You all know that I can't look at something without wondering how I can reuse it. When my make-up compact was finished I couldn't bring myself to throw it away as I knew I'd be able to do something with it. I've turned it into a tiny garden handbag mirror. It's a gift for a fellow gardener and I hope it makes her smile every time she uses it. It just needs a little polish before I wrap it.
A couple of weeks ago I bought a mirror fronted jewellery/makeup cabinet to hang on the bedroom wall. It's sat in the bedroom since then. Today I decided that I'd hang it on the wall. Unfortunately I couldn't find the small drill and the big drill is just too heavy for me to handle safely. When Tony came home I asked where the small drill was. He's chucked it out... grrrrrr. He asked what needed it for and I told him. Did he offer to hang the cabinet????? Nope. He watched me order a small drill online. Thank goodness I'm handy with a power tool.
Last night Tony and I danced our legs off at our absolutely favourite ceilidh. It was a really good fun multicultural ceilidh and a group of young Indian and African students from the local University came along. They joined in with most of the dances and clearly had enormous fun. If only the TV news would actually show that people of all nationalities are happy to mix. I'm sick to death of watching miserable awful divisive news. I worry that we're being pushed into the unthinkable horror of war.
Now that October is well underway the garden is starting to feel the nip of the cooling temperature. I wanted to make sure that I have a record of Sweetpeas growing in my garden in October. If you haven't seen the videos of my garden on YouTube please pop over and have a look. I'll be uploading some more changes in the model garden in the next few weeks. You'll find me at
mybeautifulediblegarden
And here's how my garden is looking this morning on the 4th of October
Last night we danced our legs off at our country dancing group and we'll be doing the same thing tonight at the ceilidh. Pizza is included in the ticket price of £5 and it's almost an eat all you can night as the church order in so many lovely fresh cooked pizzas from a local takeaway. This particular ceilidh is one of our absolute favourites and it's a pity that they only run them twice a year. We've made so many friends at the various ceilidhs that we attend and they're so much fun. We've had a light lunch of homegrown salad with sauerkraut and Double Gloucester cheese. I grated a pear into the salad and it was so tasty. Definitely something I'll add again. We're picking apples and pears every day at the moment and I'm fermenting them for the winter. I've got so many jars packed with produce from the garden and it's saving us an absolute fortune.
At the front of my house we had a big wooden planter where over the years I've grown all manner of things. Tony and I had decided to dismantle it as it was starting to decay quite badly. Yesterday we took it apart and it's just as well we did. We think it would probably have collapsed if we had a heavy fall of rain. It was disintegrating as we dismantled it. The front of the house looks so different now
It's hard to believe that it's almost October. My garden is still looking really colourful and I'll really miss it once the frosts arrive to kill most of it off. Tony and I are giving everything a thoroughly good tidy up while the weather is decent. Soon we'll be curling up under a snuggly blanket and dreaming of Christmas.
Now that autumn is well underway I'm making some changes in the veg garden. I've planted up the Greenstalk planters that will go out into the front garden and hopefully they'll give me loads of lovely fresh veggies next spring. Garlic, leeks, onion sets and chard are planted in the front garden. Tomorrow if the weather continues to be decent I want to empty one of my back garden raised beds and sow more veggie seeds. Slugs continue to be a flaming nuisance but frogs are hopping around in the garden so hopefully they'll be munching their way through plenty of the slimey little blighters
This morning I tipped out one of my tubs of sweet potatoes to see if anything had grown. I was absolutely delighted to find this lovely little harvest. There was 745g of beautiful healthy sweet potatoes. I think that the long hot summer has helped as they're very much a heat loving vegetable
Isn't mother nature wonderful. This is my little harvest for today
We've just left Whist and we're off to our folk dancing group tonight.
We've just popped to Aldi to pick up a couple of things. I'd put a large pack of chicken drumsticks in the trolley when I spotted these. They're today's date but my intention had been to cook the big tray of drumsticks and put them in the fridge for snacking. I'll keep all the bones and the cooking juices to make a nice stock. Needless to say I put the more expensive ones back. Swedes are a really good buy as they keep for absolutely ages. The leeks and lettuce were also a good find. I've scattered a gorgeous hot spice powder all over and it'll make both the drumsticks and the stock very tasty. We've a lovely Asian supermarket not too far from us and we can buy the most delicious curry powders and spice mixes
And if gardening is your thing we're in the middle of changing things around a bit
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