Random Stuff

Allotment | All dug up!

Saturday, April 10th, 2010 | Allotment, Environment, Money Saving | No Comments

Well I was away at Easter for a week and on my return I found a fully dug over allotment. My dad had been down working hard and done all the donkey work.  We’d been to collect some horse manure the week before I went away and not only had Dad dug the plot over he had also dug in the manure!  So guns blazing we went all out and got our first lot of produce in… The potato. First Earlies, Second earlies and main crop (three rows) all in and ready to go!

The potatoes

The strawberries were weeded and had some time to breath and fourish. As you can see from the picture below the raspberries and strawberries take up a fair section leaving only half rows to the left.  Not the best use of the available space!

Breathing Strawberries

The full plot turned over weeded and manure dug in… Just begging to be planted up now!

Ready for planting

While we were at it we decided to make use of some wood chippings that had been left for general use by the gates… Just really to tidy the area up under the tree. Looking a lot better don’t you think?

Tidy tree

Just behind the tree we made a patch of allotment especially for the little one… we planted some Creepy Crawley flowers to attract the good garden animals, a potato and a sunflower. There is room for more at a later date.

The little ones private allotment

Time to get some seeds in, Parsnip and Spring onions.. All that we had time for today, but the next plan of action is to get some onions in!

Three rows of Parsnips, one row of Spring onions

Tags: Allotment, potatoes

Allotment | Digging has begun

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 | Allotment, Environment, Money Saving | No Comments

Along with my little helper the digging has begun!

The little helper

I’ve decided to dig it over bit by bit and plant as I go,. I think this year it will be a case of just getting stuff in the ground, and the I can start planning properly what I want to grow where. the first bit will be for the potatoes.

The first section

There are quite a few weeds growing, clumps of grass etc.. but it all seems to be pretty free and easy to pull up.  The strawberry’s need a weed and today I weeded around the raspberries and pruned off the dead wood.

Raspberries and Strawberries

For some reason the Raspberries seem to have been planted down one side of the allotment. This isn’t really very good, so I am planning on moving them so that they go across the allotment. I also have some Raspberries in the garden that I will be planning on moving over. I need to read up on the best time to do this, which I assume will be winter when the canes are dormant.

To the right of that picture are the strawberries and again they go down the plot rather than across, I have left them in place this year, but in winter I will move them so that they too go across the plot. My plan is to have three rows, due to strawberries having a productive life span of three years, which I can rotate and replace the old plants with the new runners.

Tags: Allotment, raspberry canes, strawberries, Strawberry

You know that Allotment?

Friday, March 26th, 2010 | Allotment, Environment, Money Saving | No Comments

Yes that one I talked about a couple of weeks ago.. Well I took it!  It wasn’t in to bad a state, I was expecting a lot worse. It seems it was only just recently given up, and boy am I glad considering there is a plot at the back about three over from mine that is just a complete meadow! Here what I got offered.

View from under the apple tree

My plot goes up to the grey and green bin you can see. The is another plot behind mine and at one time the two would have been one single plot. I lose a fair chunk of my plot to the apple tree.. what with roots in the way it’s not really worth planting underneath it.

The apple tree

But I’m sure that it can be made more attractive than it currently is! There are a few odd onions left in the ground that will be no good now so they will be dug up when it’s all dug over.  There is a half row of something in there, I’m not really sure what it is, but I’ll leave it in for now just in case it turns out to be something good!

From the other end

Looking down towards the apple tree, in the corner there besides the compost bin is rhubarb. Then just in front of the bins are some strawberry plants and raspberry bushes.  now to start work digging it over and getting stuff planted.

Bike Update

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | Bikes, Environment, Health & Fitness, Life | No Comments

Well the bike is all most finished, in my last post I had put the front mudguard on and the new semi slick tyres and I was waiting to see what the second rack from freecycle was like.  Well it’s all fitted and apart from the gears (which I think I will book in for a gear service @ £15) I’m going great with it.

As mentioned before my bike has dual suspension which caused a few issues with fitting the rack, a little bit of jiggery pokery and some welding and a bracket was boshed up and fixed to the rear reflector bracket.

Home made bracket

As you can see the mudguard was also fixed in place with the home made bracket.  With the rack in place the panniers were fitted:

The (almost) finished bike:

Raleigh Activator II

Tags: Bike, Raleigh, Raleigh Activator II

Work in the garden

Monday, October 12th, 2009 | Environment, Gardening, Money Saving | No Comments

Well it’s Autumn now and all the summer fruit/veg are dying off so I decided that I would spend some time in the garden today and have a tidy up. Not to mention that the compost bin had come apart so I needed to get everything out of it and put it back together properly before putting the stuff back in. I think to make it secure I’ll have a go at it with the hot glue gun! So here’s what the garden looked like with all the plants dying off:

The befores

The befores

The old rasberry canes needed chopping back and the new ones tied in for next summer. I think I will look into getting a nice trellis to tie the canes into as it will look much nicer than the current bamboo canes and string! Will keep my eyes open over the coming months for reduced items that might be suitable.

The tomato plants were all pretty much dead so I picked the last few tomatoes and then dug them out of the hanging baskets. Two of the bucket ones looked to be getting a second lease of life so I just pruned them back and will see what happens. though it is getting a lot colder now. the other buckets have been pruned and are sitting waiting to be emptied somewhere! not sure where as I don’t really want to put them into the compost just in case there is and blight spores in the soil.

The strawberries are producing hundreds of runners and even though I’ve had two goes at pruning and given loads away on freecycle they are still coming! The cucumbers were finished so I’ve removed them and left the grow bag to dry out a bit before emptying into the compost bin.  The courgettes are still flowering and although I don’t think there will be any more fruit I decided to hold onto them a little longer to enjoy the flowers. Most of the other stuff just needed a tidy up and a re arrange to get the best out of the sunshine this time of year.

Grow bag drying out

Clearer decking

The sunny corner

In the third picture the black bags at the front are the leeks which will be over wintered.  My chilli plants at the back are still gong strong.. in fact so strong I don’t know what to do with all the chillies I’m getting! to the left are my 3 blueberry bushes, they are doing ok and there are signs of fresh shoot and leaves coming through so fingers crossed there will be a crop next year. I do need to find out if they will survive being outside over winter or if I need to bring them in.

I also have a few onions under the cotton easter tree which have started shooting again so I leave those to over winter as well.. there isn’t much too them to warrant pulling them up so if nothing comes of them it’s no big loss.  I still have a bunch of spring onions to lift as well and I think some of them will be used this week in meals.

So a much tidier garden and a fixed compost bin, just need to mow the grass now!

Finally, I have news that I have climbed the allotment waiting list and now reside at 19 on the north and 21 on the south lists. With November  the 1st being the rent year, things will hopefully mean I get a bit closer and possibly get offered a plot. Fingers crossed!

Tags: Allotment, Garden, grow, grow y, Grow your own

Car Booty

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | Environment, Life, Money Saving | No Comments

The car boot season is almost done and with the promise of nice Sunday Mum and I took our chances to have a final shift of stuff..  Following on from our last success it was time for the rest to go.

It was a misty morning and I wondered if people would stay in bed.. but the regular car boot goers were out in force as usual and the mist soon cleared away and the sun warmed the air.

There wasn’t as much stuff this time and I was able to get it all out fairly early on.  I still had the higher priced stuff and my mind was set that I wasn’t selling for any less.  All the rest of the stuff had to go.. I really didn’t want to bring it home with me.  Prices started fairly low, and at every opportunity of interest pulling out I countered with “what were you thinking” this gave me a little bartering tool and rather than people walking away stuff got sold at a price I was happy to accept.

We stuck to our guns with the higher items and I’m pleased to say this time it paid off , only coming home with one high value item.

I had a browse around as well… Keeping myself in check though as I really didn’t want to bring more stuff home. A couple of bargains were had in the form of pannier bags for my bike project and some weights to add to the dumbbells. I was happy with that and my stuff was shifting well.  The nearer the end got the cheaper prices went. A few more bits here and there were gone.

Time to pack up and we decided all the kids clothes and soft toys that didn’t sell would go down to the woman’s refuge so mum bagged them and put them in her car. We filled a box with stuff for the tip, and kept a few good items and some books for the charity shop and freecycle.  I took the stuff for the tip to the tip on the way home… I know more stuff in the landfill, but at least we have done a  fair job with keeping all the rest out!  Tomorrow I will head to the charity shop with the other bits and put a list on freecycle as well.

Feeling good about having made some money, profit this time wasn’t as good as last time, but it was still a nice £70 for the savings and also good about giving this a new lease of life.

I still have lots of baby/toddler clothes to sort through but I will have a go at selling them on the forums I think… kids stuff seems to go quite well!

Less clutter, the spare room is a spare room again.. and the bay window is cleared! Need to work on the dining room table argh!!!

Tags: Car boot, clutter, selling

Thinking about a new bike

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 | Bikes, Environment, Health & Fitness, Money Saving | 1 Comment

To be honest I’ve been thinking about getting a new bike for some time… and thinking and thinking. My current bike is old it was first purchase new in 1993 and is the old classic (don’t laugh all you bike heads) Raleigh Activator II – This was one of the first Mountain bikes available to Joe public with front…AND…rear suspension. Apparently a retro classic now!

Anyway the bike is heavy as hell and I never did ride up mountains or down them in fact so I’m not sure why I got such a bike, but hey as a teenager I thought it was a cool bike to have… the little info I have read on it recently now tells me otherwise though.. Being so old (the bike not me) and not having had anything done to/on it in all those years it was getting really hard work to ride. It will always be hard work as it’s so heavy but it shouldn’t be this hard.

When I first started using the bike seriously again back in 200? I took it to the local bike shop and had it serviced as one of the gear cables had broken… so a general service, new gear leaver/cable set and a new chain (but I think that broke at a later date) was all the love it had until now.

Now ok fair enough I am getting old, so my priorities have changed. I don’t really like getting a wet dirty bum when it’s raining and as I do actually use the bike as my main form of transport I need to be able to carry stuff easily on the bike, not to mention coming down Hill Lane the other day which like the name suggests is a hill and no matter how hard I pulled on the breaks they weren’t going to stop me at the red lights at the bottom… feet down and oh my! So here’s where I started thinking about a new bike again, everything is so light now, hybrid bikes are all the rage for commuters and they are very handy they have lovely mudguards and rack on the back… sometimes even on the front! and nice road tyres to make your cycling pleasurable.

Yes I was feeling jealous of these hybrids but trying be frugal.. not spending for the sake of it and making do and mending. I wondered what it would cost to bring my old bike up to standard with all the newfangled bits I wanted on it. Still with the idea of a new bike in mind of I bimbled to a couple of bike shops to see what they could do.

My list of things to fix get:

Breaks Sorted – told I needed new cables
New tyres (old ones were splitting)
New rear wheel (I thought it was buckled)
Questioned about my gears not clicking in smoothly – told I needed a new chain and freewheel as they wear at the same rate and when the chain was changed last time the freewheel wasn’t and that was probably causing the slipping.. But thinking later it’s actually the front cogs that are the problem not the freewheel.
Mudguards
Rear rack

All that with fitting was going to cost me approximately £195 hmmm I thought I can get a new hybrid bike with all that for £199.99-£249.99 But then I came across another problem. My bike is also use as a mode of transport to take my little one to school and home every day.

The little ones Seat

I have a little seat on the cross bar and it works really well. 99% of these new bikes have weird shaped crossbars or… have cables running along the top or the cross bar meaning I wouldn’t be able to continue using the seat hmmmm that’s not so good. A tag along bike was suggested, but at say £100 on top of the new bike I was getting into figures I wasn’t comfortable paying.

So back to the drawing board and I started to look into getting my bike up together myself. I found that Wilkinsons do bike stuff and I was able to get some brake cables for 99p, they had tyres for £4.99 but I was a bit confused about tyre sizes at the time so I left them. They also had mudguards, so I got a set of them. Got home and looked at the brakes, the cables seemed in good condition just a little slack so I set about tightening them. Turned out to be quite simple and the brakes were sorted. I fitted the back mudguard fine and then came to a problem with the front. It wasn’t a proper mud guard it was more a splash guard and is supposed to be fitted to under side of the bike frame… but I had cable running down there…. no good!

I managed to get mudguard set in JJB sports of all places! which fitted the front like a proper mudguard would. So the Wilkinsons mudguards and brake cables were returned for a refund.

Front Mudgaurd

The rear one isn’t fitted yet as I’m waiting to see how it will all work with a rack. I looked at rear racks and wasn’t really wanting to pay the £25+ new in the shops so I looked on ebay, found some cheap ones that looked good, but was concerned about fitting them due to the fact the bike is dual suspension and I don’t have anywhere to fix the rack in place.. another stumbling block. Though to be honest things would be much easier if people like halfords knew what they were on about. So I stuck a post on Freecycle requesting if anyone had an old rack, I got two replies, picked one set up yesterday which came with the pannier bags as well (bonus!) and another one is being dropped off to me on Saturday morning. So I see which are the better of the two.

Talking of Halfords not knowing what they are doing, I looked at the tyres as well. My confusion, never having done this before was that my tyres said on them (50-559) 26 x 1.90 and everywhere including the £4.99 ones I mentioned in Wilkinsons were 26 x 1.95 talking to the guy in halfords he said they would need to specially order that size. I noticed that halford tyres even though they said 26 x 1.95 they still had the same (50-559) so I asked about this and said that they should fit. The guy went off to ask someone and came back saying the (50-559) number didn’t mean anything. A little research later I learn that the (50-559) is the ISO standard and that number is specific to 26 x 1.90 tyres that are often marked up wrongly as 1.95 tyres… by this time halford weren’t going to be getting any of my money! More research and I find out importance of tyre types and that pretty much any size tyre would fit (aside from the super think ones) as long as it was 26″.

My decision was made to go for a semi slick tyre. Apparently the smoother and wider the tyre the better it is at gripping on the road, the thinner it is the faster you can go. With all that info to hand I set about scouring ebay and found a pair of semi slick tyres 26 x 2.0 – faster than the old MTB tyres I had, fatter as well giving more grip. So the pair were mine for £13 delivered… feeling very good now as the Wilkinsons ones were £4.99 but MTB tyres, the cheapest Halfords ones were £14.99 each. Tyres were ordered Saturday night and arrived Tuesday – great service!

This morning I fitted the tyres with the help of my dad and his socket set… can you believe when I went to fit the tyres yesterday I got out my spanner set only to find it jumped from 14mm to 17mm and I needed either a 15 or 16mm spanner! new tyres in and ready for a test ride. All was smooth…. I mean really smooth the back wheel which I thought was buckled wasn’t. It was just the old tyre had split right by the wheel and was bulging out so every time it went past the brakes it was hitting them and causing a wobble! Also had a quick look at how the rack would fit on and this rack is doable with a little modification. But still need to see what Saturdays rack is like!

The gears are still an issue, but to be honest it’s not that big an issue but I may have a read up and see what would need doing to adjust them.

Another bonus of Freecycle (the name is quite apt in this context) was that someone offered a tag along bike this afternoon… I saw the email when I got back from collecting the little one from school but thought I would have been way too late for it as things get snapped up so quickly. Replied anyway and luckily I was the chosen one, so tonight I went and got it… needs some work, a few bits need sorting, but it’s very serviceable. I’ll get a picture of it and post it… Will get pictures of my bike too.

Potential spendings:
Shop refurb of old bike – £195
New Bike £199-£225
Tag along Bike £100

Total ~£300

DIY refurb of old bike:
Mudgards – £9.99
Tyres – £13 pair
Bike Rack – free
Pannier bags – free
New rear wheel – not needed as tyres were the problem
Brakes – adjusted for free
Tag a long bike – free

Total ~£23

Pretty pleased with it all so far.. Oh and not to mention my legs are getting a great work out with all this cycling so great on the healthy/weight loss side and fantastic for the environment too.. including the freecycling of stuff.. one less rack and tag along in the land fill and no new for ones for me to be made!

I will get some pictures up in this post and post an update when I have the rack and rear mudguard sorted out.

Meal plan w/c 04.07.09

Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | Cooking, Gardening, Meal plan, Money Saving, Vegetarian | No Comments

Well this weeks menu has been planned around harvesting foods from the garden… Though I’m not too sure how I’m going to get along with cook having cut my finger.

Saturday 04.07 – Left over Chilli Bean Tortillas
Sunday 05.07 – Out
Monday 06.07 – Chicken & Spring veg
Tuesday 08.07 – Catalonian Tortilla
Wednesday 09.07 – Chicken & Spinach pasta
Thursday 10.07 – Falafel pittas
Friday 11.07 – Chicken & Broccoli noodles

Tags: Chicken, Falafel, noodles, Spinach, Tortilla

mmmm Mange tout

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | Gardening, Money Saving, Vegetarian | No Comments

Today I ate my first mange tout that I had grown all by my self.. well the little one did help a bit.

They didn’t make it indoors they were munched straight from the plant. It was only a small handful but would have been perfect in a stir fry for one.. but even yummier just as they were. Here’s hoping that there are many more to come!

mmmm first mange tout ready to nom

Potting on and planting out time

Monday, June 1st, 2009 | Environment, Gardening, Money Saving | No Comments

Well today was a busy one, the weather has been great and my veg has been growing really well so it was time to get things that had become too big for the mini green house planted out into their permanent positions. This involved buying a couple of grow bag trays from wilkinsons and a lot of re organizing and tidying up.

The biggest priority was the Courgettes and Cucumbers at they were getting far to big for their seed trays and the courgettes have started to flower! The grow bags I had said that I would be able to fit 3 plant per bag, so wanting to keep them off the ground away from the slugs I wandered off to Wilkinsons to get a couple of grow bag trays.

I popped the trays up on a couple of bricks and put a layer of gravel in the bottom, to help with drainage and water absorption. I cut 6 holes in the bottom of the grow bags so that water could easily be absorbed then flipped them over and placed them on the gravel. This was so the bags could be watered from the bottom up as courgettes and cucumbers don’t like their stems getting wet.

Courgettes

I rigged up a string trellis for the cucumbers as they like to climb, I’m hoping they will be happy. Some of the courgette plants already have signs of fruit, so fingers crossed the planting out wont upset them.

Cucumbers

My tumbling tomatoes have also started to flower so it was time to get them into something more permanent. I got some wall hanging baskets/troughs from my Dad which I lined with old compost bags and re potted three tumbling toms in each basket. I still had another 4 tumbling tomatoes so I put these in 30cm traditional hanging baskets.. two per basket. Just need brackets and a suitable place to hang them now!

Tumbling Tomatoes

Other things in the garden are coming along nicely.. the potatoes have had their final earthing up, the garlic is still growing well. Herbs are starting to come into their own now as well… seems I definitely over watered before.

One of the 4 blueberry bushes has definitely died and has now been removed. The other 3 are doing ok, not sure how much they should have grown seeing as they were pretty much just stick when I got them. here’s hoping they are using energy to get a good root system established.

Potatoes, carrots, blueberries, herbs & garlic

The strawberries are doing well and there is plenty of fruit on them, I’m a little worried about watering now there is fruit as they don’t seen to take up much water from the bottom… but I don’t want to water from the top as it’s not good for the fruit to sit on wet soil. I think I will get some straw to put around them hopefully they wont rot then. I’ll also need to think about putting some netting over them as a couple are starting to turn red and I’m sure it wont be long before the birds take a fancy to them!

Strawberries

Raspberries are coming along well. Even the one that I though was a duff has shooted now! so that’s all of them with some greenery, a few with flowers and some with the makings of raspberries as well.

The wooden bamboo skewers are there to act as a cat deterrent.. next doors cat was using the raspberry bed as a toilet but the skewers seem to have done the trick.. only to temporarily move the cat toilet to another bed under the cotton easter bush…

Raspberries coming into their own

The bed under the cotton easter bush where we planted the left over onion bulbs. Well next doors cat continued to use it as a toilet and was digging up the onions so… I searched through a load of old computer magazines that were due to be sorted and recycled as part of the de clutter simplifying process and found a load of trial internet CDs – cat problem I am pleased to say is now resolved and a bit of de cluttering done to boot!

Onions and the cat deterrant

The onions are doing very well now so we will have more than just two red and two white onions!

The last big update was 10th may where I  sowed some more seeds, here’s what’s going on with those seeds today:

• Re potted Peppers in to individual pots – growing well
• Re potted Leeks into the trough the peppers were in.. and sowed some more in a new trough – new ones are coming through
• Sowed some sweet pepper seeds – A couple have come up, the ones from the wilkos half price bag are doing well.
• Sowed another 4 sweet corns – they seem to be very hard to cultivate.. but I have the seeds so will keep going! All the seeds rotted not sure it’s worth trying again as space it getting limited now and I do have a few doing ok, but need to be re potted
• Planted more rocket.. The other rocket was coming to the end so I have allowed it to bolt and flower, hopefully with the intention of getting some more seed! – doing well despite a fall from the mini green house, I have separated into two batches now.
• Trying again with the lettuce! – Haven”t attempted third time lucky!
• Sowed some of the beetroot seeds from the free dig in seed pack I received – beetroot, hmmm all have come up but I’m sure I didn’t plant that many!
• Also sowed the squash from dig in – sowed 3 squash and two have poked their heads up
• Sowed Broccoli - doing well after a fall from the mini green house, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them!

The honeydew melon seeds the little one and I planted back on the 5th May are still doing nothing, I’m leaving them in situ however, just incase they take a long time to germinate!

Everything else is doing well!