My garden, October 2015.

It's been feeling very autumnal this month, and to be honest I've neglected the garden a bit because it's been chilly and because I've been super busy!

I'm really happy with my raised bed (I filled it using the lasagna method!).  I've planted garlic and onion sets, and leek, rainbow chard and spinach beet from seed, and they've all sprouted and they're growing!   I planted some strawberry plants down the edges too.

My great excitement has been this sunflower head.  I harvested a few seeds for myself, to plant next year, then hung the head up with some string on the fence.  I meant it to be a bird feeder, but it's been attracting my furry friends too!

Talking of seed heads, did you know snapdragon seed heads look like little skulls? 

I don't want to speak too soon, but there's a courgette growing here that hasn't been eaten by a slug!!!!! (yet!)

I planted some wildflower seeds and butterfly friendly seeds in the side garden, this is the only thing that's grown from those seeds.  I think it's nigella, it's really pretty!

And here's the whole garden.  It needs some love this month, and possibly a water, it hasn't rained for ages!  I'll get round to that next week, this week is crazy (extra work, 2 birthdays, a wedding, naming ceremony and a friend visting!  Eeep!).

This is the garden from another angle.  One day it'll be a lovely patio area with a pizza oven.  For now, it's a mess, with some pots of herbs and tomatoes.

How's your garden this month?

Linking up with Green Thumb Thursday.

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What do vegans eat? Easy vegan meal and snack ideas.

People always ask me what do vegans eat, so here are some vegan meals and snacks I've eaten recently,

Dhal.  We usually make the dhal recipe from River Cottage Veg Every Day, but Joe made this one up, because the recipe books are still packed!  It was pretty good, and we had some chapatti and broccoli with toasted almonds on the side.

Tomato and garden herb pasta with garlic bruscetta.  I've had a few homegrown tomatoes, so I've been making tomato sauce, with lots of homegrown herbs.  The garlic bruscetta are from Home Bargains, they're really cheap and they even say suitable for vegans on the packet!  

Clay Oven Bakery Naan Bread.  I discovered this vegan naan bread in our local ethnic supermarket.  They're soooo big!

Violife.  I discovered Violife vegan cheese in a block, so I've been grating it on everything!  I haven't had grated cheese since I went vegan 8 years ago, so this is a pretty big deal for me!  Yum!

Vegan cheese quesadilla.  More grated cheese!  This is a pretty boring photo of what was a very tasty vegan cheese and spring onion quesadilla.  

Vegan broad bean falafels.  I made these with homegrown broad beans, spinach beet and coriander, added to a pre-made falafel mix.  I added in oats and chia seeds too. 

What yummy vegan food have you been eating?

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Photo an hour, October 2015.

October 17th was the day set for this months Photo an Hour.  

Photo an hour is organised by Jane and Louisa and you can find round up posts on both of their blogs.

Here's my day, 

11am - We've both had a busy week, so a long lie in followed by vegan croissants was in order.

12pm - I caught up on what was on the internet and we watched Jamie Oliver's Super Food.

1pm - I spent at least an hour working something technical out on my blog, then felt very pleased with myself when I managed to make it work!  

2pm - If I could go back in time and tell 14 year old me to not paint the G-Plan chest of drawers lilac I definitely would!  It's taking sooo long to strip the paint off it!

3pm - I didn't take a photo, but I was still stripping the chest of drawers.

4pm - It went very cold and the sky went grey, so I stopped my paint stripping and came inside to warm up.

5pm - Dinner, homemade mushroom fried rice and an onion bhaji left over from yesterday's takeaway.

6pm - Watching Suurgatory.  Can you spot our Lego Minifigures on top of the TV?  We have the skeleton guy and the fly guy so far.

7pm - All wrapped up for the night.  It's sooo cold!

8pm - Ready for Doctor Who.

9pm - Dutifully washing the boy's uniform while he's out at work.

10pm - Dutifully hanging up the washing in what will be our bedroom when it's finished (please note the pink wall, squeeee!)

11pm - Goodnight world.

Did you take part this month?  Let me know if you did, I'd love to see!

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My crochet stripey harmony shawl.

I love love love my new crochet shawl.  In my head I call it my crazy parrot wings shawl, because the colours and the pattern the variegated yarn made looks a bit like parrot feathers.

Made using - Yarnfair Stripes yarn in colourway 70304, 3 50g balls (exactly!) and a 4mm crochet hook.

Pattern - Harmony Shawl free crochet pattern by Bodhi Sasa on Ravelry.

Made while watching - Practical Magic, Sunday Kitchen, The Flash and Doctor Who.

Time Taken - 3 evenings, 1 morning. 

This is the best I can do for an action shot!  (usually I would take a mirror photo, but we don't have a mirror at the moment!)

Here it is with my mustard Harmony shawl.  My mustard manta-ray shawl and my crazy parrot wings shawl!  I love this pattern, I'm going to make more I'm sure!

What have you been making?

Linking up with Flaunt it Friday.

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Make one small change - use a wooden toilet brush.

Adopting eco friendly habits can be easier taken one small step at a time.  Lots of small changes add up to a big difference.

I try to avoid buying anything made from plastic, so I was very happy to discover I could buy a wooden toilet brush with natural (plant based) bristles (mine is from Labour and Wait, you can buy the loo brush on its own for £5, or a set with brush and holder for £18.  I use a white ceramic plant pot as a holder, it was 50p from the charity shop and works perfectly well). 

I don't know how long toilet brushes should last, but my old wooden loo brush kept going for three and a bit years, with regular disinfecting!  

Unlike a plastic brush, when finished with this brush will eventually rot away to nothing.

Being eco-friendly isn't very glamorous sometimes!

Would you switch to a wooden loo brush?

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How to fill a raised bed using the lasagna method.

When I decided to get raised beds for our front garden I did some online research about the best way to fill raised beds.  I came across lasagna gardening, where you make lots of layers to add nutrients and to mimic the natural structure of soil, and thought that sounded like a good idea.  There's lots and lots of information on lasagna gardening online!  Some is very precise (add 1 inch of 'greens' to 2 inches of 'browns') and some is less so (I'm pretty sure they were joking when they said throw in a pair of old boots!), so I thought I'd show you what I did.

I bought my raised beds online, then Joe (patiently) taught me how to use a drill so I could assemble them all by myself! (nearly!)

First, I lined my raised bed.  The internet is full of people saying you must line your raised bed and people saying you must not line your raised bed.  I've lined mine with weed suppressant fabric that's supposed to let water through, but mostly it's to stop the soil coming out the bottom and ending up all over the drive.  I punched a couple of holes in the lining so the raised beds don't end up being waterlogged.

My raised beds are 90cm by 120cm, and 30cm tall.  I worked out that I needed about 325 litres to fill each bed. 

I added layers of cardboard, newspapers and magazines, then watered them so they were a little damp.

Next was half a bag of bark chips, which works out as 25 litres.

I layered in the kitchen scraps from the compost caddy in the kitchen and the one from work, 2 bunches of flowers from my birthday that had gone wilty and some lettuce that was past it's best in the fridge.

I wasn't planning on putting coir compost in, but I picked up a 50 litre pack from Home Bargains for £1.79, so in it went.

Dandelion leaves, nettle leaves, buddleia and magnolia leaves went in next.

Then I put in the contents of the paper recycling basket - lots of loo rolls!

Next was a 1/3 pack of straw, I gave the whole thing a little sprinkling of water again too.

I added a 25 litre bag of top soil.

I dug some soil from the garden beds, and from under the hedge at the bottom of the garden, it's full of worms and leaves and hopefully some good microorganisms to make my new raised bed healthy.  I added about 1 small trug full.

Next up I put some prunings from a wiegela bush, then a thin sprinkling of bark chips.  I watered this layer too.

Lastly, I put in the 7 remaining bags of topsoil I'd bought.  That's 175 litres.

And then I was finished, which I was happy about, because I was exhausted!

The total costs were £24 for 200 litres of topsoil (2 lots of special offer, 4 25 litre bags for £12 from Homebase) , £2.50 for half a 50 litre bag of bark chippings and £1.79 for a 50 litre bag of coir compost.  I had everything else already, so I think this turned out to be a very cheap way to fill a raised bed!

I'm going to grow onions and garlic in my raised bed over winter, and I've been inspired for future planting schemes by reading this article about growing in small spaces in October's issue of Vegan Life Magazine.  There are loads of great ideas for growing in square meter beds, that would be perfect for raised beds too!

Image c/o Vegan Life Magazine.
 

You can subscribe to Vegan Life on paper or digitally.  There's also a handy app for digital subscriptions. 

Disclosure - I have been provided with a free digital subscription to Vegan Life Magazine in return for reviewing this publication.  I even have my own page in the vegan bloggers section on their lovely website.  All opinions are, of course, my own and always will be.

Linking up with Green Thumb Thursday.

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Library love.

This month I've been reading these lovely library books,

Love Notes for Freddie - Eva Rice

I really like Eva Rice's writing, Love Notes for Freddie is similar to her other books.  I love the retro setting, and that it features characters from one of her other books (The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets).  I think her writing is all dream-y and vintage-y.  

Nimona - Noelle Stevenson

I think Nimona is my favourite graphic novel ever.  Everrrr.  It's funny and sweet and awesome and you should definitely read it!  

Going Vintage - Lindsey Leavitt

Mallory finds a list made by her grandmother in the early sixties and in the aftermath of a public social media breakup with her boyfriend, she swears off modern technology and tries to complete grandma's list.  I really got into this YA novel, it's cute and sweet.

Bodies of Light - Sarah Moss

All the way through reading this I found it really disturbing and kept saying I didn't like it.  But now I've finished it I can't stop thinking about it!  From the cover, it sounds like this book will be a lovely story about Victorians and Suffragettes and Pre-Raphaelites, but it's not really.  I've ordered the follow up!

What have you been reading?

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Easy green actions and articles, October 2015.

Here's this months round up of eco actions and articles,

Use Friends of the Earths' online action to ask your MEP to reject TTIP.  FOE are also asking us to write to our MPs to ask them to save solar power.

WWF have an online action to show your support for ending the use of coal in the UK.

I like zoe's list of ways to help halt climate change, on Eco Thrifty Living (one of my tips is included too!).  

Sign Sum of Us' petition against Fracking.  And sign up for Greenpeace's actions against fracking! 

I love these images of public space transformations.

Ask Barclays Bank to stop funding fracking in Yorkshire. 

I love the idea of Guerrilla Grafters, sneakily grafting fruit bearing branches onto ornamental trees to make inner-city free food forests!

Some of my green posts you might have missed - collect compost at work,  go no 'poo and recycle your plastic bags.

You can keep up with my eco-friendly finds on Pinterest too,