What Preps are you doing this week? Part 9

[WomanOfTheWoods]

It's past 3.30pm and a Sunday,, and Summer. So I've a big glass of wine with ice cold mineral water. I feel I need some excuse to drink wine during the day! I just can't get rid of the Scottish Presbytarian work ethic thing despite never having been a Presytarian
I've all the windows wide open and my whiter than Mother's Pride loaf skin is the palest shade of pink.

I'm having home grown tatties with lashings of butter for my tea. Nothing else, Just a big bowl of tatties with fresh mint and butter.
I've dug some I'd grown the traditional deep dig, then hilled up with soil method and they are perfect.
But the "No Dig" trial , grown on an old haylage bale and covered with straw are tiny, like marbles. Ahh well, I gave it a try.

[WomanOfTheWoods]

It's past 3.30pm and a Sunday,, and Summer. So I've a big glass of wine with ice cold mineral water. I feel I need some excuse to drink wine during the day! I just can't get rid of the Scottish Presbytarian work ethic thing despite never having been a Presbytarian
I've all the windows wide open and my whiter than Mother's Pride loaf skin is the palest shade of pink.

I'm having home grown tatties with lashings of butter for my tea. Nothing else, Just a big bowl of tatties with fresh mint and butter.
I've dug some I'd grown the traditional deep dig, then hilled up with soil method and they are perfect.
But the "No Dig" trial , grown on an old haylage bale and covered with straw are tiny, like marbles. Ahh well, I gave it a try.

[itsybitsy]

Well I did mow the lawn - does that count? Now chilling outside with a chicken kebab and a large glass of rosé wine - it's still pretty hot out there.

[jansman]

Well I did mow the lawn - does that count? Now chilling outside with a chicken kebab and a large glass of rosé wine - it's still pretty hot out there.

It most certainly does! It’s warm. Tonight Mrs J is kipping in the Summer house and I am right outside in my hammock (it’s a Navy thing!). What a lovely temperature.

[itsybitsy]

Well I did mow the lawn - does that count? Now chilling outside with a chicken kebab and a large glass of rosé wine - it's still pretty hot out there.

It most certainly does! It’s warm. Tonight Mrs J is kipping in the Summer house and I am right outside in my hammock (it’s a Navy thing!). What a lovely temperature.

Actually, I've also ordered a new bed and a carpet cleaner - both required and buying now in anticipation of price increases for almost everything which will wipe out the budget usually allocated for 'additional household expenditure'. Plus I got an award at work and received a nice John Lewis voucher, so I put that towards the cost. Next up is a new sofa.

[jansman]

Well I did mow the lawn - does that count? Now chilling outside with a chicken kebab and a large glass of rosé wine - it's still pretty hot out there.

It most certainly does! It’s warm. Tonight Mrs J is kipping in the Summer house and I am right outside in my hammock (it’s a Navy thing!). What a lovely temperature.

Actually, I've also ordered a new bed and a carpet cleaner - both required and buying now in anticipation of price increases for almost everything which will wipe out the budget usually allocated for 'additional household expenditure'. Plus I got an award at work and received a nice John Lewis voucher, so I put that towards the cost. Next up is a new sofa.

A very wise move.

[Rusty74]

decided the small lawn on the side off the house is going and having raised beds on it to grow more veg,so started buying them fake railway sleepers,getting them at £16 each talanised so picked the 1st 6 up today to make the 1st bed

[Arzosah]

Itsy, jansman, rusty - all of that sounds lovely (apart from mowing the lawn ) and congratulations on the award and the voucher, itsy.

As for what I'm doing - I can't get round to planting out the courgettes I planted, I'll try again to do it, but between the hot weather and the benign neglect of being away (the guy looking after my house while I'm on holiday won't have access to the back garden) they're probably going to die. I *have* managed to keep alive 4 pots of chives - I think I'll be setting up capillary matting inside the house to keep them alive.

Been cutting back and weeding the garden massively - I don't keep on top of it, and it's disgusting

I've finally been paying attention to my inherited sewing machine. Elna/Janome have a "heritage" section to their website, but this one is too old - still, when I contacted them, they sent me a pdf of the instruction manual and a link to the accessories that are relevant. Within half an hour! That's service.

I don't have time before the hol. to get to grips with the machine, so I've been hand-sewing a sarong - just a straight line up one edge to make a tube, a couple of darts to keep it vaguely person-shaped, and I just need to put some stretchy "lace" straps on, and I'm done. £15 saved, 1.5 square metres of cloth used. Expertise gained I'm pleased with that.

[Frnc]

Harvested my first non-mangetout peas yesterday. They were a reasonable size, not huge. Not sure if they would get bigger if left a bit longer. They were very nice anyway. Getting quite a lot of mangetout. Everything else got eaten by slugs or whatever. Maybe I have spuds, but I can't eat many. At some point I will put copper strip around my raised beds and buy some slug collars.

My back is knackered in a way that's not really happened before, so I can't do much and it's a bit of a concern. So ordered a Sainsbury's delivery. Have cleared a bit of shelf space so need to get more long term food in when it's better.

Got a new botany book called Botany In A Day.

Shifted some of my pension lump sum into an account that pays 3.0 % to Sept '24 (Coventry loyalty account).

[GillyBee]

This weekend has seen the first of the tomatoes and courgettes harvested. The plums should be ready this week but we have had to fit defences to stop the foxes from pulling the plums off the bottom branches to play with.
The soup peas were not a success. I crammed them in a corner and they clearly need more TLC than they got. 1 TBS of maggoty dry peas will not feed anyone.