Autumnal Updates

Autumn Update from Frugaldom

It may be late October but the garden isn't 'done' for the year, not yet. IN fact, it's far from it - I still have a profusion of flowers - nasturtiums, begonias, heather and alliums, to name but a few. The days are shortening, night's are lengthening, temperature's dropping and leaves are falling, but there's still some sunshine about the place. I've been amazed at how warm it still gets in the little plastic greenhouse, so rather enjoyed doing the bit of tidying and weeding when I went to clear out all the tomatoes last weekend. But then I changed my mind! They simply weren't ready for clearing.

We all know what we're meant to do with tomato plants - keep the side and top shoots nipped out to promote growth into the half dozen (maximum) vines of flowers/fruits while keeping them fed and watered. I set out to nip buds faithfully as soon as I spotted them on my plants, but then things went awry again, with family crises that took me away from home. The plants went a bit wild and have received no extra feeding at all. But guess what? This year has produced the best crop of tomatoes I have ever grown!

Kilos and kilos of the things have been picked over the past couple of months and I am still picking them. There are side shoots and new vines replacing the old ones as I strip them of tomatoes. Even my fancy 'black' tomatoes are doing exceptionally well.

All of these photographs were taken today, 25th October 2012, and show the condition my tomato vines are in after stripping them of all their dead or dying leaves at the weekend. Each time I pick the tomatoes, another shoot appears, more flowers grow and that, of course, is followed by more tomatoes! It's amazing. One plant in particular - a cherry tomato - ended up looking like a weeping willow decorated in little red baubles. I have picked dozens and dozens of small tomatoes from this 'tree' and still it continues to grow and produce.

 

The 'black' tomatoes are also still doing well, although the revived grape vine managed to climb up through and it is now needing some attention. These dark , cherry tomatoes are a sweet variety, so very nice, although a little strange looking, with salad. Regardless of how late it is in the year, the vines are still producing more flowers and we still have some bees buzzing about the place. It's all very unusual, but not as unusual as the tadpoles that were spotted recently, swimming about in the pond at the nearby Logan Botanic Gardens!

 

Elsewhere in the Frugaldom garden, the herbs are still doing amazingly well, with bundles of mint being picked for pots indoors and all the begonias adding an extra splash of colour outdoors. In the ericaceous bed, where I planted the new blueberry bushes, heather is still in full bloom, adding a good dash of purple to the reds and oranges of autumn. I also have lavender still flowering in pots along the top of the 'bug hotel'.

 

It's been a strange year for gardening, what with the early months of hot sunshine followed by prolonged damp periods, to sudden deluges that have seen our little stream erupt in torrents, rising higher than the foot bridge and completely cutting off the hen run from the main garden. Thankfully, we opted to incorporate drainage from the duck pond, so there have been no flood problems there, so far. 

Spots of colour are still visible around the entire garden. The temperature reached an astounding 21C through the week in the direct sunshine, so the hanging baskets are holding out a little longer. I'm not giving up hope of growing something through the winter, even if it's just salad leaves. On the subject of growing over winter - has anyone else noticed FLOWERS on their strawberry plants? I have runners sprouting out all ways, waiting to be potted, but I've also spotted flowers on some of the plants. Most peculiar!

 

Indoors is progressing slowly but surely and I'm hopeful of having a frugal kitchen (of sorts) within the next week or two. No preserves got made this year at all, but I do have a lovely stock of raspberries, blackcurrants, rhubarb and gooseberries in the freezer and should be OK for lemon curd making, if I continue freezing any surplus eggs. (Egg-laying has diminished to no more than a couple of eggs every other day.) Sadly, there has been no fruit from the mini orchard, but we weren't expecting much after transplanting all the young trees during the move here last year. I may take a trip to a friend's orchard this weekend and see if they have any to spare.

I hope you are all doing well with whatever frugal challenges you opted for this year and I sincerely hope that some of you will continue by joining for 2013. Otherwise, thank you for reading the sporadic witterings that I manage to type from this almost forgotten corner of Scotland. If you have access to Facebook, I have loaded photo albums of the area, all of which can be accessed from www.elrig.info

 

As always, you are welcome to join us in the frugaldom forum at http://frugaldom.myfreeforum.org or else follow @frugaldom on Twitter www.twitter.com/frugaldom

 

If you are self-employed, living and working in Scotland, or simply interested in what else is going on here, you can also join us at www.facebook.com/NYKMedia and become part of our free Scottish Web Directory. The directory, which is still in early stages, can now be found at www.scottishwebdirectory.com

 

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Some Frugal Experimentation with Eggs

WINTER PREPARATIONS

With the approach of winter and the long, dark nights, anyone who keeps hens, ducks or quail will be all too aware of the fact that the egg laying diminishes to a virtual standstill, so it's time to make the most of whatever is available before we have no daily supply.

Normally, I'd have access to a proper kitchen to enable me to bake plenty of quiche, make lemon & lime curd and have a stock of meringues, assorted cakes and biscuits in store. However, Thrift Cottage doesn't, yet, have a kitchen, so some alternative storage methods have had to be employed for winter food supplies.

Egg storage is all quite new to me, as where we previously lived enabled me to sell any surplus, but making them last all year round was never given a thought - we simply did without them and made the most of whatever had been cooked up and popped into the freezer beforehand. Now,having read up on it, there seems to be no reason why we shouldn't freeze the eggs for defrosting and cooking when required. So that's what I'm in the process of doing.

Using a silicone muffin tray, I am cracking one duck egg into each section and then open freezing them. It's still at experimentation level for me, as I don't know how these will cook once defrosted, but the freezing seems to be working alright, allowing me to pop out each egg once it's done. They are curious looking 'cakes', that's for sure!

These frozen duck eggs are being bagged up and sealed, so they can be easily accessed individually, depending on how many are called for at any given time. Biscuit baking calls for only one at a time, so this seemed like the obvious solution to a winter egg shortage problem - we can at least have biscuits, cakes, pasta and quiche. That's the plan - I'll update you once I've got to the stage of needing to use any of them. I reckon the sections in the muffin tray will hold either one duck egg, 2 hen eggs or at least 4 quail eggs each.

 

If anyone else already does this, please get in contact and let me know if there's anything special I should know before defrosting and cooking these. In the meantime, wish me luck in my endeavours to keep a supply of garden dwelling poultry produced eggs going until spring, when the birds will, hopefully, all start laying again.

 

Join us in the Frugaldom Forums at http://frugaldom.myfreeforum.org if you are interested in participating in any of our 2013 moneysaving challenges. Frugal living and frugal working can work and it needn't mean doing without anything, assuming you concentrate on becoming debt free as your first priority. It's also a great way of finding new hints and tip about cost-cutting and reducing your spending, none more so than at home.

 

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Gve me a shout out if you spot Frugaldom anywhere else and have fun preparing for winter and the start of 2013.