End Of August Round Up

A very dry month again, virtually no rain and some very hot weather too. August has seemed like a long month, everyone has been away on holiday except me  - but I guess that's my fault! Some days have been a struggle - which I hate as I'm usually quite decisive and organised - but  'off' days are OK as long as they don't last and they didn't. 

I've been to car-boot sales, several churches, Grimes Graves, a ceramics festival and  a flower festival, looked after EGD a couple of days, and decided Not to buy a holiday caravan on a site near the coast! - With site fees between £4,000 and £7,000 a year it wasn't really feasible. 

On the financial side August income was the usual State Pension and Suffolk County Council spouses pension plus the bit of interest from savings.

The usual outgoings of council tax, phone/broadband and charity direct debits and monthly electric bill came to just over £300.  There were two lots of  diesel for the car totalling £68 as I was over  to YD's near the coast a few times.

 Personal spending on several second-hand books - oops, exercise group, entry to the Pottery Festival, one jigsaw puzzle for £2 plus a larger spend for my usual January Chocolate Liqueur Treat while it was still reduced on Amazon - price goes up nearer Christmas.

Garden spending was for one dahlia in a pot for the front door step and the pottery bird feeder. Some of the other spending was small:- sunflower hearts for the birds, storage boxes for 50p from boot sale, laundry capsules and dishwasher tabs from Smol,  antihistamine cream, toothpaste, drain cleaner, new jar lids for chutney and bits and bobs for grandchildren etc.etc.

But one big bill was for half year water/sewer charge. We were told to expect price increases per m³ this year and it certainly has increased.

 August had a few outgoings that I hadn't thought of in July and I spent far too much on food/ coffees out and treating grandchildren - don't mind that a jot! 

Any penny saving notes to make up for the bigger spending?

• Eating mini plum tomatoes from greenhouse
• Large plum tomatoes into freezer ready for chutney
• Cucumbers from greenhouse almost all  month
• Beetroot from BiL's garden all month
• Sweetcorn cobs - only a few
• Green beans until mid month
• Figs, one or two most days 'til mid month
• Few Courgettes on and off through month
• Dishwasher used only every other day
• Washing machine used only two or three times a week
• Car boot find of 8 hot chocolate drinks for 50p
• Bread from bread machine all month 50/50 wholemeal/white
• Tumble dryer not used - obviously!

Looking ahead there will definitely be less spent this September compared to last year as that was when I finished the living/dining room refurbishment. No plans to do anything similar this year.

Something has gone very weird with the stats - I suddenly had 2000 page views everyday this week and a dozen people reading back on old posts! Very odd.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back on Monday.

The Red Peppers are Yellow and the Red Relish Recipe

 Red pointy peppers and yellow bell peppers, that's what I thought I'd sown.

There's just one yellow bell so far the other 4  are still green - taking an age to turn this year, but some of the pointy peppers are turning yellow which was a mystery .................. until I went and got the packet out of the seed tin and found.......

Pepper (Sweet)

Bullhorn Mix

Beautifully long, red and yellow fruits 

which average 25cm in length

So that explains it!

The crop overall is poor - 1 plant has just one pepper , my fault as I  used smaller pots than usual this year because shifting and emptying huge pots at the end of the season is not so easy as it once was.

 I'm not sure they are worth growing really, what with heat needed for germination plus compost, feeding and watering because Aldi have big packs of 'wonky peppers' quite cheap and I can slice and freeze them for winter or bags of frozen sliced peppers aren't enormously expensive anyway.

There will be enough red peppers for the relish recipe so I'll be making that as soon as the peppers are ready. It would go against the grain to buy rather than grow but ............

I was asked about the Red Tomato Recipe that I use for chutney/relish with the giant plum tomatoes. It is on the separate recipe page , a long way down, but I've copied it here for anyone who wants a go at it. In recent years  I've used less than 4lb to make a half or three quarter amount. But back to 4lb this year.

Over time I've altered it a bit as red wine vinegar is now easy to find (even Aldi stock it) I use that for colour. 

Chopping the onions and peppers as small as possible makes a smooth relish, but very eye- watering!.

It needs the rather large amount of sugar for preserving as less vinegar is used than many chutney recipes. More vinegar would make it too runny as would using ordinary tomatoes I reckon, although I've never tried and have always used the large plum.

RED HOT AND SWEET RELISH

4lb Plum tomatoes, skinned and rough chopped. 
2 Very  Large red peppers, finely chopped
1lb Red onions chopped small
1 - 5 red chillies (depending how hot you want it) de-seeded and finely chopped ( gloves!)
2lb Granulated sugar
1 tsp each salt, ground ginger, allspice.
1 pint white vinegar.
( For the best colour this really does need the red onions and white vinegar, and it doesn't work well with normal tomatoes which have too many seeds and are more watery)

Put everything except the vinegar into a preserving pan.

Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved

Bring to boil and cook gently for approx 1 hour until thick

Add the vinegar and cook for 30- 50 minutes until thick again.

 Put into  hot sterilised jars, cover, seal and label.

Back Soon

A Dahlia

 When I first moved here I bought some perennials to add to the borders but that was before I knew that nothing does well in this garden. The soil is awful and the trees that the previous owners planted take all the moisture and it seems to be a frost pocket in winter. I don't want the trees removed as they block out the houses all around, so have given up hope of lovely colourful borders.

I hadn't bought anything for the garden, except for edibles, for ages but a lady at a recent boot sale had a huge selection of Dahlias - all colours and shapes and they looked so good that I bought one but it will be kept in a pot out on the front step. She told me to repot into a larger pot, which I did and I've got a much nicer pot for it that's a bit too big as yet.

The other instructions were to remove dead heads, feed in summer, cut back and keep in a frost proof place in winter. I seem to remember from the past ex-husbands father putting the tubers/corms (whichever) in a box of straw for winter?

Will I keep it alive? Think I need Dahlia advice.

Back Soon