When gardeners get married.

 Just like everyone else we pick our frocks (£20 charity shop) and our shoes (£10.50 reduced), our scarf (1.99 charity shop). Be assured the dashing wellingtons, (whilst cut at a killer deal), cost far more than the whole of the rest of my wedding outfit. Priorities and all that, the wellyboots will get well used again. We also have a good scrub as often as not, we're muddy. And we don't spend much money on finery as we need it for seeds and tools next year.

We kindly ask chums to gather and forage what they have in their gardens looking beautiful to make bouquets with....no one blinks and eye when asked for a bin bag of ivy or a bucket of berries. We just get it. We did indulge in a few red roses to set the tone, fair trade supermarket bunch for £10 for a large bunch. The only cost of our wedding flowers was £10. Quite happy with that, we didn't need them, but they added a lovely touch. If you work with the season you're in, frugal wonders can happen.

We ask their help to forage around their beautiful gardens and provide free seasonal colour for our tables, laid on old free recycled slate roof tiles cleaned and washed for the occasion.

 They also kindly take the time to lay it out and make it look radiant.

 We borrow the things we don't have like fairy lights, tea lights and improvise rustic peedie vases from 'Nutella' glasses from those who indulge in such decadence! . Table runners replaced table cloth hire, at £2 each, we paid £20 in total for those. Instantly an autumn country rustic theme is born. We added various bits of home made (by friends) bunting which just set things off beautifully

And nature doesn't let us down and it does its own thing and looks beautiful, like we know it always will. Simple, natural and celebrated is often better. The tops of free roof tiles point out the way through the forest.

So we go, nervously with our loved ones, in our recycled finery, our wellyboots and and take our vows.

 In the company of so many wonderful and kind friends who've helped in so very many ways. The old kitchen basket used last week to take veg to a chums house today is filled with song sheets and recycled dried petal confetti. This is our stuff, our family stuff and it played its normal back up role in our lives. A kitchen bottle filled with foraged elderflower cordial quenches our Quaich to welcome our guests.

How grateful we are for the friends that we have and the life that we have and those things that make life nicer from old guitars to baskets, bottles and bags. And how we laughed!

Be assured there will be more on this another time. Just wanted to tip my hat and say thank you for everyone who's contributed to a truly special spectacular day.  All of our friends worked hard to put this special day together for us whilst laughing and chatting and hopefully finding out how much we love them too. And due to their kindness, hard work and efforts, cost a fraction of what it might have. All the better for being hand made with love, a fair bit of charging around to see what we could scrounge and a few pennies.

Photographs here are almost entirely the hard work of my wonderful chum Robyn who I'm hoping won't mind me sharing a few the now.

 

Mr & Mrs McB
Gardener and Rock Legend, finally wed.

(more on that later.)

Frugal poodle parlour - or the 'Cheap Cairn Terrier Choppery'

Hairy doggie - cairn terriers get very hairy, very quickly.

This dog needed a hair cut - look at the state of him. The local place charges about £35-40 to do a doggie hair cut. Last year we decided to try this at home as part of the cost cutting and as part of the 'stop the doggie sulking after his haircut' (He hated it and would sulk for a week if he went off and had to have his hair cut). Anyway - a packet of ham (99p) and one hair clipper later we've managed to do it ourselves in our own 'Frugal Poodle Parlour'. OK so its not salon quality but the dog isn't traumatised and neither is my purse. This year we opted for the same excpet we're calling it the the 'Cheap Cairn Terrier Choppery', emergency DIY for dogs in need of extreme hair therapy!

A bit of a muddy puppy!

The process involves a lot of patience, a bit of ham and a bit more patience and hair clipper set to level 3 and a sharp pair of scissors. 

Now there is a handsome boy! After a trip to the cheap cairn choppery.

Ready for action for a walk, this time probably less muddy when he comes home!

Now I know I'm normally wittering on about plants and gardens and bargains. But, at this time of year I'm trying to ignore the garden a bit. Hence more wittering about silly hens and hairy dogs. That being said I'm not much of a 'pet' person, despite the 12 chickens and the dog, of course. 

I'm not very experienced in the ways of looking after pets and am practically allergic to vets (for various reasons). The cutting didn't seem to freak him out very much, probably something to do with the ham we provided, to keep his attention. I have to say, despite Peedie now looking like a very short haired tortiose shell coloured cat-dog - the puppy looks great. Whilst I love him dearly I'd never spend £40 on my own hair at a salon in one go. Those days of sitting in a salon all day for my spiral perm, are, sadly, no more (oh didnt' you love the eighties?!).

Anyway, that means more money saved on doggie hair cuts, is more money for plants/gardens (um, I mean food for the family) or money that I can divert into life rather than maintaining this wonderful pooch. Or in real life, more money saved on the doggies hair cut is less money needing earned from outwith the home. It's also inspired me to give more things a go that I'd normally just think, oh I have to pay for that. Whilst there are many things I can't tackle, I can try to do a bit more myself and rely less on other people, now and again.



Wellies on a mission in the supermarket

I’ve been thinking about food a lot lately. Growing it, planning it, meal planning (which I hate but I know works) and bargain hunting for it.

I’m keen to get the veggie garden on the go over this year – I’m going to grow a HUGE selection of stuff which will help a lot with the food costs.

Meal planning works, its official – I do hate it – but being a goodly bit organised means even a [semi-hard working] Mum like me can know she’s putting a nutritious and ‘cheap’ meal on the table after work when you just don’t feel like moving. I’m not great at it – but I’m putting in more effort to this in 2011, we often get stuck in a rutt with our food, so I’m ‘going to try harder’ this year.

Food bargain hunting – it’s a tough one. Here we’re well versed with a few of the national supermarkets. I prefer to buy local when I can but the supermarkets here do stock local stuff. One advantage of living on an island it would seem is the amount food gets reduced to in the supermarket, rather than being hauled away ‘sooth’. Even in this last week we’ve had a huge amount of bargainous food at ridiculously knocked down prices – Local premium meat included - £5.49 for this normally 27p the night I went in. There were so many packets of them I took a few then bagged them up and into the freezer they went. We use soya mince too to make our meat go further – so each pack gave us 4 good sized family portions for a meal.

I find the notion of shopping in the largest supermarket here (which only arrived a couple years ago, red and blue logo’s I’m sure you have a monster one by you) a bit tragic. To be honest, lately I’ve avoided it like the plague. It’s a real dilemma. On the one hand I want the bargains, I’m on a budget – all money needs to be very usefully used. On the other hand I don’t want my local shops to disappear and I’d prefer to eat local/home grown where I can.

A friend put it into perspective the other day it went along the lines of this:

‘Just think of your bargain hunting as a subterfuge shopping method of undermining the large corporation locally. If you’re only really buying highly reduced food which is being ludicrously marked down – really you’re helping them make a loss.’

It did make me think! Anyway, I went in the other day with my head held high, on a mission to undermine a huge corporation. Came out with many things from 4p to 45p. And counted 6 or 7 people in there wearing wellies, which made me chuckle. Do you think they cater for the 'wellie clad on a mission subterfuge shopper' normally? Perhaps they do!

Oh, and just for an update - the chickens are still rampaging around the garden - they appear to have no scruples what so ever. I am not amused.

Recycling mushy peas

................so now we have something completely different and non-gardeny - although really its about the garden, indirectly - the less money I spend on 'stuff' the more I can spend on plants/compost/seeds and general gardening paraphernalia or on having fun. Or maybe even more money to buy wellies and stripey socks - you can never have enough of either. And to be fair, the more things I recycle in my home, like the tin cans - the less time I spend going to the recycling place = more time in the garden simple!

When thinking of the laundry, what's a garden obsessed mother to do, with children to keep clean, a puppy who just looks mucky even if he isn't and a dirty muddy stinky gardening habit to clean up after. In this household the washing machine is on often  and the level of 'outside' (e.g. mud) that happens to our lives is epic - we need a solution which works (when I include mud, I'm including the peedie pup in this - he's often covered in mud and needing a bath (not a hurl around the washing machine!).

Peedie the cairn terrier - a bit muddy in the field!

At the moment I've not delved into the realms of making my own laundry gook (maybe after I finish writing up?!), I can't afford the eco-options (powder, nuts etc) - half of them don't work very well on  low temperatures (but thats only my opinion)Therefore I'm left with making the most of what I can afford for laundry and making it stretch as far as possible. I do this with the help of a plastic box and a tin of mushy peas.  Very simple really - take a plastic box, this one lives under the sink, his name is Humphrey. (Everything in my life has name)

We're on a budget, (I might have mentioned that a couple of times), where we can, we do the green option, where we struggle - due to funds in the interim - we do the frugal method - whilst my ethics are green - often my pocket isn't. Therefore we make do and stretch things as best we can - first we get a box big enough to hold 4-6kg powder, any type of box will do, a lined cardboard one will work too - I just had a spare (free) plastic box.

Next the washing powder both posh (bought when hugely reduced on offer) and a packet of very cheap value powder from any supermarket (often bought in bulk and very cheap). Then comes the fun bit - you eat a tin of mushy peas - well you don't have to - I just like to recycle my tins for scooping jobs around the house - I use them after I've cleaned them out to scoop out washing powder, dog food/hen food - very handy and a good use of a tin. Last for years too - I have my favourite tins in key places to make me giggle when I do things - like the mushy pea tin - looks very odd in the washing powder - but functional - infact you could say its designer eco-friendly limited edition washing scoop - probably the only one of its kind.

The next bit isn't exactly rocket science - we mix up the powder - one or two cheap packets (£1.67 a 2kg box) of the very cheapo powder to a very posh packet of powder (if full price its £6.79 - 2kg - [how much!!!] I only ever buy it on offer - I can't afford that price!) - you get all the fragrance of the nice stuff and the cheap stuff makes it go much further.

Whilst I don't mind the cheap version only (we stock up on those when we are away on the mainland) - the kids do like the smell of the posh stuff. I dump it into the box a scoop at a time til its all mixed up and bulked up!

There we have the excellent money saving and the recycling of the mushy peas, well the can anyway. Its not eco-powder but its going to go alot further and whilst its not home made laundry gook (yet) it will help with the pennies until I can find the time/a better solution to my laundry.

If you think I'm completely bonkers - don't worry - I've promised the kids an 'indexed' how to for when they leave home - this is a small part of that index! (e.g. Mum, how do I get the laundry powder to go further so I can spend my money on student things like beer! (joke!)) I'm also madly keen on recycling and happy to promote it as simply as possible wherever I can.

Do birds eat onions, if so which variety?

Hello out there in the land of the blog I hope you are all well and warm – it been an unsettling few days here in the isles, very low temperatures (although nowhere near as low as some of you) – I am not sure if it’s made it above freezing very much and our snow just keeps on coming. We have a number of extra mouths to feed at the moment - mainly of the beaked variety and I've been watching the bird table alot whilst working from home! Two delighted younglings (children) are off school, although the elder not pleased that the school had texted his H-maths work for the day via my phone – there’s a good use of technology for you! Oh, how I chuckled!

Air drying - more eco/purse friendly

Laundry as ever festooned all over the house (we don’t own a tumble drier – never have) and drying as and when it can be indoors or out – we’ve a pully in one room and a stand up hanger and also various warm places we put some laundry – whilst I keep reminding the children that this kind of air drying is more eco/frugal friendly – it also means that bringing it all down, all at once on the same day doesn’t really work. More training required me thinks, not sure if it’s me or them that require the training but I’m an equal opportunities parent – happy if we both could do with a tweak and retraining.

The garden is a white out – dog and chickens taken the best of the weather by hiding somewhere warm instead of looking for cake crumbs in the snow........ As it's so snowly out there I've also got no chance of doing anything at all, so I’ve moved all of my seeds into the one place and I think maybe I need a bit of a seed spring clean. As I opened the various boxes and bags to put them into my new seed keeper I appear to be feeding the whole of the island next year. Now, if I planted and grew EVEYTHING in the seed box I think I’d need a very, very very big space out there – the new raised bed isn’t going to be big enough. I know I have a bit of an obsessive nature when it comes to plants but the onions are really getting out of hand.................even by my standards.



Only a few of the onion seed packets.........lets not start on how many 'sets' and wee bulbs I've got my evil mitts on too...

I need to make a proper list and get on with learning to stop buying seeds before I’ve had a good look at the list. I’ve bought seeds whenever I see them, over the year, when we’re on holiday in France I’ve bought alot then too, European seeds seed to be so much more generous and also finding things when you are away on your travels (be it in person or on the internet) gives the chance to try things I’ve never seen before. Bit like these new varieties I had researched for the veggie class, a type of onion which bunches in the soil, they are curiously called - potato onions - I'm excited about these.............an onion with a habit like a potato................hmmm? Very odd, anyway I got a hold of a few bulbs to try next year.

Potato onion Allium cepa, var. aggregatum

I also need to start working out what I can use and either sell on some seed, swap it for interesting things from other people (anyone interesting in doing a bit of swapping please do get in touch maybe we can both try a new variety?) or I’ll have to plant the whole lot and sell the plants if I can. For example when even just thinking about one of the major vegetable plant families - Alliums (onion) family - I have as seeds or set of over 20 types of onions................deep breath, here goes:

Red onion (Electric),

Normal onion (stuttgarter),

Potato onion (new type I’ve not tried from Black Isle Herb Nursery excited about that I found out about it when teaching about onion family at work)

2 types of shallots (home grown, Jorrun),

Elephant garlic, normal garlic (local home grown),

Garlic chives (shop and home grown),

Chives (shop and home grown),

Tree onion (home grown),

Spring onion (white Lisbon, Deep purple),

Salad /pickling onion (Paris silverskin and I think a French version of the same ‘Hatif de Paris’,

Leeks (Oarsman, Delmas, Musselburgh),

Golden onion seed (Wellington, Ailsa craig, Paille des Vertus),

And, shallot seed (Ambition)

Phew. Now I love onions – and they are a great family staple – however, even I think that perhaps I need to stop buying seed/sets for next year. A bit of perspective is always needed when it comes to a gardener and her seeds. Therefore I propose to stop buying anything oniony to grow for a next year (oh what a rash statement) if anyone wants a bit of a swap for anything I have please get in touch or leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise I'll have to grow the lot and feed them to the starlings next year and see which ones they prefer!!! (only joking!)

Of course this means I’ll have to start to review the seeds of the other vegetable families I’m thinking of growing too – watch out for that! Can't decide if I'm happy or worried about that I've noticed right now that I've 5 different courgette packets, never mind the squashes..............to a non gardener this is maybe a bit obsessive - but to a gardener looking for a bit of variety its essential to grow a few different types - isn't it?

Goodlifey science: The great frozen egg 'eggsperiment'



In real life I love science and riddles, especially the 'how can I do that stuff' - Like poor old Tom Goode I'm a great one for an experiment - especially the goodlifey type. I was asked the other day what to do with alot of eggs - well you can always bake with them, make quiches, omelletes, fruit curds or of course my favourite - boiled eggs, scrambled eggs etc.  Like many folk I've taken to having hen in the garden - and from what I've heard keeping them at home by familes is on the up - a good blog about hen keeping on the up at home here by an inspiring blogger who's living a very frugal life.

But, when thinking about our 'good life' adventure - what I wanted to find out was if I've a glut of eggs (like I had after I came back from holiday - 60 eggs!!!) and what can I do to have my own eggs over the months when maybe the hens are not laying and quite frankly I don't want to spend £2.40 on a dozen eggs! Time for a bit of action in the good-life lab to figure it out.............

I've been told the hens need 14hr of daylight to lay - and when the nights draw in they might well either slow down or tail off. The hens will get a lovely rest but I would like to have eggs over those months. Anyway - being the adventureous type - I tried to freeze a whole egg - this worked but the shell cracked and I've read if it does then bacteria can get into the egg and thats not great. Plan B I think! Now I know I can cook eggs and freeze them I've done it for my McMuffiny things - cooked egg works brilliantly - but what about raw eggs - it got me thinking, back to the lab again................

I'd also been told of separating the eggs and freezing the white and the yoke seperately - and frankly I'm too lazy, life is just too short in my opinion to be doing all that faffing. I'd rather be in the garden - egg glut or not - lifes too short to do complicated things with our food to freeze - I take my hat off to those of you who do have the energy to do it - I'd rather put my feet up in the campervan with a good book or at the beach!

Anyways - I'd read you could freeze them when they've been beaten up - done that before and its worked a treat. I wanted the eggs saved in individual portions as often we have yorkshire puddings which will need one or two eggs depending on the amount you're making - and we do like baking cakes etc - so I had a think and came up with a silicone baking tray as the most useful thing I could freeze my eggs in - its flexible enough to wrestle the eggs out of when they are frozen, to store them and can be cleaned thoroughly in a dishwasher/hot water to prevent germs.   The goodlifey lab - looks very like a normal family kitchen but don't be fooled - alot of experiments are done in the handy secret lab.

A silicone baking tray, half a dozen eggs to freeze

Anyway I had a go - here is the tray and the eggs ready for the grand goodlifey science egg freezing 'eggsperiment' (tee hee). Now normally I'd use a plastic bag in a cup - or someting from the cupboards to do this - but I want a bit of kit which will work for this without much effort and I'll use alot - so I had a voucher to use up and bought a lovely silicone bun tray with 6 holes as I normally have 6 eggs a day from the hens.

Beaten egg - individual portion

I beat them up in a wee bowl and then popped them into their individual freezing compartments - worked a treat - I found out to my horror when I nearly slopped the mixture on the lab floor that to put them into the freezer I'd need a tray underneath them to take them through carefully. I'm learning as I go really. Anyway that worked well and meant I could have eggs beaten in one egg quantities for cakes, scrambled eggs and for yorkshire puddings which are a staple in this house over the winter. I emptied the frozen eggs from the silicone mould into a zip bag which is in the freezer - keeps them together and nice and airtight - and uses alot less space - I've a bag for whole eggs one for beaten eggs. Now to try and tackle the next bit - can I freeze an egg whole to have poached and fried eggs over the winter time..............................

Whole egg  - into the baking tray

Well - this bit I was more nervous of - but I have to say it worked a treat - I defrosted an egg in a little bowl overnight and managed a lovely fried egg from my previously frozen egg - BRILLIANT worked a treat! But, when I did try and mix a whole frozen egg up after it had been frozen - not too great, ok that meant the yoke consistency was too viscous to mix well - I think I'll save them both ways - mixed and unmixed in the freezer to give me more choice.

We keep a tray in the bottom of the oven to put our shells in as we use our eggs, we bake the eggshells after we've used them - they break down easier

Now after all that effort of laying the eggs etc - the hens need alot of taking care of to keep them in tip top shape - I mean imagine producing an egg a day - hard work or what!? We recycle the egg shells back to the hens - (you can put them on your garden too), but I'd heard that you have to be careful doing this as if they aren't broken down enough the hens might start to peck at freshly laid eggs - and we didn't want that. Baking the shells makes them more brittle and they nicely mix down in a blender or a hand pestle and mortar (which we use to save energy) - the crushed shells go back into the bag of mixed grain they have and they don't really see it. Now baking them does smell a bit funny - not too bad in my opinion - but some folk don't like it - we only use the oven for eggs when we've something else cooking - I wouldn't waste the energy just to bake eggs. We do feed them a supplement for grit etc too - the shells are good at giving them minerals back - but they do need proper food too.

There you are - eggs in the freezer ready for action - hens getting their shells recycled - and lovely lovely eggs for us - hopefully all year round! Next time you're in your own lab (it might look like your kitchen!) - try a bit of eggsperimenting - sorry I meant - experimenting.