Frugal Friday

I started posting this type of post a couple of weeks ago, but I think I can only manage to do a post every couple of weeks, because these days I don't actually manage to do all that much that is frugal every week other than the usual harvesting of allotment produce.

So here goes for the last couple of weeks:

1) More harvesting from the allotment.  Lots of potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers mainly, but some raspberries, French beans, sweetcorn, carrots, plus a few flowers to enjoy at home.

2) I harvested a few apples from a tree in our garden last week, which OH cooked into small individual apple crumbles. Unfortunately, the squirrels ate all of the hazelnuts on my corkscrew hazels, but today I notice some public space trees where I could harvest them from in future if I wanted to. I think the parks department here are very amenable to people harvesting from trees in the parks.

3) I bought a couple of half price geranium or polygonium plants from B&Q whilst there last week, which look like they are perfectly fine and should continue flowering well into the autumn. I think I paid £3.25 for the two.

4)  I did some new sowings of seeds at the allotment yesterday and in the garden beds.  I'm hoping we'll have more luck with lettuce this time around and get more of a harvest of beans and beetroot that I can freeze or preserve. Although it suddenly feels autumnal, I'm optimistic that we'll get more hot weather before the autumn sets in proper and they'll all have a chance to grow before any cold weather comes.

5) I used another £8 off an £80 spend at Tesco voucher, plus £3.50 in Clubcard vouchers, to stock up on lots of things on the grocery shop this week. (More in another post) I've also been very disciplined about avoiding packaging on fresh items such as fruit or vegetables, where I possibly can.  It is definitely reducing the waste we throw out each week.

6) Today, whilst walking the dog I came upon some wild green gage and plum trees and harvested a (clean) dog bag full (it was all I had), which I'm thinking of making into some jam or even just eating as is.  These remind me of an allotment I used to have, where I used to be able to pick them from bushes around the edges of the car park, until certain people started to strip the tree whilst the fruit were still green.

I've now found a couple of places where they grow wild, that don't look like they've been discovered by anyone else, so hopefully in future years I might be able to harvest them again, if I remember. By the way, I did leave lots on the tree for birds and wildlife, as there were lots that I couldn't get to.

7) I managed to buy LB a pair of Dr Marten Boots from the CS this week at a good price.  She was very happy with them. I was going to share them with her until I tried them on.  So uncomfortable. Maybe I'm just too old to wear them!!

Nothing else really to report. I'll be back in couple of weeks with another post.