A Fox In The Garden And Planting Cabbages

Apr15

I have been concentrating on my kitchen garden this week, especially as we have had some nice weather. However I did notice that we have also had a couple of frosts this week, which shows that it really is too early to be planting out anything that isn’t frost hardy.

Last week I noticed a deep hole had been dug in one of my beds and this week it happened again:

We have lots of squirrels in our garden, but the hole just seemed too deep to have been dug by a squirrel. I also noticed that my bird bath kept being knocked to the ground as well.

I thought at first it could possibly be a cat causing the damage so I put a few pieces of welded wire over the bed that was being dug:

But the next day I found some muddy paw marks on my weed suppressant which looked very much like a fox. I also noticed the string I had put around my broad beans had been cut, which definately confirmed to me that it was a fox, as this used to happen regularly at my allotment. I have also been using blood, fish and bone recently in my garden which always used to attract foxes at my allotment too:

My bird bath is in the corner of my garden and I suspected the fox was entering my garden by jumping on my neighbours compost bin (directly the other side of the fence) and then using my bird bath to vacate the garden, knocking it over in the process.

To stop this from happening I have attached a thick piece of welded wire over this piece of the fence, so I will just have to wait and see if it works and actually stops the fox from coming into the garden:

This week I gave my lawn it’s first cut. I don’t know if you remember but I lifted slabs in this area in September last year, prepared the soil and then laid a new lawn here. The grass looked marvelous after it was laid.

Unfortunatey over the winter our fence blew down and the grass was trampled on when it was very wet while the fence was being repaired and also Judy (our dog) used to run around madly, reacting to the dog next door when it cames out…..so our grass has gone from a lovely thick lawn to a lawn with bald patches:

I am not mowing it too closely in the hope that the grass will start to thicken up a little bit now, though some places may be past that stage. One thing I am pleased with is there are no yellow patches from my dogs urine….we have made sure that everytime Judy goes toilet we sprinkle water from a watering can over the area that she has wet and it seems to be working.

I have also neatened the area around my bay tree and transplanted three or four plants that were growing in the wrong places in my garden:

This week I planted some aubrietia plants that I grew from seed last year and overwintered in my cold greenhouse. I thought they would look nice flowering over the rocks along the middle of my garden in years to come when they get a bit bigger:

This week I also planted some sweetpea plants to grow up my new trellis, in the hope they look pretty and attract beneficial insects to my vegetable garden:

I noticed the fruit bushes that I planted along my fence are beginning to grow. I always feel a sense of relief when new bushes start to grow as I then know that I haven’t wasted my money on them:

A couple of weeks ago I saw a strange growth between two of my fruit bushes and I hadn’t got a clue what it was. I looked at our old garden photos to find out what was growing in this place before and it was an area underneath our old holly tree that was covered in ‘Vinca’ (periwinkle)….so I was completely puzzled. The growth looked a bit like a ‘bleeding heart’ (dicentra), so I decided that I would dig it up and put it in a pot just in case.

The plant has grown a bit now and it definately is a ‘bleeding heart’……I haven’t a clue how it got there, but I will definately keep it:

This week I finally finished planting my onions. I started growing the sets at the beginning of March in my cold greenhouse, so they were all growing well and the roots were beginning to grow through the newspaper pots.

I planted my onions very closely as I will harvest some of them as spring onions, leaving the others to grow bigger in order to get a double crop out of this area. This worked well last year.

My onions have all been covered in environmesh to stop the allium leaf miner:

I also planted the white cabbages that I sowed on the 25th February. Brassicas like firm soil so I firmed round each plant with my boot. I also placed a cabbage collar around each plant to stop the cabbage root fly laying its eggs at the base of each plant….the larvea then eat the roots and kill the plants.

I don’t buy cabbage collars as they are easy to make using cardboard cut into squares with a cross cut in the middle:

I also covered the cabbages with netting to stop cabbage white butterflies from laying eggs on the leaves….it’s the resulting caterpillars that quite quickly strip all the leaves off the plants.

The net I used is very tall beacuse I will be planting my curly kale here when we have eaten all the spring cabbages:

Another job I did was to mulch around my fruit trees using homemade compost from last year. This compost was made using plants and grass that I dug up at the beginning of last year when I was creating my kitchen garden, mixed in with a few kitchen peelings etc. It made a wonderful mulch:

I also brought two new wall planters for the new herbs I brought last week. Last year I placed my herbs at the bottom of my garden, but unfortunately our local squirrels decided to keep digging the plants up to bury their nuts in the pots and eventually the herbs all died as the roots kept drying out. So this year I decided to keep my herbs next to our house, which will also be much more convenient for us to use.

I am quite pleased with how they look and I have moved my mint and rosemary underneath them too:

I am still deadheading my daffodils in the garden and as they finish flowering I give them a feed of blood, fish and bone.

But as the daffodils are finishing flowering, elsewhere in the garden there are other flowers for the bees to enjoy:

I noticed the plum tree that I have in a pot has begun to flower:

And the wallflowers I grew from seed last year are about to flower any day now:

And my pot of bulbs that has had daffodils flowering for weeks, now has with grape hyacinth (muscari) flowering beautifully and any day now the Tulips will also burst into flower.

Spalding bulbs sent me these bulbs free in Autumn 2012 and since I planted them I can honestly say I have done absolutely nothing to them except move the pot out the way after it has finished flowering….maybe this year I should make an effort to feed them!

In my greenhouse that is now heated to keep the temperature above 10C, things are doing well. My different seedlings are growing strongly and this week my climbing peas which I planted two weeks ago have germinated well. I saved these seeds in 2012 from plants I was growing at my allotment, so I was praying they would still germinate:

My cut and come again salads are also growing well and next week I will be taking my first cut. The radish are also nearly ready that I have been growing around the edge of the salads:

I also saw a tiny little shoot coming from one of the dahlias that I grew from seed last year. I kept the pots in our cold brick outhouse overwinter as a trial to see if they would survive and it appears they have. I brought them out a couple of weeks ago and placed them in my greehouse, giving them a good watering first:

In my kitchen I have a few seeds that needed a higher heat to germinate than my heated greenhouse can offer. I sowed these seeds two weeks ago and nearly all of them need pricking out now…this will keep me busy over the next few days!

I must say I am now looking forward to clearing my kitchen of seeds so we can get back to normal:

Anyway, that’s enough for this week. I will be back next Friday as usual.

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Homemade Christmas Gifts…

Dec11

This week I have been busy again. I started the week by making another batch of laundry liquid. It still amazes me how much I save by making my own liquid and it only takes about fifteen minutes to make approximately three months worth (and I wash a full load every day).

I also made some more dishwasher liquid too, using soap nuts:

And I topped up my homemade multipurpose kitchen spray too, using white vinegar and a few drops of teatree oil. The vinegar cuts easily through grease and dirt and the teatree oil turns it into an antibacterial spray.

All of the above things help me to save money around the home and I don’t use any nasty chemicals either.

In the garden:

I also managed to buy another bag of woodchip to complete my the paths in the new area in my kitchen garden:

I then brought a couple of bags of soil conditioner to spread over two of my beds (I will buy some for the other beds another day):

I have left the soil conditioner on the top of the soil so the worms can do the hard work for me over winter. I have also covered the two beds with weed suppressant to prevent weeds from growing and to also prevent the winter rain from leaching the nutrients out of the soil:

I am already looking forward to growing crops in this area next Spring.

Preparations For Christmas:

Well Christmas is nearly here and this week I have been turning my attention to Christmas presents.

On Saturday I talked to BBC Radio Leicester about Christmas presents on a budget:

You can listen to the interview here if anyone is interested. The interview starts 11 mins into the show.

I love chatting to Radio Leicester and they always make me feel very welcome. I hope this comes across in the interview.

One of the things I talked about was homemade presents. I love homemade presents as I always say they are “from the heart and not just the bank account”. I took in three homemade presents to show (and taste) and explained that they are far cheaper to make than buy and by making them yourself you can have far nicer presents for far less money:

The present on the right looks like a Christmas pudding and my daughter made these for all her friends and teachers last year and kindly made this one for me to take to the radio show. It is a chocolate orange with maltesers stuck on with melted chocolate and she melted white chocolate over the top (to look like cream) and she put a little bit of plastic holly on the top. She wrapped it in cellophane and it looked fantastic.

The box in the middle had homemade truffles in. I love homemade truffles as they are so easy to make and look and taste really good:

I also took in a present of which contained cubes of chocolate with cranberries and sultana’s and this is how I made it:

First I melted a bar of my favourite chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water stirring all the time…

When the chocolate had melted I added some cranberries and sultana’s and mixed them until they were fully coated in the chocolate (you can use anything you enjoy e.g. smarties, maltesers etc)…

I then poured the mixture into a tin / container that was lined with clingfilm (you can use silicone bakeware too if you have it)….

I then left the chocolate mixture to set (don’t put it in the fridge).

When it was set I took it out of the mould and removed the clingfilm….

I drizzle some melted white chocolate over the top and again left it to set…

When it was set I chopped the chocolate into cubes and wrapped it in cellophane….

Top chefs will tell you that the chocolate should be ‘tempered’ to keep the shine on the chocolate, but if you slowly melt the chocolate and keep it away from the fridge whilst setting, I don’t think you need to for this.

This week, as Christmas is near I turned my attention to my Christmas hampers. I started by covering my homemade jars of jams and chutneys with a pretty pieces of tissue paper, tied with a bow:

And then I wrapped a few surprises (including my homemade wine) to also go into my hampers too and then I started to put them altogether:

I am very pleased with the result, though I do still have two hampers to do.

I also made three mini Christmas cakes this week and a full sized cake too. The Christmas cake recipe I use is very easy and can be eaten straight away, without having to continually ‘top it up’ with brandy. The recipe is here.

I like to give the mini Christamas cakes to our parents, as they are just the right size for them to enjoy.

I decorated the mini cakes and wrapped them in cellophane and I think they look great and I would be very pleased to receive one….so lets hope they like them:

Just incase you are wondering, I brought my roll of cellophane approximately three years ago on-line and I still have loads left.

I checked this week and you can buy a 100 meter roll of clear cellophane for about £12 (incl. delivery).

Before I finish today I wanted to show you a lovely couple of chocolate logs that my daughter made last week for her friends at school…..apparently they all enjoyed it. The recipe is here.

Each chocolate log costs approximately £1.50 to make and tastes delicious……to buy a supermarket ‘finest’ chocolate log it costs £3 and I bet it wouldn’t be as nice!

I also want to show you some wonderful cakes that one of my daughters friends made to take into school too this week:

I think the cakes look wonderful and it just shows what you can do with a little bit of imagination!

“Homemade really is from the heart and not just the bank account”

Thank you for reading my blog today. I will be back next Friday as usual.

Have a great week!

Woodchip Paths & Christmas Decorations

Dec4

Before I start today I wanted to remind anyone that is interested, that my usual monthly blog post of

‘What To Do In The Kitchen Garden In December’ can be found here.

Don’t be fooled into thinking there is nothing you can do this month……..

There is loads of information in this post e.g. weather conditions expected, what to sow / plant / harvest in December, jobs to do and pests and diseases that you may encounter this month.

I hope it helps someone out there.

This week in the home:

This week my youngest daughter turned ‘sweet sixteen’….how on earth did this happen so quickly?

We all had a lovely day together and my eldest daughter made a birthday cake, in the shape of a ‘Dairy Milk’ chocolate bar (my youngest daughter’s favourite food) and it was absolutely delicious!

Unfortunately my step father is still not well, so this is taking up a lot of my time with phone calls, hospital visits and taking my mother shopping. My mum and dad both remarried and so between Mr Thrift and I, we have three sets of elderly parents (though my father-in-law sadly died last year). With two teenage daughters this means that myself and Mr Thrift are part of the ‘sandwich’ generation and recently I have felt quite run down from it all, especially as I have also spent the last year trying hard to train Judy, the RSPCA dog that we adopted on top of this (though we all adore her).

However, I have no choice but to carry on with things the way they are at the moment and I can only hope they will get better over time.

So this week in the Thrift household we put our Christmas tree up, as decorations in the house always cheer us up.

As we now have a three piece suite in our front room it was hard to find a place for our trusty old Christmas tree. After trying different places in the room we finally wedged it in the corner, however it looked very small and hidden by the furniture…..I came up with the idea of standing it on an old plastic box to give it some height, which I covered temporarily with one of the curtains I recently brought from a car boot sale (to cover two old reclining garden chairs that I was given).

We put on some Christmas music and all four of us decorated the tree with a bit of singing and daft dancing in between. All in all it was lovely afternoon and we all think the tree looks nice due to the box it stands on and you can actually see the tree lights twinkling outside our front window for the first time:

We also decorated our stair banister in the hall with our old garland and I fixed our Christmas wreath to the front door.

We have used the same ‘artificial’ decorations for many years now and they still look good.

This year I decided to add to our decorations with a cheap garland I brought for the fireplace. I have decorated it with some cones and I will add the slices of oranges I am drying on my radiator when they are ready too:

The room is looking beautiful now (except for the carpet that we still haven’t managed to save up for yet but we are trying to ignore it for the moment).

This week in the garden:

Last week I brought some primroses for 50p each as I thought it would brighten my garden in the dull December days ahead. This week I planted three of them in a pot next to my back door and the rest I planted in a hanging basket outside our front door….and I am very pleased with them.

I love primroses as they flower each year and look beautiful.

This week I also tried very hard to finish my new vegetable patch. I was going to ask Mr Thrift to help me to lay the final three slabs, but unfortunately I couldn’t complete my final two beds until they were laid…..so I decided to do it myself. I’ve laid plenty of slabs on my own when I had my allotments so this didn’t bother me too much, though Mr Thrift did tell me off!

This meant I could then continue with the final two beds next to the slabs…

I then created a very small area for a flower to be planted next year, using the edging stones I have spare:

And I completed the edging next to the bed in front of the fence:

I then used old weed suppressant to cover the new paths, using old pins from my allotment to secure it down:

And then I brought some bags of woodchip from our local timber yard and covered the weed suppressant with it. Over the years I have found that if you place woodchip on weed suppressant, it doesn’t rot down as quickly as it does if you place it directly on the soil.

Unfortunately I was a bag or two short of woodchip so I will have to make another trip to them before I can complete the paths in my new vegetable area. However it is looking good so far:

After completing the paths next week I will start to concentrate on improving the soil.

But for the moment I am pleased how it is shaping up.

Thank you for reading my blog this week. I will be back next Friday as usual.

Have a great week!

Path Edging And A Few Odd Jobs

Nov27

After our fence was blown down in the gales last week, I had to wait until it was fixed by our lovely neighbour before I could continue with my new vegetable patch.

In the mean time I caught up with a few little jobs that I hadn’t quite got around to:

I first labled my homemade wine:

I then finally sorted the basil that had been hanging in my kitchen drying for ages:

In the summer my dad gave me a pot of basil from the supermarket and as I didn’t use it up I hung it in my kitchen to dry. After a couple of weeks I transferred it into a paper bag so the bits didn’t go everywhere as it dried:

The result was lovely dried basil, which I crunched between my fingers to remove the big stems and then I passed it through a seive to remove any remaining twigs:

As there was only a small amount of dried basil I just topped up the jar of shop brought basil I had in my pantry:

I also then turned my attention to Christmas and made sure that I had everything I needed for my Christmas presents. I only had the odd thing to buy as I tend to buy presents through out the year, either in the sales or if I find something unusual that I know someone would like.

After this I sat down with some lovely Christmas music in the back ground and wrote all my cards. I like to take my time to do this as I have a few people that I only write to once a year, so I like to tell them what has been happening in our lifes:

And finally I sliced an orange to dry, ready for my Christmas decorations. I arranged the slices on a piece of greaseproof paper over my radiator and I find they dry in a week or two without needing to put them in the oven. I usually put a little hole in each one when they are nearly dry so I can thread some wire or ribbon through it.

I absolutely love to see dried oranges around the house at Christmas. The photo below shows the arrangement I made last year for our mantle piece:

I was pleased to say that our lovely neighbour finished fixing our fence at the weekend and we now have some concrete posts that have been cemented into the ground, to strengthen our fence. Hopefully this will withstand any further gales we have:

So I removed the rubble from the old concrete and took it to the tip and then I had a general garden tidy, clearing away the bits and bobs I had laying around. You can also see in the photo above that I put my old chair back in to position ready for next summer too:

It’s funny what gets dug up when you have work done in your garden isn’t it…..I found a ‘pig with wings’ that I had completely forgotten about, which must be thirteen years old!….I’ve got to be honest I don’t know how or even why I have him, but I’m sure I’ll find a place somewhere for him to go.

So now the fence was complete I could carry on with my new vegetable patch:

The ground wasn’t very level as I had dumped the old grass in a pile when I laid my new lawn in September, so I had to move that before I could start. I had covered the grass with weed suppressant back in September to kill it, so I just spread it over my new area and I will just dig this into the soil for now and it will probably be rotted away completely by Spring time:

I had already decided to have wood chip paths inbetween my new beds, as this would be cheaper than buying slabs. However, I needed something to stop the woodchips from spreading into my beds…..so I brought some wood sawn treated timber to edge the beds and I set about making them:

I have quite simply screwed them together using corner braces and screwed on bits of wood to secure them into the soil.

I didn’t think there was a need to have raised beds as the soil I have is good and it would just be a waste of money to ship in top soil.

I then forked over the area where the first edging was going to sit, removing any weeds as I dug and then I fitted the first edging making sure it sat level and in the right place:

I then fitted the next edging and repeated the above to make a third bed too:

And that is as far as I’ve managed to get this week.

I have two more beds to complete and unfortunately for Mr Thrift, I have three or four more slabs to lay next week (so I need to sweet talk him into helping me again).

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog today. I will be back next Friday as usual.

Have a great week!

Decorating Again & Judys Birthday

Oct23

Yesterday it was Judy’s 5th birthday and we bought her a few little presents. She gets very excited when I give her a present to unwrap and her little tail wags like crazy whilst she is trying desparately to tear the paper off with her paws:

She seemed very pleased with the ball my daughters gave her. You fill the ball with dry feed or treats and she pushes the ball around to make them fall out:

And she also liked the ‘doggie treats’ and tennis balls that we gave to her:

I also bought a ‘doggie cake’ from the pet store which she absolutely loved (unfortunately I didn’t get round to make a dog cake myself):

Today it is a year since we brought Judy home from The RSPCA. It really has been a rollercoaster ride, but I have learnt so much after all the training. She has turned into a lovely dog and companion for me and I am so glad I persevered with her, rather than give up like her previous three owners did.

This week in the home:

This week I have finally got around to decorating my youngest daughters bedroom.

After clearing everything from her room I started off by removing the very old shelves that really needed to be replaced and filled all the holes around the room with some filler. When it was dry I sanded the filler down until it was all smooth:

I then sanded down all the woodwork in the room ready to begin.

I started by painting the ceiling and woodwork and then I pasted thick lining paper (1400 grade) on the walls to help to hide all the lumps and bumps. We did consider plastering this room but it would have been too expensive for us and the lining paper was a cheaper option.

When it was dry I painted the walls the colour my daughter had chosen….a ‘soft grey’ and I think she chose well (though I did have my reservations when she first told me she wanted this colour).

I decided to paint her wooden curtain pole white, to match the room (it was previously a ‘wood’ colour). It took three coats of paint and I couldn’t face painting all the curtains rings so I brought new ones, but they didn’t cost too much and it was still far cheaper than buying a new pole:

I still need to put the curtain pole back up and I also need to put together the bedroom furniture that we are hoping to have delivered next week (an ‘early’ birthday and Christmas present for my daughter).

And finally I need to make a pair of curtains for the room….we looked in every shop I could think of for a ready made pair of curtains, but my daughter didn’t like any. In desparation I took her to a material shop and she found some material that she loved, so I now have another job for next week:

I love decorating, especially when I am pleased with the results. I’ll show you a photo of the completed room next week.

Judy keeping me company while I decorated the room

A few other things before I finish for this week:

This week I made some butterfly cakes to show off the new cake stand my daughters bought me for my birthday last week……I really love this present!

I also made some more dishwasher liquid out of soapnuts:

While I was out and about this week I noticed that the seeds at Wilkinsons had been reduced to 20p so I stocked up with the ones I know I will definately use:

In the garden this week I found that unfortunately the broccolli ’60 day raab’ that I sowed in the middle of August is flowering…..so it does grow quickly (as the name suggests), but it has gone to seed before it’s possible to get even a tiny crop, so I won’t be growing this again. I made sure it was fed at the beginning and it was well watered when the weather was dry, so I can only think the ground wasn’t firm enough for it (brassiccas like the ground to be firm). It was a free packet of seed so I haven’t lost anything but time:

Also in the garden the leaves are falling from my neighbours trees and I will need to collect them up next week. Previously I had grass in this area and I would just run over the leaves with the lawn mower to quickly remove them, however this isn’t possible in my vegetable garden so I will need to get down on my hands and knees:

My Cosmos is still flowering well:

And the tomatoes that I picked two weeks ago when they were nearly all green, are ripening well in my greenhouse…..(I am very pleased as I really don’t like green tomato chutney):

So that’s it for this week. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog.

I will be back next Friday as usual. Have a great week!

Brandied Peaches & A Plum Cake Recipe

Aug28

I wanted to start today by saying a big thank you to all the lovely people that leave comments on my blog. Your comments have given me the confidence to continue writing my blog after I gave my four allotments up…..I was absolutely convinced at the beginning of the year that no one would want to read my blog when I started to just grow vegetables in my garden.

I have always been conscious that my blog doesn’t really fit in with other catergories of blogs, for example it’s not just a vegetable gardening blog, or just a cooking blog, etc. as I cover lots of things that I do in my normal day to day life.

We live in a three bedroom semi-detached house, in a town near a main road…..I would love a small holding in the country, but in reality this will never happen. So my blog is about making the best of what we have and through your comments I have realised that there are few blogs that do this and I am so glad you can relate to this.

Thank you for your continued support.

This week in my garden I have been picking lots of tomatoes from my outdoor plants and I have got to say that my harvest is so much better on these plants than from the plants in my greenhouse:

However, I have found a problem with one of my plants that I have in a pot. Unfortunately I have found a couple of tomatoes that have ‘blossom end rot’:

‘Blossom end rot’ is caused by a calcium deficiency and it usually seen when plants are grown in pots and growbags. There is usually enough calcium in the soil, but unfortunately if there isn’t a good flow of water to the plant then it is unable to access it, also if fertilisers are added to dry soil then this can also restrict the uptake of calcium by the plant.

My watering system that I use most days (on a timer attached to my hose on our water tap), hasn’t really been working very well this year. I have found that some plants are getting too much water and some are not getting enough, so I need to be more careful about this.

I can’t save the tomatoes that are already suffering from blossom end rot, but I can pay more attention to my watering so I can correct the problem.

My cherry tomatoes have now started producing tomatoes too and I am picking a few each day. They are lovely and sweet and usually get eaten by my daughters in seconds….but that is fine by me:

This week I have managed to make some passatta with the spare tomatoes and I have frozen this to use another time. I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to grow enough vegetables in my small garden to be to have some left over for freezing…..I have been pleasantly surprised.

I am harvesting a lot of perpetual spinach from my garden now too (which Mr Thrift absolutely loves) and this week I made one of his favourite meals with it…..Spinach and Poached Egg Florentine:

I was also given some more produce this week…..some apples from my husband’s aunt and some courgettes, beetroot, and plums from my eldest sister. I am very grateful for these, so if you are reading this…thank you so much!

I made some courgette chutney with the courgettes my sister gave me:

And I made two ‘plum cakes’ with some of the plums (one to eat and one to freeze):

A Plum Cake Recipe:

150g caster sugar

115g margarine or butter

140g self raising flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

2 eggs

Approx. 10 plums, pitted and halved

Icing sugar for sprinkling on the top

Preheat your oven to 180C/ gas 4 / 350F and grease and line a cake tin:

Beat the caster sugar and margaine until fluffy:

Sieve the flour and baking powder into the butter / caster sugar and mix until combined:

Add the eggs and mix:

Pour the mixture into your cake tin and then top with the plums.

Put the cake in the oven for 35-40 minutes:

Check your cake is cooked by inserting a skewer and if it comes out clean it is cooked.

When it is cool, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with ice cream, custard, cream or some nice homemade natural yoghurt as I do:

Enjoy!!!

……………..

This week I started to think about Christmas and decided to make some brandied peaches for one of my Christmas hampers. They take three months to mature, so it’s a good thing to do now whilst peaches are fairly cheap. I found peeling them a bit fiddly, but I think they are worth it:

Brandied Peaches:

6 normal sized peaches

100 grams of caster sugar

Enough brandy to cover the peaches (approx. 600 ml)

1 litre sealable jar

Start by slicing a small cross in the bottom of each peach and placing them in a bowl of boiling hot water for approx. 3 to 4 minutes:

Take the peaches out of the water and place them immeadiately in a bowl of ice cold water for a couple of minutes and then start to peel the skin back. I found it difficult to remove the skin on some of the peaches so I used a peeler on the more difficult ones:

Cut the peaches in quarters and then slice each quarter in half again. I discarded the stones and cut off any hard bits on the peach slices where the stones had been attached:

I sterilised my jar (gas 4 / 180C / 350F for five minutes) and when it had cooled down I arranged the peach slices in the jar in layers, alternating with layers of caster sugar:

I then poured the brandy into the jar making sure the peaches were covered. I sealed the jar and gave it a gentle shake:

I placed the jar in a cool, dark place and from now on I will shake it gently every week until it is ready in three months time.

I think that is enough for this week, so thank you for reading my blog today.

I will be back as usual next Friday.

Have a lovely week!

A Week Of Organising…..

Jan23

This week has been a busy week in the ‘Thrift’ household for me. It has been a week of catching up with some of the jobs that I just haven’t had time to do over the last few months.

The first Snowdrop at my allotment

As I said previously, the last few months have been quite stressful for myself and Mr Thrift and unfortunately my usual routines have gone out of the window and leading up to Christmas, I felt exhausted. This has certainly had a knock-on effect, as I have noticed we have spent more and more money at the supermarket on products that I would usually make myself.

I bought washing powder for the first time in ages (and my goodness isn’t it expensive) and more dishwasher tablets than I would usually buy. I have also been buying vegetables that I would normally just go and dig up from my allotment over winter (cabbages, carrots, leeks, kale, brussells etc) and I have been buying bread and pizza’s to save time…..but this has all had an effect on the bank account and I’ve got to say we also started to get out of the routine of sitting down as a family for our meals.

“So onwards and upwards”…. it’s time for a change!

So I decided it was time for me to establish a new routine (as best I can at the moment) and start to go back to basics again.

I started this week by making my own laundry liquid. It took just 15 – 20 minutes to make and it will last me approximately 70 washes and last time I worked it out, it cost me just £1.75 to make (far cheaper than buying it). The recipe is here if you are interested in how I make it.

I then set about making some dishwasher liquid using the soap nuts I have in my cupboard. Again it is cheap and quick to make and it washes well. However, I do use a supermarket dishwasher tablet every third wash as I find this stops the grease from building up inside my dishwasher.

Again the recipe is here if you are interested in making it.

I then gave my food cupboards and pantry a really good clean and tidy and discovered that I have more things in them than I remembered:

I even found some Christmas cake that needs eating up , that I had completely forgotten about:

I also took stock of what I have left in my freezers too (this took quite some time as I have three large freezers). I found I still have a lot of fruit and vegetables still to be used up, which is good news.

I then looked at my stored crops and I found I still have a big pumpkin and lots of butternut squashes to use. As it’s January and they have been stored a while, I will need to think about using them up soon:

Outside in my vegetable storage boxes I also still have potatoes waiting to be used and a few apples are left too:

So I have discovered that we still have lots left to eat in my cupboards and storage.

I then decided it was time to keep organised and on top of things:

Firstly at the end of last week I started to hang my washing out in the morning on a regular basis again. It seldom completely dries outside in winter (unless it is windy), but it does partly dry which means I can usually just air it inside to finish it off. This saves money as I don’t need to use the tumble dryer so much.

An Organised Shopping List:

A long time ago I typed up a big list of products I regularly brought from the supermarket, so I could compare prices (this was before Mysupermarket.co.uk existed, which now does the hard work for you). I decided to update this list and print out a few copies to hang on my pantry door. This way I can quickly mark down which products I need to buy when I next go to the shops.

Batch Baking:

I then set about batch baking some chocolate brownies ready to freeze for my daughters lunchbox (it’s easy to just pop a frozen brownie in her lunchbox each morning and it will be defrosted by lunchtime):

I also made some rolls for the first time in ages and they tasted so delicious, they were eaten up really quickly.

Meals From Scratch:

This week I have finally started to cook my meals from scratch again. We have also started to have some nice puddings too (even though they were very quick to make, especially the microwave chocolate sponge) :

So all in all it has been a good, positive week for me at home.

Other bits and pieces:

After my blog post last week (Problems With Our Rescue Dog Judy), I had some lovely comments – thank you all for your kind words and encouragement.

Mrs Yub said something that stuck in my head:

“Your wee doggie has a different look in her eyes in the last picture from what she had in her first! I can see the difference. It’s a calmer, more confident look”

So I dug out a photograph which I took of Judy when she first arrived home with us in October from the RSPCA and compared it with a photograph I took this week. I can really see how much she has changed and how she looks so much better now, so thank you for pointing this out to me as I just hadn’t noticed this.

In the first photo she looks very thin……

Her first week with us in October

….but I am glad to say that Mrs Yub you are right…I think she does look a lot happier and healthier in the photograph that I took this week:

This week

Her training is still going well and I am starting to have some nice, longer walks with her now she isn’t reacting quite so badly at other dogs. However, the walk to and from the park is still hard with her as she is still so scared of the buses, motorbikes and lorries on the main road outside the park……but we are working on this slowly with lots of treats.

Finally I want to show you something my daughter made. It was her friend’s birthday and she wanted to give her something special, so she made her some cup cakes and iced them beautifully. She didn’t have a box to put them in so she used wrapping paper to decorate an empty sweet tub too:

I think it looked great and I would love to receive this birthday present. I was very proud of her!

Thank you for reading my blog today.

I will be back next Friday at my usual time.

Mrs Thrifts ‘Twelve Tips Of Christmas’

Dec19

In a few weeks time things in the ‘Thrift’ household will be changing and I will let you know the details in my next blog post on the 9th January 2015.

As I said previously, I have decided to have a little bit of a break from my blog until after Christmas. Unfortunately we have a lot going on at home and I need to take time out for a few weeks to concentrate on my family, though I won’t go into detail about this.

This week I have posted below one of my favourite Christmas blog post which most people reading my blog now, will not have seen. I also promise to be around to read and answer any comments that you leave on my blog.

So if you have read the post before, I must apologise and ask you to bear with me.

So until then, I would like to wish all the people that read my blog a very Happy Christmas And A Happy New Year.

Thank you all for your continued support.

A blog posts published on the 21st December 2012:

I try to think of Christmas dinner as just a posh ‘Sunday Roast’, as this way I don’t get stressed about cooking it. Below are my ‘Twelve Tips Of Christmas’ to avoid any disasters with your Christmas dinner.

My Twelve Tips Of Christmas:

If you have a frozen turkey, don’t forget to check how long it will take to defrost so it is ready to cook on Christmas day.

Don’t make the classic mistake of finding that your roasting tin is not big enough for your turkey.

Try and plan a starter that you can make the day before. Last year on Christmas Eve I made a Spicy Parsnip Soup, as it was easy to reheat quickly the next day. You can find the recipe here.

Prepare your vegetables the day before. Peel potatoes, squashes, carrots, parsnips and they will be fine kept in water overnight. Washed and prepared vegetables can be kept in plastic food bags overnight e.g. Brussel sprouts, cabbages, swede, cauliflower florets and broccoli, etc.

Consider using a steamer to cook your vegetables if you have one. It is more economical as you can cook more than one type of vegetable at a time, which also means you can cook a larger selection of vegetables.

Before the day, decide what time you want to eat your Christmas dinner and then work out what time you need to put your turkey in the oven. Work out all your other timings too e.g. plan what time you need to par-boil your roast potatoes, cook your vegetables etc. and write it down, so you have nothing to worry about on Christmas day.

Lay the table the night before, so it’s one less thing to do on Christmas day.

Don’t forget that if you are cooking larger volumes of vegetables than you are used to cooking, then they will take longer to cook.

If you want to warm your plates up and you have no room left in your oven, fill the sink with hot water and submerge the plates for a few minutes. Take them out and dry them ready to serve your dinner.

Your food will stay warm for longer if you put it on your table in serving dishes. It also looks more festive too on Christmas day.

To avoid the skin on your turkey shriveling as it cools, baste the turkey as soon as it comes out of the oven.

If you have a double oven it is easier to cook your turkey for the right time, but if you haven’t then just cover your turkey when it is cooked with foil and a couple of tea towels. Leave it in a warm place while you roast your potatoes. The turkey will keep lovely and warm and it will help the turkey retain moisture.

I hope these tips will help.

Don’t forget I will be back on the 9th January 2015.

Thank you for reading my blog today.

A Homemade Gift Is From The Heart And Not Just The Bank Account

Dec12

However as I said before I will still be posting each Friday with a few older posts that I particularly like and most people reading my blog now will not have seen them. I also promise to be around to read and answer any comments that you leave on my blog.

So if you have read any of the posts before, I must apologise and ask you to bear with me.

In a few weeks time things in the ‘Thrift’ household will be changing and I will let you know the details in the New Year when they have been finalised.

Thank you for your continued support.

Extracts from two blog posts in December 2012:

Teachers Biscuits:

When my daughters were both in Primary School, they liked to give their teachers a present at Christmas.

I didn’t like to give their teachers an ordinary shop bought box of chocolates or a ‘Teacher Mug’ as I didn’t think it was very special. So instead my daughters made ‘Christmas Biscuits’ (with a little help from me).

We would gift wrap the biscuits nicely and they would look very special.

We have had many times leading up to Christmas when we have made Christmas Biscuits and as a mother, this has given me lots of lovely Christmas memories seeing them make the biscuits and hand them to their teachers with big smiles on their faces.

Just one more thing….it’s a very cheap present to make.

You can make any kind of biscuits, but I found ginger biscuits and shortbread biscuits easiest for my daughters to make. You can find the recipes here and here.

We rolled the dough out and used Christmas pastry cutters that I bought a few years ago. They were well worth buying as I have used them every single Christmas since.

My cutters are Angels, Holly and Stars.

After the biscuits are cooked we left them on a cooling tray.

When they were cold we melted some chocolate and dipped some of the biscuits into it. We then put them onto a piece of greaseproof paper to set.

I bought a cheap jar from Wilikinsons (for approximately £2.00) and placed the biscuits in it and wrapped a nice bow around it.

The teachers all seemed to really like them.

Christmas gifts are expensive to buy for all of your children’s friends. One thing, which is a good idea at christmas for smaller children, is to wrap a few of the biscuits up in cellophane and give them out to their friends as a Christmas present.

They look really good and expensive, when really they haven’t cost much at all.

I also cut a large star biscuit, with a smaller star cut out of it. I popped a boiled sweet in the centre before I cooked the biscuits and this makes a beautiful star biscuit. Again I wrapped it in cellophane and it looks great to give out to friends and again it’s cheap to make.

Homemade Hampers:

Today, I finished wrapping the hampers that I have made for my family.

I tied a piece of tissue paper on all the jars of pickles, chutneys, jams etc and tied them with some raffia to make them look nice.

In the hampers I put the homemade preserves, homemade mini christmas cakes and bottles of wine with the bottle covers I made last week.

I added the handmade luxury dishcloths,

I then also added one or two ‘surprises’ in each hamper too.

I wrapped the hampers in cellophane (I bought a big roll, cheap from ebay, that will last me a few years).

I was really pleased with the result. I’m hoping they will really love them.

I think “A homemade gift is from the heart and not just the bank account”.

Thank you for reading my blog today.

I will be back next Friday at my usual time.

‘Stir-up Sunday’ And A Christmas Pudding Recipe

Nov21

I thought I would start today by reminding those that make their own Christmas puddings, that it is ‘Stir-up Sunday’ this weekend.

‘Stir-up Sunday’ is traditionally the day that Christmas puddings are made, approximately five weeks before Christmas. It is the last Sunday before Advent begins.

Early Christmas puddings actually contained meat, together with spices, dried fruit and wine, but it was Prince Albert who introduced the traditional Christmas pudding to the Victorians, which we know today.

Christmas would not be the same without a Christmas pudding to ‘light’ and serve after a hearty Christmas dinner. I have a lovely memory of my Grandad lighting a pudding one year when I was just a little girl and the memory has always stuck with me. When our daughters were young we too lit our Christmas pudding and now it’s a family tradition for us.

Christmas Pudding Traditions:

A Christmas pudding is tradionally made with thirteen ingredients, to represent Jesus and his twelve disciples.

A Christmas pudding is tradionally stirred from east to west in honour of the three wise men that visited baby Jesus.

Each member of the family traditionally stirs the pudding mixture and makes a wish secretly.

A silver coin was tradionally placed in the mixture and the person who finds it is supposed to find wealth. A ring was sometimes also placed in the mixture to foretell a marriage and a thimble for a lucky life.

The photo above shows the Christmas pudding I made a couple of years ago using my eldest sister’s recipe, which you can find here. It really tastes lovely and it can be made anytime leading up to Christmas day, so it’s great if you aren’t organised enough to make one on ‘Stir-up-Sunday’ and you can even make it the day before Christmas if you wanted to.

However, last year I decided to have a change and make a pudding that needed time to mature as it contained alcohol and it really was special so I will be making it again on Sunday. Here is the recipe:

Xmas Pudding

475g dried mixed fruit with candied peel

1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped small

Grated zest and juice of ½ an orange

Grated zest and juice of ½ a lemon

4 tablespoons of brandy, plus a further tablespoon for soaking at the end

55g self-raising flour

1 level teaspoon ground mixed spice

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

110g shredded suet

110g soft dark brown sugar

110g white fresh bread crumbs