One of My Favourite Times of Year!

Yes, it’s one of my favourite times of year. I can see everything is brightening up. The particular bird song, new shoots peeping through the soil, blossom coming out, so it’s time to get active in the green house. My fingers get itchy this time of year and I get the impulse to grow things! I’m not one for gardening in the cold so tidying up is being done now as well. 🙂

I’ve had a sort out in my green house and moved a few things round and it’s now set for action.

Today I sowed some tomatoes, cucumbers and small red peppers

I have made a gardening journal from an old book, that I try and keep a record of how things go in my garden as well as hints and tips for me to refer to.

Here’s a sample page. 🙂

Garden Success

How do you see success in your garden? Are you like me expecting that you can achieve what you might  consider great things as well as working and looking after you family and your house?! I continually have to put this success into perspective. There is only so much time you can put into growing things unless you are putting all of your time into being self sufficient (so my husband keeps telling me)!

I’ve just been out to explore the garden that gets attended way less than I’d like, to pick some things for lunch and this is some of what I saw.

I have pumpkins,

beetroot,

chillies,

peppers

and tomatoes

and my husband says I should call this success! 🙂

Exciting things happening in the green house

Things have definitely warmed up around here and the temperature in the green house is above 30 degrees. If you’re not used to British weather, that is exciting for this time of year!

I’m so pleased with how the things are growing. I have several varieties of tomatoes, red peppers, three varieties of chilli peppers, cucumbers, rocket and radish.

Some will be transplanted outside and some in the poly tunnel and some will stay in the green house. I’m especially pleased as I didn’t do very well with these last year! 🙂

New Life

I’m so excited with the prospect of spring, when the sun comes out I feel so energized! I have started tidying up in the garden and sowed my first few seeds. New life is starting to appear.

One single tomato seedling,
this is rocket on the left and to the right of that you can just see some radish coming through.
We are heading for a wonderful time of year! 🙂

Curry made with Leftovers

I love inventing recipes when I come to the end of my supplies and there are odd bits of food in the fridge. I also find it economical to buy a joint for roasting, larger than I need to use over a few days.

I made this curry using what I had left in the fridge the other day. No waste, frugal food that is tasty and nourishing.

I diced a small amount of leftover roast pork (it doesn’t matter if it’s only a small amount as you can bulk it out with vegs)

I had about three mushrooms and half a onion which I chopped. (It does’t matter at all if your mushrooms have gone a bit soft)

I fried the onion and mushroom with a little oil in a pan with curry powder. Stirred in the pork, a hand full of raisins and some tinned tomatoes. Then I added enough water to the mix to keep it simmering and a little salt.

Meanwhile I had some rice cooking on another hob.

It was rather yummy! 🙂

Rice, tinned tomatoes, raisins and curry powder are all good ingredients to keep in the cupboard to use with leftovers.

Compost

It always amazes me that this..
turns into this..

so that you can do this! 🙂

Homemade Tomato soup

Just a little tip on how easy it is to make your own tomato soup.

I still have tomatoes in the fridge from late ripening so I decided to make some soup.  You can make this out of shop bought tomatoes, especially if you manage to get them at reduced price.

Slice them all in half and lay on an oiled baking sheet with some herbs and perhaps garlic. I used rosemary and oregano. put in the oven on 180C  for about 30mins. Quantity of tomatos is up to you as left over can be eaten the next day or frozen.

When they are nice and crinkley, whiz them up in a food processor….
Put into a pan with some chicken or veg. stock. The amount is up to you again as to how thick you like your soup.
Season to taste and serve! 🙂