Things I do like

[laumk7]

On the job placement went well too, just gotta wait and hear now 

[jmurray01]

58 minutes ago, GMX said:

I do like moving the Focus on to the drive, finally after putting a new battery in. 

Moment of hilarity ensued when I started it up and couldn't work out why I had no throttle.

I'd forgotten to plug the MAF back in

Yep, that'll do it!

[jmurray01]

I do like opting for the McDonalds drive through rather than home cooking!

 

[GMX]

I was going to make Jansson's Frestelse (Jansson's Temptation) for tea, and tackle my enormous potato mountain: but I lack sild and have no closely related fish either. 

It needs to be a strong flavoured oily fish.

 

[jmurray01]

10 minutes ago, GMX said:

I was going to make Jansson's Frestelse (Jansson's Temptation) for tea, and tackle my enormous potato mountain: but I lack sild and have no closely related fish either. 

It needs to be a strong flavoured oily fish.

 

There are many things you can make to get rid of surplus potatoes.  Corned beef hash, stovies, mince and tatties, bangers and mash, the possibilities are endless.  I love tatties, boiled, mashed or roasted.

[Philf1]

I do like opting for the McDonalds drive through rather than home cooking!

 

Me and the wife have just been out for evening meal courtroom her Xmas present at local high class hotel. Beautiful steak and free wine mmmmm

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[jmurray01]

11 minutes ago, Philf1 said:

Me and the wife have just been out for evening meal courtroom her Xmas present at local high class hotel. Beautiful steak and free wine mmmmm

Sent from my iPhone using Ford OC mobile app

I was tempted to go by the shop for a bottle of red, but with work at the moment I fear if I started drinking I'd never stop.

[Preecematt]

I have managed to go the whole day, that's from 4:30am until now in a good mood.  This afternoon was an exceptionally good mood, possibly due to an overdose in the humbug department.  Can't remember the last working day I had that I was in a good mood for the whole day.  Also like that the dog is sat on my feet

[GMX]

2 hours ago, jmurray01 said:

There are many things you can make to get rid of surplus potatoes.  Corned beef hash, stovies, mince and tatties, bangers and mash, the possibilities are endless.  I love tatties, boiled, mashed or roasted.

I've got close to 47 kilos of them, in my potato mountain left now, after a layered potato and haddock bake

[SeanW]

How the heck did you end up with 47kg of spuds? Lol

[GMX]

1 hour ago, SeanW said:

How the heck did you end up with 47kg of spuds? Lol

I grew them, they are what remains from the 2015 harvest

I always manage to grow more than I can possibly eat, although the yield last year is down on previous years.

[Preecematt]

9 hours ago, GMX said:

I grew them, they are what remains from the 2015 harvest

I always manage to grow more than I can possibly eat, although the yield last year is down on previous years.

Do you grow anything else???  I'm quite into growing herbs, don't know why it's just something I like growing, don't particularly use them either, although I do have room in the garden for root crops I don't feel like going and ploughing the back garden lol

[TomsFocus]

Sure they're legal herbs?  A few years ago my Grandad was growing a nice plant with spiky leaves and a yellow flower, it'd seeded from some bird seed he'd been putting out...he had no idea what it was until the neighbour told him!! 

[laumk7]

1 minute ago, TomsFocus said:

Sure they're legal herbs?  A few years ago my Grandad was growing a nice plant with spiky leaves and a yellow flower, it'd seeded from some bird seed he'd been putting out...he had no idea what it was until the neighbour told him!! 

LOL! 

[GMX]

28 minutes ago, Preecematt said:

Do you grow anything else???  I'm quite into growing herbs, don't know why it's just something I like growing, don't particularly use them either, although I do have room in the garden for root crops I don't feel like going and ploughing the back garden lol

Yes, in addition the the spuds, my regular crops consists of: broad beans, french beans, peas (3 varieties), tomatoes (usually 7-8 different varieties each season), carrots (3 varieties), beetroot, parsnips, celeriac, celery, courgettes (2 varieties), butternut squashes, broccoli, kale (scottish, russian and black), cabbages, various salad leaves, watercress, onions, shallots, leeks: amongst the vegetables.

i grew a few herbs, parsley, sage, mint, thyme, oregano, basil, coriander, nasturtium, and bergamot, as regulars

Then on fruit front, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and rhubarb (technically veg eaten as a fruit). Haven't got the space for any of the orchard fruit

In addition, I 'll have a few experiments, with new crops, to see how they get on.  The soil is acid clay and needs correcting for most of the brassicas and many of the others.

From spring onwards, I've have at least four different sprouted seeds going on,two day apart, as it can get overwhelming, if suddenly there's a couple of kilos of sprouted seeds to eat.  Broccoli, fenugreek, radish, alfalfa, onion, beetroot, various legumes and  mustards are my regular sprouted seed crops

 

[Ianb]

Green fingered geek! I don't even know anything about different types of carrot, kale etc, let alone how to grow them! And I haven't even heard of nasturtium or bergamot!!

[GMX]

4 minutes ago, Ianb said:

Green fingered geek! I don't even know anything about different types of carrot, kale etc, let alone how to grow them! And I haven't even heard of nasturtium or bergamot!!

You might know Nasturtium as a hanging basket flower, it's related to the water and land cresses, and like them, it's edible, the flowers are an ingredient to flower salad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropaeolum_majus

Bergamot is herb grown. mainly to encourage the bees to pollinate the fruiting crops, but you can make a tisane from it, and the flowers are also an ingredient in flower salad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarda_didyma

[Ianb]

I admire your knowledge on the subject, I don't think I've ever eaten a flower salad, and until I Google it, I'm pretty sure I have no idea what a tisane is either

[GMX]

20 minutes ago, Ianb said:

I admire your knowledge on the subject, I don't think I've ever eaten a flower salad, and until I Google it, I'm pretty sure I have no idea what a tisane is either

A tisane is a herbal tea, with the plant matter infused in hot water.  Regular tea is also a tisane

And some carrot varieties https://www.kingsseeds.com/Products/Vegetables/Carrot

Last year, I grew Paris market, the ball shapped carrot, Chantenay Red Cored (maincrop) and Purple Haze (the original colour of carrots before the Dutch created the orange version)

 

[Preecematt]

@GMX Jesus wept lol.  You sure your not Alan Titchmarsh?  Fair play to you on your knowledge levels + I like Ian haven't heard of some of the flowers/crops you mentioned.  We also grow Strawberries religiously every year but we have a really good(and I mean really really good) fruit farm near us( about 5-8miles off the top of my head) so we buy most of the fresh stuff from there when they are open + tis the season.  What puts me off gardening is my lack of knowledge on it, herbs are to me fairly easy to grow, same for Strawberries.  It's also having the patience/memory/dedication to keep the whole lot up.  Currently don't buy lettuce or carrots as the 40 acre field opposite us(our land) is down to Lettuce and about 100 acres behind us(also our land) is down to Carrots.  The perks of plowing I mean marrying a farmers daughter lol. 

[GMX]

1 hour ago, Preecematt said:

@GMX Jesus wept lol.  You sure your not Alan Titchmarsh?  Fair play to you on your knowledge levels + I like Ian haven't heard of some of the flowers/crops you mentioned.  We also grow Strawberries religiously every year but we have a really good(and I mean really really good) fruit farm near us( about 5-8miles off the top of my head) so we buy most of the fresh stuff from there when they are open + tis the season.  What puts me off gardening is my lack of knowledge on it, herbs are to me fairly easy to grow, same for Strawberries.  It's also having the patience/memory/dedication to keep the whole lot up.  Currently don't buy lettuce or carrots as the 40 acre field opposite us(our land) is down to Lettuce and about 100 acres behind us(also our land) is down to Carrots.  The perks of plowing I mean marrying a farmers daughter lol. 

Another perk would be all that FYM

One of the criteria, when changing cars is "can I get 15 sacks of horse manure in the car, as well as Brandy's crate with Brandy in it?" The Mk2 Focus meets this criteria, not that I've tried yet, but I think there sufficient space for 30 or so sacks plus Brandy in the crate 

The really easy to grow veg, are potatoes, climbing beans (french or runnner), the loose leaf salad leaves, the mustards, kales, land cress,  carrots, beetroot, scorzonera, salisfy, onions , shallots, garlic, courgettes, jerusalem artichokes, mooli and radishes.  All of them are just seed/plant, water when needed, liquid fertilise once a week (horse poo tea, proprietary balanced fertiliser, comfrey tea etc, whatever is your preference), and let them do their thing.

Fruitwise, easy ones include: strawberries, blueberries, bilberries, elderberries, the currants, worcesterberries (possibly not a good idea with toddler aged kids - massive thorns), physalis, kiwis (you need both sexes to get fruit, 3 females to 1 male), gooseberries (thorns again, but smaller), some of the raspberry hybrids, fully trained cordon and ballerina orchard fruit trees and rhubarb

Then in terms of less easy, but not arduous would be: broad beans, all the brassicas, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, sweet corn, globe artichokes, cucumbers, squashes, leeks, parsnips, celeriac, self-blanching celery, most untrained orchard fruit, raspberries, blackberries, melons They either need the soil adjusted in terms of pH and fertility, or they need moderate training, or  multi-thinnings. 

The only ones, that are awkward, in the sense they need a lot of attendance throughout the season: trenching celery, cardoons, fruit you're training as espaliers,cordons, ballerinas trees and anything you might be growing to exhibit. 

hmmmm.....100 acres of carrots make my three 4 metre rows look tiny 

 

[Philf1]

Oohhh bilberrys how I love them in a pie with carnation cream turning purple😛

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[Preecematt]

100 Acres of carrots is beautiful sights, all in their neat rows arrow straight.  The amount they dump in random piles because of 'defects' is unreal.  Would quite like to do all the growing things especially with the kids as I feel it is VITALLY important that children realise where their food comes from and how it is made etc, so you could say I'd like to have a passion in that sort of area, my only trouble as mentioned before, is time, money, space(unless I Can sweet talk the in law, who might I add is already paying for our wedding and brought our house for us, then space is no object).  It is really interesting learning about growing different things, especially the amount of different maintenance/technique they require 

[TomsFocus]

Food comes from Tesco doesn't it?

I saw a programme on all that wasted veg due to 'defects', who cares if a carrot is a bit wonky or short!!  I never realised how much is just ploughed back in. :(

[Preecematt]

5 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Food comes from Tesco doesn't it?

I saw a programme on all that wasted veg due to 'defects', who cares if a carrot is a bit wonky or short!!  I never realised how much is just ploughed back in. :(

Yep, it's a shame lol.  HAndy for us cheap skates who go scouring said fields though, potatoes are the best finds.  Get some absolute stonkers lol