomorrow.......... unless..................!
When you think of the cost of a red pepper or an aubergine it's good value to buy a plant for £1. We also went through a period a few years back of losing heart in the face of pigeon and rabbit onslaught in the garden but the motivation came back again and we've got serious about barriers to stop pests( usually quite Heath Robinson cheaper solutions). I used to think it wasn't economic to grow our own fruit and veg and we just grew for better flavour and freshness but I've revised that opinion because of rising prices. Things like raspberries have become crazy expensive and I'm glad we kept gardening.
ReplyDeletePenny
My food growing mojo usually comes back mid April but I can't seem to find it this year
DeleteWould you believe I have never eaten peanut butter?! Guess I'd best try it before the End of the World!
ReplyDeleteGoodness - I've been eating it forever! Maybe you'd better not try it now in case you are allergic
DeletePeanut is gooey and coats your mouth but it does make a good satay sauce for dipping. Thelmax
ReplyDeleteOn toast is the best.
DeleteI love peanut butter and it’s always in my cupboard. I have a cookie recipe which simply has PNB, sugar and an egg. Trouble is I have to eat them up as well, a bit too much sugar! My daughter tells me that 15 dates a day gives you all the nutrients that you need to survive! Perhaps I’ll put some in my doom cupboard.
ReplyDeleteI stopped baking biscuits as I eat too many! If I buy a packet they are less tasty and last me much longer
DeleteWhenever I hear of people stockpiling I remember when I was first married in the mid 1970's and lived in a terraced house with a cellar. a few doors down lived an old lady who passed away shortly after we moved in. When her house was cleared for selling they found about 70 bags of sugar which had gone rock hard in the damp cellar. Apparently she had bought these in the sugar shortage of a couple of years previously even though it was rationed in many shops. She, herself, would visit 2 or 3 shops and buy the 2 bags she was allowed in each, plus would ask any visitors to pick up a couple of bags for her as well. The funny thing was, her daughter said she didn't take sugar in her tea or do much baking or preserving. They also found 20 or so tins of corned beef and a similar amount of tinned peas which were all completely rusty.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the lady had lived through wartime rationing - everyone took sugar in tea back then and had to give up. What a waste though to store in a damp cellar.
DeleteI was all set to begin gardening on our return from travels to Greece but I did fall while I was there. I stepped backwards to take a better photo and stumbled over a walkway divider landing on my right palm to break the fall. Went to the doctor Monday because a week later it's been giving me pain. I may have cracked wrist or hand. Waiting on xray results.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather was infamous for bringing home guests for dinner without remembering to tell my grandmother and once in the 30s he brought home a German couple, academics who had fled the Nazis. Desperate for appetizers, my grandmother put peanut butter on wheat thin crackers, which her guests thought were a great delicacy. The next day the wife called my grandmother and said it was the first time her husband had smiled in weeks and where could she buy some. When she went to the store, she nervously asked someone the price. "Twenty!" she was told, so she slowly pulled out twenty dollars from her purse, but of course it was twenty cents!
ReplyDeleteMy pepper seeds are struggling too, might have to buy a couple of plants.
ReplyDeleteThe threat of food shortages brings out the hoarder in quite a lot of people, including me!
Alison in Devon x
I'm lucky to get some produce from my brother's garden. I water for him when he is away. I'm too lazy to bother with a garden and I never had much luck with one anyway...
ReplyDeleteI'm not growing much this year, but I did decide to sow all of my well out of date courgette seeds to see if I might get a plant or two, they all germinated. It's gardeners sods law isn't it. I now have to be brutal and just keep the very best two or three, I have decided to late sow a couple of cherry tomato seeds to got in a hanging basket, well I can't not have home grown tomatoes can I. :-)
ReplyDeleteHa! That would be ironic -- to be killed by one's own food hoard!
ReplyDeleteBuying plants is always great. Hopefully your veggie garden will do well this year.
ReplyDeleteI am going to try growing a tomato plant in a grow bag. Other people claim good success so we shall see if I can do the same.