Apologies

Where has the time gone.

It doesn't seem five minutes since I was writing about the end of term activities and finishing school for the summer.

Well now next week we are all back at school.

The waste management has still been going well, and as the garden has been very productive there has been alot less packaging as all the salad ingredients are from the garden not the supermarket.

We have still been having an organic box but have reduced it to fortnightly, this has been mainly for potatoes and an odd veg like cauliflower which we haven't grown.

The garden has been prepared for some winter veggies as well, we have leeks, sprouts, swede, and hopefully parsnips and some winter potatoes.

It has been an eyeopener as to how much of any one particular type of veg we need, I thought I had planted loads of carrots, but we are eating them as fast as they are growing and I haven't even managed to put any in the freezer. So next year I will have a much bigger bed for these but will increase the sowings even more than this year.

I had hoped to have a baking day before school restarted just to get a head start on packed lunch items, but I don't think this will now happen as I had to go into school yesterday for a meeting and today have errands to run in readiness for Monday; I will maybe do a few mini sessions and fit them around my work times, just to get some bits in the freezer.

Catch Up

Well things have been very hectic the last few weeks.

We've had end of school items, extra work hours for me, the garden going into overdrive, plus all the usual goings on in a family with 2 teenage boys.

I have still been logging the waste we have put into the landfill bin and can reveal that over the last 4 weeks we have only put out 966g; which considering what has been going on is brilliant.

We have been eating cucumbers and lettuce galore, and now the green beans and carrots have come into there own and I am freezing down the surplus. The first tomatoes have now started to turn orangey red so won't be long before we are getting a surplus of those as well.

I also found the time (don't ask how) to make a batch of Elderflower Champagne and a batch of Pink Rhubarb Champagne; these are more like a fizzy wine but sounds better if you say champers.

Hopefully now that we are into the school hols things can settle down for a few weeks; we are however having a major declutter and doing at least one carboot sale per week, (think loft full of baby items- boys are 15 & 12).

My next plan on the cooking front is to find some brambles to be able to make some blackberry jam.

Menu Plan w/c 21 June

Monday - Meatballs, new potatoes, fresh veggies

Tuesday - Chicken Salad, fried potatoes

Wednesday - Macaroni cheese, salad

Thursday - Chicken curry, rice

Friday - Tuna Salad, New potatoes

Saturday - Tacos, salad

Sunday - BBQ, salad

Weekly Weigh In 24 & 25

I'm afraid this is a two week combined post as life just got in the way of blogging.

I am spending as much time as possible in the garden , weeding and sorting spaces ready for next year.

I have also made my first bact of Elderflower Cordial and will be getting another underway today.

So anyways the landfill bags weighed in at

weeks 24 192g

week 25 161g

As the weather improves I can only hope that there will be less going into the bin as alot of our meals will be based around the salad and veggies from the garden.

Menu Plan w/c 7 June

Monday - Fish Fingers, hm chips, salad

Tuesday - Mince and Mash potatoes, fresh veggies

Wednesday - Egg salad, new potatoes,

Thursday - pork curry, rice, fresh veggies

Friday - Jacket potatoes

Saturday - BBQ (weather permitting)

Sunday - Salmon, new potatoes, salad

All the salad levaes are now from out of our garden.

The cucumbers are coming along very nicely and all the indoor tomatoes have flowers on; so it won't be long before we are having homegrown of those as well.

Weekly Weigh In 23

The landfill bag this week has crept back up but is still just under my target weight so it came to 192g.

The main thing seemed to be the outer bags from a couple of multipacks of crisps.

Add to that some chicken bones, and there we have it.

YELLOW PAGES

Faith has been restored that some companies do listen.

I had signed up to not receive the Yellow Pages, these have been delivered today; I heard the thud on the doormat and thought typical!!

However the delivery lady came back 5 minutes later, knocked and apologised for delivering it, her driver hadn't informed her before she delivered said tomb that I didn't require one.

This does though leave one ? what would hace happened if I had already departed for the day and she couldn't retrieve it?