Tuesday 31 October 2017

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.

I've still had a few little bits and bobs to eat out of the garden this month!

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

I was really pleased with my little cabbage!  It's so cute!

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

Still getting loads of raspberries too, they're nearly finished now. 

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

I picked all these beans too!  The variety is Lazy Housewife Bean from Real Seeds, I was really excited because there are loads of lovely fat beans on just three plants, but actually I don't like the taste of them.  I made them into falafels though.  I've probably got the same amount again still to pick - more falafels for me and I'll grow a different variety next year!

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

My chilli plant has made it's first chilli too.  I'm planning on overwintering the plant so it can carry on next year, although it still has some flowers now.

My homegrown harvest, October 2017.  What I grew and ate from my suburban organic permaculture garden UK.  From UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #homegrownharvest #permaculturegarden #organicgarden #growyourown

How are your gardens?  Are you harvesting anything exciting?
 

 
 

Sunday 29 October 2017

Photo an hour, October 2017.

Saturday 28th was October's photo an hour day, here are my photos.

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?

9am - Setting off for work a bit earlier than usual, it was the day of the library book sale and I was on setting up duty. 


10am - Voila!  Here is the library book sale, just waiting for some customers.


1pm - That was a busy morning at work, but I'm pleased with my £1 bargain book sale purchase of Terence Conran's House Book.  This is an eighties edition, I had the seventies one and it was much better but I gave it away (whyyy!).  


2pm - There's nothing like a child's dinner after a busy morning.


3pm - I wanted to do some gardening but it was so cold, so instead I'm re-watching That Seventies Show on Netflix.  I haven't seen it since it was originally shown on TV, it's so good and I love the costumes and sets.


4pm - Got the washing on. 


5pm - What a grey day!


6pm - Joe got home from work and finished off making his Lego Ecto One and now it's in pride of place on the book shelves.


8pm - Here I am, looking very grumpy and serious as I'd just woken up from a nap!  I got about 4 hours sleep on Friday night and was completely knackered. #bedhead


9pm - I lit some cute little Halloween candles and cosied up for the night.


Did you take part this time?  How was your day?



Friday 27 October 2017

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017.

There's been some really very lovely sunshiney days this month, but it's definitely feeling more autumnal.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

Look at these lovely berries, 

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I'm really pleased with the growth of the hedge in the front garden - look it nearly covers that annoying van, and the silver car that keep parking outside my house (even though they have their own drives, grumble grumble).  At least they're not as bad as the blue car that frequently parks over our driveway. Sigh.  These are grown up problems indeed.  I know we don't have a car but we would actually like access to our own drive to, you know, actually walk up to our house!

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

'Scuse the state of the front garden, we're going to re-gravel it and move things about, but until then I've let it get a bit feral.  Look at all those strawberry runners rooting themselves in the gravel.

I've planted loads of new things in the back garden.  I'm not sure if you can quite make them out, but there's a new tall yellow plant, smoke plant, almond tree and my bin of blackberries in this bit of garden.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden
  
I thought the bin would match the metal raised beds, and it was also a cheap option to contain the thornless blackberries.  I do not want a repeat of the raspberry situation I've currently got going on - they're sending out runners everywhere!

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I put an olla in the bin - I'm not sure if the metal of the bin will mean the soil will get hot and dry out in the summer or if it'll be ok here in the shade of the wall.  I've mulched it with leaves too and added a stepping stone so I can get to it without stomping all over the soil.  On the right of the bin I've planted an angelica and transplanted a self seeded hypericum. 

I'm really happy the late sowing of borlotto beans I did have fruited - I'm just leaving them a little longer to fatten up.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I don't know if I planted this sweetcorn too late for it to do sweetcorns before it gets frosty - fingers crossed!

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

For some reason I still have strawberries coming.  This is climate change everybody.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I'm in the process of digging up the huge fuchsia down the side of the house.  Every year I cut it back and it comes back bigger and bigger and it's blocking the path.  The roots are proving tricky, but there's lots of space now it's nearly gone and I'm going to plant an apple tree in it's place.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I've planted my new blackcurrant bush at the back of the garden and my hazel trees are lurking at the back there, I'm still trying to decide the perfect position for them.
 
Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I made a 'water feature' with the bin lid (from my blackberry bin), it's just upturned and buried, filled with stones and water.  I've yet to see any birds use it for a bath like they do my washing up bowl pond, but maybe a toad will visit in spring!  It's not the prettiest thing, but it was free and it brings in another habitat to the garden too.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

Here's my little robin friend, he's getting stupidly tame, as soon as I take my root off the spade he's hopping about on the blade!

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

I just love the colours and the leaves and the berries and the flowers this time of year! 

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenblogger #suburbangarden #permaculturegarden #organicgarden

How's your garden this month? 




Friday 20 October 2017

Review - Morrisons organic veg box.

Now that the growing season is nearly over I've been looking into organic veg boxes to keep us in fresh and ethically grown fruit and veg during the winter. 

Review - Morrisons organic veg box. A review of Morrisons organic vegetable box from UK vegan and eco friendly blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #morrisonsorganicvegbox #vegbox #organic #review

I ordered the new Morrisons organic veg box so I could compare it to the Abel and Cole organic veg boxes I've also signed up to. 

The Morrisons veg box costs £8 and is available in store or for home delivery.  They also do a non-organic box for £5. 

The organic box I received was quite big and it contained the following,

17 potatoes of various sizes
11 carrots
4 leeks
4 golden beetroot
5 small red onions
1 bulb of garlic
1 fennel

The veg is nice enough, but not as nice as the posh veg that comes in the Abel and Cole box.  It's a good budget organic option - and it's going to take us ages to get through all those potatoes and carrots - but I'm going to stick with the Abel and Cole box as long as we can afford it.  

Having said that there's nothing actually wrong with the Morrisons veg box, other than the veg is not quite as fresh as I would like.  It's nice to get a bulb of garlic, the leeks, fennel and onions are fine, the beetroot and potatoes are all perfectly usable but they're a bit knobbly bobbly and blemished. 

Review - Morrisons organic veg box. A review of Morrisons organic vegetable box from UK vegan and eco friendly blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #morrisonsorganicvegbox #vegbox #organic #review

As you can see, my fridge will be full for quite some time! 

Can you recommend any other organic veg boxes for us to try?



Friday 13 October 2017

My Hotbin composter.

Back in spring I bought myself a Hotbin, which is a super-posh composting bin, that takes all cooked food waste, as well as gardening waste, and cooks it up into compost really quickly.

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

I emptied it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it would be a good time to share how I've been finding it.  Spoiler alert, I love it!  

It's clean, not-smelly, compact, gets really hot and steam comes out of it - what's not to like! 

Filling the Hotbin composter.

There's a set up process with the Hotbin, you fill it with twigs at the bottom, then either add a lot of waste to get it heating up fast, or add little bits of waste as you have it (both these methods are described on the Hotbin website).

Once you've done that first step you continue to add a mix of waste to the Hotbin regularly.  I find my compost stays hotter if I add waste every other day, but sometimes I go a week between topping it up if I'm busy or the weather's bad, and it still works good.

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

The mix of waste you need to put in the hot bin is as follows,

Food waste - raw and cooked food waste is fine
Garden waste - chopped into smallish pieces so it breaks down quicker
Shredded paper - a handful or two of shredded or ripped paper or card - I find shredded paper works best and I shred it with a pair of those special shredding scissors with 5 sets of blades.
Bulking agent - a couple of handfuls of bulking agent - Hotbin supply partially composted wood chippings, but you can make your own and I often cut up some twigs to use instead.  

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Use half the volume of shredded paper to waste, and another fifth of bulking agent to get the mixture right.  I like to mix everything up in a trug before popping it in the Hotbin, then I tip it in and mix it with the top layer of compost.

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden


Emptying the Hotbin Composter.

I put off emptying my Hotbin for ages, because I thought it might be tricky, and because I was worried if it hadn't have worked I'd have wasted a lot of money!  But I shouldn't have worried it was fine. 

Once I'd opened the bottom hatch I started digging the compost out.  Eventually the top, unfinished layer of compost collapsed down, but it happened slowly enough that I was able to shove a trug in place and catch it.  

Emptying the Hotbin was a surprisingly un-smelly and quick job, it took about 45 minutes to empty including spreading the compost.  I've spent entire days emptying compost bins before, so I was really happy with this!  I got about 4 small trugs full of compost out too which was more than sufficient to spread by my fruit trees.

The finished compost.

The finished compost is dark brown, it smells good (am I the only one who smells their compost to see if it's ready?!), and it's also really, really sticky.  This is normal apparently, due to the large amount of humic matter in the compost

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

It was easy to spread, although a bit clumpy, but I'm sure my garden worms will work on that over the winter and by spring my garden beds will be lovely.

My most favourite thing about my Hotbin composter.

I just love that it comes with two thermometers (one on the lid and one on a probe to poke inside) and that steam comes out of it.  It's so satisfying to see it working! 

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

My Hotbin composter.  A review of my Hotbin composter by UK garden and eco blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #hotbin #composter #hotbincomposter #gardening #ukgardener #permaculturegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Don't forget to check out my other gardening blog posts


Disclaimer - I received a teeny little discount on my Hotbin in return for the promise of reviewing it.  I was going to buy one anyway, and as always all opinions are my own.  I've also borrowed a graphic from the Hotbin website - I hope they don't mind and it 100% belongs to them. 



 

Friday 6 October 2017

What I ate in a day, a day of yummy vegan food.

This is what I ate in a day, it was my day off work, with just a few errands to run and a bit of gardening to do, but mostly just chilling out at home.


Breakfast was a yummy mix of potatoes, chickpeas and onion, fried til crispy with some paprika and garlic and a splodge of ketchup.


My breakfast was super filling, so for lunch I had some home-grown salad leaves, with a few crackers, a stick of vegan cheese and a BBQ Graze box.


Followed by an apple and home grown raspberries - they're so sweet this year!


Joe made this tea.  Home-made tomato sauce, wholemeal spaghetti and sausages-pretending-to-be-meatballs.  If you cut up Linda McCartney sausages and fry them in a little paprika they make excellent quick pretend-meatballs for pasta dishes.


This vegan ice cream is supposed to be in the shape of a lion, but I think it's more like a cute little sheep!  It's not quite chocolatey enough so I like to dip it into dark chocolate chips too!

Don't forget to check out my other vegan blog posts for more vegan meal inspiration! 


 
 

Sunday 1 October 2017

My homegrown harvest, September 2017.

I've eaten so many raspberries this month that I've started craving them.  I'm going to be sad when raspberry season is over! 

My homegrown harvest, September 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenharvest #homegrownharvest #organicgarden #permaculturegarden #suburbanpermaculture

I have about 8 raspberry canes and they've provided more than enough for me and Joe to scoff at least a handful each every other day.

My homegrown harvest, September 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenharvest #homegrownharvest #organicgarden #permaculturegarden #suburbanpermaculture

I planted a sprouty potato in a pot super late in the season.  The plant died so I tipped the pot out and harvested these 3 nice red potatoes.  They were so yummy!

My homegrown harvest, September 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenharvest #homegrownharvest #organicgarden #permaculturegarden #suburbanpermaculture

Mini sweetcorn is one of my favourite things to grow.  It's Always over packaged and imported when you buy it in shops, so I grow it myself and have a couple of delicious stir fries every year!

My homegrown harvest, September 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenharvest #homegrownharvest #organicgarden #permaculturegarden #suburbanpermaculture

This is my first home grown apple.  As you can see I wasn't the first to get to it!  I suspect Mr Squirrel and I am not happy with him!

My homegrown harvest, September 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenharvest #homegrownharvest #organicgarden #permaculturegarden #suburbanpermaculture

I finally got some salad on the go, I've learned my lesson about being organised with successional sowing for next year.

My homegrown harvest, September 2017. By UK garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #gardenharvest #homegrownharvest #organicgarden #permaculturegarden #suburbanpermaculture

How are your gardens?  Are you harvesting anything exciting?