My suburban garden harvest, July 2016.

I've had loads and loads of little handfuls of strawberries from the garden this month - mostly beating the birds to them! 

And I managed to grow some exciting miniature onions!  They're leeks gone wrong, I planted the seed last autumn direct into my front garden raised bed, but they didn't really grow.  I dug up what was there to make room and found these cute little onions.  I ate them raw and they were surprisingly hard!  Probably not an experience I'll repeat! 

I've also harvested some red spring onions from one of the pots either side of our front door.  I planted them last year too, they were sold as spring onions but they've actually formed tiny bulbs with papery skin and everything.  They taste fine but they're really fiddly to slice, so I probably won't buy any more of this kind of seed!  They were nice in a Thai noodle stir fry though.

I've also had a few raspberries, but they get eaten before I have time to get my camera out!

What have you been harvesting from your garden this month? 

 

Have you had your first tomato yet?  We're still waiting!! 

Don't forget to check out my Instagram account for lots of garden-y stuff every week!

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Vegan chocolate milk ice lollies, a recipe and some inspiration.

It's been too hot this summer!  So I've been making yummy and ridiculously easy vegan chocolate milk ice lollies!

I was sent some lovely Riso Scotti rice and oat milks to try so I used them to make my lollies.  I used the rice and quinoa, and oat milk varieties of Riso Scotti and both froze really well.  

You will need

dairy free milk (I used Riso Scotti)

vegan drinking chocolate powder (I used Cadbury)

ice lolly molds (I have some silicone, push up style ones from Ikea)

a spoon

How to make your yummy vegan ice lollies

These are really easy to make!  Fill your ice lolly molds almost to the top with vegan milk.  Then add a teaspoon of drinking chocolate powder.  Use the end of the spoon to get in your lolly mold and mix it all up properly.  Pop in the freezer for a few hours and then they'll be ready! 

Because they're made from Cadbury drinking chocolate these ice lollies actually taste like Cadbury milk chocolate.  But they're vegan.  Wahoo! 

Here are some more lovely vegan milk ice lolly recipe ideas,

Chocolate peanut butter dairy free popsicles

Creamy dulce de leche popsicles

Vegan peaches and cream popsicles

Coconut milk fudgesicles 

Mexican mocha fudge pops

Vegan mango ice cream popsicles 

Key lime coconut milk popsicles

Vegan cookies and cream popsicles  

  

This month's issue of Vegan Life Magazine has loads of lovely ice cream and popsicle recipes (and Cadbury's drinking chocolate - key ingredient in my chocolate milk lollies - gets a shout out in their accidentally vegan section!)  I like the look of these green monster pops!

photo from Vegan Life Magazine.

Disclosure - I was sent some Riso Scotti to try, I like it!  I get a digital subscription to Vegan Life Magazine in return for giving them a shout out every month.  I only work with brands I like and all opinions and ideas are my own.  Vegan Life Mag is ace, you can subscribe here.

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Photo an hour, July 2016.

Photo an hour day was on the 12th of June this month.

 

Photo an hour in organised by Jane and Louisa, anyone can join in and post their hourly photos on social media throughout the day tagging them #photoanhour.  Why don't you join in next time?

 

Here are my photos,

 

10am - I got exciting post!  A bulk supply of my favourite nutritional yeast, and some lovely goodies from The-Thrift.co.uk

 

 

11am - Getting ready to go out, definitely needed suncream, it's been SO hot!

 

12pm - I'm trying to buy all our fresh fruit and veg from our local market and greengrocers, as part of my effort to shop local.  I like this stall because they label where the produce is from, and it's reasonably priced.  This little lot only came to £4.80!

 

1pm - Home.  Shoes off.  Leggings off.  Did I mention it was a hot day!

 

2pm - Our old TV died a death, which is fine because it'd been about since the 1990s!  So we bought a new TV and I set up Netflix, then immediately watched an episode of Doctor Who!

 

3pm - All of the to do lists, none of the motivation.

4pm - Making an offering to my wormy friends.

 

 

5pm - I had a little poke about in the garden and repotted my pumpkin into a bigger pot.

 

6pm -Getting dinner started.

 

7pm - Checking on my front garden while I waited for tea to cook.  I'm really happy my peas are flowering because my first lot of peas were eaten by slugs! 

 

8pm - Eating dinner.  Watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.  I'm honestly not sure what my chances are for doing anything other than watching Netflix for the next couple of days! 

 

9pm - We definitely didn't move for the rest of the night!  We watched Guardians of the Galaxy, then Joe went to bed and I watched Diary of a Teenage Girl (and decided I want to live in their beautiful house!).

This time last year we were eating pancakes, buying furniture for our new house and pootling about in the garden. 

Did you join in this month?   Let me know if you did, I'd love to have a nosey at your day!

 

 

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Collections, Rainbow guide badges.

I have a lot of collections, so I thought I'd start showing you some of them.

I love my collection of Rainbow guide badges because there's a memory attached to each one.  

Looking at these badges reminds me of making chocolate cow pats, taking part in remembrance day parades, decorating unicorn horns then galloping round the hall in whirl of joy, sitting in the sunshine watching the girls splash and shriek in paddling pools and learning how to balance a plate on a stick. 

My favourite badges are the unicorn challenge badge and the Queen's 90th birthday one, just because they're both so pretty!

Lots of people sew their badges onto a camp blanket, but my girls are only 5,6 and 7 years old, a bit little for camping!  I've sewn my Rainbow badges on a tote bag.  I use it to take my stuff to rainbows each week!

There are 3 years worth of badges on my bag so far, one side proudly and prettily filled.  I came back to Guiding 3 years ago, after being a Brownie, Guide and Young Leader when I was younger.  I'm so glad I did, when else would I get the opportunity to eat a chocolate cow pat! 

What do you collect?  Do you have your own camp blanket full of Guiding memories? 

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Diary of a suburban, polyculture, food garden, July 2016.

I've been super busy with job applications and other stuff this month so I've not done as much gardening as I wanted.  

Also, there's this heat wave.  I'm not a fan of it.  I'm more a fan of sitting in front of my fan on the sofa to be honest.

But I've done a bit of gardening, so, onwards,

In the greenhouse I've got some tomatoes (tiny tim) and a courgette (verde di milano), no fruits from either yet but some flowers coming along.  Everything seems slow again this year.  I keep seeing other people eating their first tomato on Instagram, and I don't have any yet! 

I'm really happy that the hydrangea in the front garden have flowered this year.  They didn't last year because next door's magnolia tree was completely throwing them shade.  A years worth of surreptitious snipping away at it has given the plants underneath a bit more of a chance.

I have a LOT of ground elder in this front border, I know it's going to be a pain to get rid of, and I quite like it's white flowers (and so do lots of insects!) so I think I'll mostly leave it be, but try to dig up a bit to stop it spreading any further!

Back to the back garden, there are broad beans broad beaning!  I've planted lots of seeds directly into the soil in my main, mixed polyculture bed but nothing much has grown.  I'm going to re-try some in pots in the greenhouse, I need some rainbow chard and perpetual spinach, and spring onions at least!  

Out of all the perennial flower seeds I planted, only this one grew.  At least it's a pretty one, it's a 'malva zebrina'.

And the first of my very favourite, obnoxiously bright nasturtiums has arrived too, hurray! 

We were given garden centre vouchers as a wedding present, so we went to the posh garden centre which was a bit of a change from my usual favourite, Wilkos dead plant section!  We came back with a Lavatera called 'songbird' that has pink and white flowers, and a Physocarpus 'midnight' which have filled a gap in the back of the main bed.  I also found the dead plant section of the posh garden centre and came home with an armful of reduced herbs.

Most excitingly, my pepper (lipstick) has it's first pepper!  Yey!  I have 3 pepper plants, all the same type, and they're living in the conservatory which they seem to be happy with.

I've also had a month of chopping, all 3 wiegelas in the garden have been cut back, some more of next door's magnolia has been secretly snipped (alas, the more I snip it the bushier it grows back!), Joe sawed down the last of the fallen over pyrocantha that fell over when we had new fences and I've trimmed the catoneasters in the front garden too.  At least 3 green bins full! 

The only photo I have of the whole garden this month is this one.  My husband is doing something DIY-ish in it, but there you go, at least you can see that at the moment we have lots of flowers, a few food plants - loads of strawberries, and some bare patches where nothing has grown!

I've also been sprinkling used coffee grounds around the garden, on my acid loving plants, compost bin and wormery!  It's supposed to be a good soil improver!  Can you see the berries on the blueberries and the flowers on my tomatoes (san marzano and mortgage lifter) and the weeds?!  Ignore those weeds!

How are your gardens this month?  I hope you're surviving the heat?!

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Graze box - for vegans!

I've subscribed to Graze box, to get yummy, healthy, vegan snacks posted through my letter box every month!

When you subscribe you say your food preferences (no bananas, olives or pinapple, thank you!) and diet (Graze has 54 vegan options).  Once you've started getting boxes you rate the snacks, from 'bin to 'try', 'like' and 'love'.  If you really love something you can ask the people at Graze to 'send soon' too!

This is what I got in my second box,

Herby bread basket - this one is my fave, the garlic crostini are garlicy, the basil baguettes are sweet and herby and the oregano rice crackers are the best things I've ever tasted!  Everything is crispy and delicious in this Graze punnet and it's only 90 calories. Love.  Send soon.

Jaffa cake - this Graze box has nice big vegan chocolate buttons, tangy orange raisins and nice toasty hazelnuts.  My only complaint is that the orange flavoured raisins taste a bit artificial, like cheap pop.  Although I loved the chocolate I wouldn't try this one again.  Bin.

Sour cream and garlic crostini - I want to always be eating this. The same garlicky crunchy crostini that are in herby bread basket, and sour cream and onion cashews.  Oh mah goodness, these are too good!  I love vegan friendly sour cream and onion flavoured stuff, it makes me so happy!  Love.  Send soon.

New York everything bagel - I didn't think I'd like these, because I didn't like the sesame sticks in the other box, but they're nicer, crispier, and have a nice toasty, seedy taste and very mild onion.  Like.

Do you get Graze boxes?  What are your favourites?

Check out my other vegan Graze boxes too! 

Subscribe to Graze with my code to get your 1st, 5th and 10th boxes free - it's SUSIEE65P

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3 ways to use used coffee grounds in the garden.

You can pick up lovely, free used coffee grounds from some coffee shops.  I got some the other day from Starbucks, but lots of other cafe's give them away too! 

Used coffee grounds have loads of benefits for the garden, they attract worms, repel slugs, snails, pests and cats, and add organic matter to the soil with improves it's moisture and nutrient levels.

Top dress acid loving plants.

The jury seems to be out as to whether your plants will love being mulched with coffee, or it will kill them.  The internet is full of articles of both opinions.  Most say a thin layer of used coffee grounds scattered around the soil of acid loving plants will benefit them.  I've sprinkled some round my tomatoes, blueberries, peppers, sweetcorn, greens, and roses.  Other plants that appreciate a little coffee are camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas.  Just don't add too much, or your soil could get too acidic and your plants really will die!    

 

Add coffee grounds to your worm composter. 

Apparently worms love used coffee grounds!  Sprinkle a few into your wormery, but only as part of a balanced worm diet, of fruit and veg peelings, shredded paper and leafy-bits.  Don't put too much in or the vermicompost (soil) in the wormery could become acidic and burn the worms skin! 

Put them in your compost bin. 

The safest thing to do with used coffee grounds is to put them in your compost bin.  This eliminates the risk of killing your plants or burning your worms.  They'll do lots of great things in there, like raise the temperature, encourage good bacteria to grow, add nitrogen and maintain moisture levels.  Coffee grounds count as a 'green' in composting, so make sure you add some 'browns' in too, like dead leaves, twigs or cardboard to keep the balance in your compost bin.

Another bonus?  My garden smells delicious at the moment!

Do you have any other garden-y uses for used coffee grounds?

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Make one small change - shop local.

Making one small change at a time can make becoming eco friendly loads easier.  Lots of small changes add up to a big difference.

Shopping local sounds easy, but it can be a tricky habit to get into when you can easily get all the shopping your heart desires delivered to your door.

But.  In my town we have a lovely market, an independent greengrocers, a health food shop, excellent chippies and takeaways and a couple of nice pubs a short walk away.  We just discovered a new comic book/board game stall on the market that's going to host our town's first comicon in December, and there's a nice looking new cafe too.

Nobody knows what's going to happen in the future, but I think we might all have less money to go around.  I'd rather invest the money I have in local businesses and the things I want to have in my local town, than give my pennies to a big multinationals. 

Loads of studies have shown that more money stays in your community when you spend with local businesses.  And there are lots of other benefits too, like being able to buy unwrapped (i.e. plastic free) fruit and veg, saving Co2 and travel costs by avoiding out of town superstores, sustaining and creating local jobs and keeping local businesses and services in small town centres. 

I want my town to be a vibrant, happy community, and I plan on voting with my money to try to help that happen.  

Do you shop local?  What are your favorite local shops?

Don't forget to check out my other small changes to help you live a greener life!

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Charity shopping - the one with the Gottschlich hedgehogs.

I've only got two things to show you this time.  I'm trying to cut back my spending a little, and really, our house is too full! 

But it's OK, because I really, really, really love what I bought!

This plate is one of those things that I saw one week, practiced good will power and left behind.  But then it was still there the next week, so I decided it was meant to be mine and bought it quickly!  I love it so!  It says 'Gottschlich' on the front and Britannia Designs on the back.  I couldn't find much about Britannia Designs online, but I did find a bit about Gottschlich, which lead me to my next purchase.

Gisela Gottschlich hedgehog plate, Severn Hospice charity shop, £1.49.

After some online research I found that Gisela Gottschlich, the illustrator who drew the hedgehogs for my plate, had drawn lots of other lovely things, and I fell a bit in love with her.  A conversation on Facebook lead me to this book, which I found for a bargain on Ebay.  It's really beautiful, I love the style of the illustrations and it's so lovely and Christmassy.

My Big Christmas Book, Ebay, £2.99 inc. postage. 

Linking up with Vintage Charm and Vintage Bliss.
 

What have you been buying?  Any good bargains or new obsessions?  

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Vegan review - Riso Scotti dairy free milk.

I was sent some exciting new vegan milk to try from Riso Scotti!

Riso Scotti are a fairly new brand to the UK, but have been around in Italy for ages and they're now available to us!  You can buy Riso Scotti dairy free milks from Holland and Barretts.  

I tried three types, Oat, Rice Quinoa and Rice Calcium.

Risco Scotti Rice Quinoa

I feel like this one's good for you, because it has quinoa and extra B vitamins in!  The rice quinoa milk is slightly sweet, yummy and I've been making vegan ice lollies from it! 

Riso Scotti Rice Calcium

The rice calcium version of Riso Scotti is similar to the rice and quinoa one.  Slightly sweet, good in tea, and it has the bonus of added calcium,  

Riso Scotti Oat

The oat milk was my favourite!  It's less sweet than the other milks, and I made some delicious vegan pancakes with it.

All three of the vegan milks taste great on their own, and are neutral enough to disappear into recipes or hot drinks without a funny aftertaste.

I really like that the ingredients are simple, no funny unpronounceable things in there!  The rice versions are gluten free.  And they're all organic too! 

Have you tried Riso Scotti vegan milks yet? 

Don't forget to keep up with Riso Scotti on Instagram and Twitter!

Disclosure - I was sent some Riso Scotti to try for free.  I only work with brands I like and all opinions are my own.

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Library love.

The library's been good to me lately!  

I've been picking up some books I wouldn't normally read, like the retelling of Pride and Prejudice (I don't usually like Austen that's been messed with!) and the MC Beaton books, and it turns out I really liked them both.  Which is what the library's about really, isn't it? 

Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld

I was really, really, really into this modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice...until the last 100 pages.  It got a bit silly, I realise it was hard to come up with something that would be as scandalous today as Lydia and Wickham running off together was in P&P times.  But I didn't like the 'scandal' and I can't really say anymore about it without giving away spoilers!  Apart from the ending I really enjoyed this long, long book (it was 500 pages!) and I'd recommend it.

Edwardian Murder Mystery Series - Marion Chesney/MC Beaton

These books aren't really about the mysteries, they're about the romance between Harry and Lady Rose, who take the whole 4 books to get together.  MC Beaton is cheesy and predictable and easy to read and I love her.  Apparently.  

Baby sitters Club - Kristy's Great Idea - Ann M. Martin and Raina Telgemeier

Yes, I'm re-reading the Baby sitters club books!  They've been turned into graphic novels with cute illustrations by Raina Telgemeier.  BSC books were a rare treat for me as a child, I didn't own any myself but my friend had loads and we used to read them all night during sleepovers.  Reading this gave me all the nostalgics and I specially loved the illustrations of Claudia's outifits!   

Adulthood is a Myth - Sarah Andersen 

I always read Sarah's Scribbles online, I'm not sure if the comics in this book are new or just the online ones republished, but either way I love her work and happily read/reread it.  My library has subscribed to a new e-comics service, with loads of comics and graphic novels available free, online to library members - I'm so happy!

What have you been reading?  

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