Today I planted some Wood Anemone’s (Anemone nemorosa) in my woodland area. I bought these with the last of my birthday money, in the hope I will have enjoyment from them for years to come (and hopefully I can take root cuttings over the years to expand my stock for free).
The Wood Anemone is a native British wildflower and looks beautiful in the spring, when they are planted in drifts. They are a hardy perennial that will tolerate most soil types and the Royal Horticultural Society gave it their prestigious Award of Garden Merit (AGM).
You can read about Wood Anemone’s here and also see a picture of how beautiful they are.
The root cuttings that were sent to me look like little bits of stick. I soaked them for a couple of hours in a small pot.
I then planted them horizontally, approximately one inch below the soil.
I’m looking forward to seeing them in the spring.
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I also planted some tulip bulbs at my allotment today. They were a free gift that I received with the rambling rose that I planted at the beginning of the week. I planted them approximately 15cm deep at the corners of my woodland area. They are supposed to be a peach colour, but that is all I know about them.
Tulips are best planted in November which is later than most bulbs, as a late planting can help reduce problems with the disease ‘tulip fire’.
Tulip fire is a fungal disease which causes brown spots and twisted and distorted leaves on the tulip. It is named ‘tulip fire’ because the plants look like they have been scorched by fire.
You can read about ‘Tulip Fire’ here.
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We also had a large delivery of leaves to our allotment this week, so I filled some bags with them and managed to fill my two black ‘dalek’ compost bins, so hopefully next year I will have some lovely leaf mould to mulch some of my beds over the winter.
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Just a quick reminder, it is ‘Rememberence Sunday’, (sometimes known as ‘Poppy Day’) on Sunday, please don’t forget to buy your poppies. This is what the ‘Royal British Legion’ says on their website:
The Royal British Legion was formed in 1921 to support the veterans of the Great War. Since then, Britain has been involved in many other wars and fields of Service, creating a continuous supply of Service men and women, and their families, who need our assistance. We are recognised as the Nation’s custodians of Remembrance.
A Wonderful Gentleman Selling Poppies.
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A Week Of Main Meals For Under £10.00
For those who haven’t been following my blog this week, I thought I would set myself a challenge of cooking seven main meals for my family, for under £10.00. If I can do this, it will show people that we can and do actually ‘live well on less’.
To keep the costs down, I have been using my home grown vegetables and in the style of ‘Ready Steady Cook’, I have free use of store cupboard items, which can be found here, on Monday’s post.
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Tonight I cooked ‘Toad In The Hole’. I served it with some more of the enormous swede, that I picked on Tuesday, together with carrots and curly kale that I picked this morning from my allotment (I don’t think anyone can accuse us of not eating enough vegetables in this house).
You can find the recipe for the Toad In The Hole here.
The only expense was for eight sausages and the rest of the ingredients were from my store cupboard items and the vegetables were homegrown.
So this meal only cost me £0.80 to make.
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As it’s Saturday tomorrow, I decided to plan tomorrows meal and write about it today.
Tomorrow we will be having a ‘take away pizza’ night. I will be cooking a pizza exactly like the one in the picture below, (but without the Olympic rings).
The recipe for my pizza is here.
I will serve it with homemade potato wedges and salad from my polytunnel.
The only ingredient I will be paying for, will be the grated mozzarella cheese that costs £2.00
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Below is my expenditure for our seven family main meals this week:
Sunday = £ 3.33
Monday = £ 0.87
Tuesday = £0.00
Wednesday = £0.63
Thursday = £1.65
Friday = £0.80
Saturday = £2.00
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So the total for the week is (drum roll please) an amazing £9.28!
I am really pleased with this amount and I have proved I can actually cook seven, healthy main meals for under £10.00, for a family of four people.
I hope this has given you some ideas to eat cheaply.
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Tomorrow I will be serving Potato wedges with the pizza I am making. Potato wedges are really easy to make and taste just as good as the ones you buy from the supermarket.
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Potato Wedges Recipe
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4 large potatoes
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¾ teaspoon ground mild chili powder
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
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Preheat your oven gas mark 7 / 220C / 425F
Give the potatoes a good scrub to clean them.
Cut each potato into quarters, long ways.
Cut each quarter into thirds.
Mix the olive oil and herbs and spices together.
Pour the mixture over the potatoes and ensure all the potatoes are covered.
Put the potatoes on a greased baking sheet.
Cook for 25 minutes until the potatoes are golden brown and soft.
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Thank you for reading my blog today.
not just greenfingers 