Having finished any cleaning I wanted to do on Saturday morning, this left me with some time to do other things. The first thing I did was to harvest all the blackcurrants on my bush outside the back door. I harvested 2lbs of fruit and then proceeded to make a jam from them. I didn't have quite enough sugar, so decided to do a reduced sugar version without a proper recipe, so the end result wasn't quite as set as I'd hoped, but so long as it doesn't grow mould it will get eaten.
I used some of it to do another small task I'd been meaning to do for a while, namely use up some pastry mix that I had decluttered from the kitchen cupboards a few weeks ago, and make some tarts. I managed to make 41 tarts from just the one pack, which was pretty good. These will go down well with cups of tea over the next week or so and I've finally emptied the jar that had been sitting on the kitchen worktop to remind me to use it, for over three weeks! Result.
Once I'd done these tasks, I decided to do my weekly grocery shop a day early, as the fridge was almost empty, so I headed off to Lidl. An £86 shop later and we were stocked up again. When did Lidl become so expensive. I don't know if we're just eating more or prices are going up, but gone are the days of £40/£50 weekly shops here. We do eat a lot of fruit, so maybe it's that that is pushing up the bill, and that's before we leave the EU with it's cheap supply of fresh produce. Food will possibly inevitably become more expensive.
OH was cycling this afternoon, in a race in the City of London, I was going to go and watch and LB and her friends were going to come and head to a gallery, but we decided not to go after recent events in Central London, so OH went on his own. I don't like to change what I do because of the terrorist threat, but for the moment I just want to stay close to home on a weekend.
Saturday was rounded off by catching up with a recorded episode of The Handmaid's Tale, before this week's episode on Sunday night came around again.
This is a photo of the garden after I'd finished tidying and of OH with his feet up after cleaning his bike and leaving it out to dry on my raised beds.
Sunday, after coming home from the gym (and not having to do my weekly shop this week) I decided to get stuck in to some gardening at home. I haven't really done much work in the garden in recent weeks, so it felt good to get out there again. I swept the decking, which was a bit littered with leaves and petals after recent high winds, planted out my tomato plants into the grow bags I'd bought last week and fed them and my homemade hanging baskets, one of which is pictured below. They're coming along nicely.
The vegetable beds are looking better with plenty of things growing. I harvested some kale this weekend to have with a roast on Sunday. It was very tasty. All things considered, I'm pretty happy with what I achieved this weekend.
The priority in the coming week will now be the allotment, which is looking a bit weed filled again. I also need to plant out my cucumber plants and some sunflowers that are lined up in readiness (and currently being propped up by the clothes line to stop them snapping in the wind).
How was your weekend?
Goodness do you ever sit down - what a lot you have done in the last few days - I'm impressed. Your produce is coming on well - home grown always tastes so much better than shop bought and those tarts remind me of home when I was younger as my mum always made tarts for us.
ReplyDeleteYour garden looks absolutely beautiful, so lush and green.
ReplyDeleteThose tarts look really good and would go well with an afternoon tea or coffee break.
God bless.