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Showing posts with label tomatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tomatoes. Show all posts

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Many years ago...

Many years ago, I read a story which was in one of my childhood books and which left a lasting impression.
My mother had bought me these Bumper story books...I think they were from the U.K. and these books contained short stories, comic stories, non fiction informative articles and I remember the paper of the pages seemed a bit like blotting paper! I read and reread these books...no TV in my childhood home!
I had a bit of a look on the internet and sure enough there were images of Bumper books similar to mine!

The story that I mentioned went like this...a young lady (dressed in what looked like early 1800s gear), was walking back from the markets in another village carrying a basket of eggs that she had just purchased. As she walked home, she imagined the chickens hatching from these eggs. She then imagined herself taking these chickens to the market and selling them. In her imagination, she would make a big profit from selling these chickens. In a thought bubble the reader saw the girl dressed in the grand gown she would buy with this money! And so the girl walked home with all these exciting plans swirling around in her head.
And then, before the girl reached home, she tripped and fell, dropped the basket of eggs thus smashing them. Moral of the story? Don't count your chickens before they're hatched! 😲
Fast forward to the present day. Each day I tend my veggie patch and this year one particular tomato plant has been doing really well; it's an heirloom variety and I've grown it in potting mixture in a large pot.

In the last few weeks I've been imagining what these tomatoes will taste like when they ripen. Will they have the flavour of the tomatoes my dad grew? I've been imagining salads, home made passata etc with these tomatoes. 🍅 🍅 But am I 'counting my tomatoes before they ripen' ? to paraphrase that old proverb? Lol
That netting might deter the possums, but not the bush turkeys. However another enemy of gardeners in many parts of this country is the 'fruit fly'. That's why I usually only grow cherry tomatoes as the fruit fly mainly leave these varieties alone. A few years ago I grew the beefsteak variety of tomatoes. The first one I picked was perfect. Every other one, when cut, revealed grubs and a mushy mess inside. Oh dear...fingers crossed for these but being a winter crop, I should be lucky.

I might check out the bottling preserving process, one must stay positive! 😊
PS. While I was looking for images of old story books, I found an image of a favourite storybook Annual that I had once received for Christmas. I loved those Girls Crystal Annuals...also from the U.K.

Such memories! 

Friday, September 12, 2014

Old sayings...and more on the decluttering project...

My mother was a great one for idioms...(a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. over the moon, see the light ); many of her favourites live on in our family through my usage and at times, also my daughters use such sayings as well. 
So let's see, what's an example?
How come when the tomatoes being sold in the shops are between $8.98 and $9.98 per kilogram and my homegrown tomatoes are stubbornly green? When mine ripen you can bet that the shops will lower the prices to as low as $1.99 per kilo! 




Even though I do realise that probably the farmers' crops aren't ripening quickly either and supply is low, forcing the prices up, that's surely an example of Murphy's Law, a saying which is used a lot ...' a supposed law of nature, expressed in various humorous popular sayings, to the effect that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.' lol

Now one  saying that my mother didn't use to my knowledge is 'there's an elephant in the room'. Its meaning, '... is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed", is quite relevant to me I think...I'll try to explain. I've decided to work through Forever Organised's 31 Days of Decluttering, with a few changes to suit my circumstances. 






So far I've decluttered shoes, appliances, magazines (and some paperbacks) and some chipped mugs and glasses...

The gardening mags were in a crate in the built-in wardrobe in one of the spare bedrooms and I can honestly say that since I put them there a few years ago now, I have never gone back to refer to any of them! While I was removing the mags from the cupboard I noticed a wire hanger on which several men's belts were hung. A check with DH revealed that none of the belts fitted him any more...so out they went too!


Now the items that I've been sorting out in the last few days were not really that cluttered because at various times over the last few years,I've had fairly ruthless 'purges' of unwanted/unnecessary items. But there is definitely 'an elephant in a number of rooms' and it's  my craft stash. At various times I have worked at sorting out the room that I call my sewing room, especially when it was needed to be used as a bedroom for extra guests...I've given away fabrics that I know I won't use, but...well you probably know how it goes :-). Being empty nesters means that I've spread my craft materials into other spare bedrooms...

IKEA Expedit shelves and cubes in one spare bedroom...


 The shelves in one half of the built in in another bedroom aka sewing room...
 Another IKEA set of shelves in the sewing room...


More shelves with cubes of mainly yarns, plus colour coded mohair stash in striped bags on top of the shelves...

Same room's built in...yarns and fabrics are in one half with Christmas decorations and DH's excess shirt collection in the other half.

So during this 31 days, I would like/need to decide on some targeted areas of my crafting storage and then decide what I can realistically use...you know it's all about the SABLE principle...stash acquisition beyond life expectancy!
Day 6 on the decluttering poster is 'Guilt Clutter'...my next post I will write about my interpretation of that.

One coffee mug that will be repurposed as yet again I couldn't part with it. Given to me by a friend one birthday, the much used and loved mug lost its handle after a year or so of use...ahem...that was possibly 13 or so years ago. It has survived 2 house moves and a number of decluttering sessions and survived yesterday's too. But now it will be half filled with pebbles, then potting mix and then I will plant one of my new succulent cuttings in it.


So next time...guilt clutter...what do I think it is and yes I do have some! lol

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Springtime in the garden...

In my last post I wrote about my 'battles' with the bush turkey...but all is not lost, gardenwise...

The daylilies are flowering, despite being neglected...

This plant is flowering for the first time since I got it as a Christmas present...


The year before last, I got a cutting of this cactus from a friend. Last year it had one bud. This year there were lots of these buds, but this year these buds opened up before they fell off.
So, buds...
 Turned into these flowers...


A few months ago, I bought a galliardia plant. My mum had these flowers in her garden...I loved the colours. This one is a bit different to mum's...a bit frilly. But it's been flowering really well this month...



Most of my hippeastrums are in pots. Despite having twigs and even a piece of ceiling insulation from the building site next door on top of the potting mix, these hardy plants had buds developing...

 Nearly opened here...I dug up the bulbs of these red ones from the garden of the house where I lived with my first husband, and brought them with me :-)

 Here are some of the pots of hippeastrums gathered together in one spot...



I was given this one as a housewarming gift when I moved to a little rental house in 2000

I potted up this petunia seedlings in early September and most of them are flowering now; here is my favourite one...purple!

And lastly, some of my tomato crop...

The first photo is a bag of the larger tomatoes that we gave to Tim, along with a bottle of red, as a thank you for Faux Turkey...

And this is a bowl of cherry tomatoes including some yellow ones...all self sown.

I decided to not take photos of the prolific weeds that are also in my garden lol! I weed a little bit each day but it doesn't seem to make much difference.