30 Ways to save £1 ---Day 6 + More food squirrelling

Very grey and drizzly here today - nasty.

More food preservation today . Thanks to everyone for all the comments about storage of squash, they have been brought in from the hay shed and are now in trays in the spare room. The few green and under ripe tomatoes that were left in the polytunnels are now in the dining room. Last year, due to the weather, we had a lot of green ones indoors at the end of the season. They ripened slowly and lasted almost until Christmas.

The apples from the second to last late tree have been wrapped and stored in a box, we really think we have enough eating apples as these are the ones we are slowly eating our way through at the moment, before we even get to the wrapped ones

and there are still some hanging on the last tree.

I decided to put 3 more squash out for sale and 3 red cabbage and they sold very quickly. I just need to decide how many cabbage to keep for us out of the remainder. One is a monster!

It really has been the most fantastic and wonderful year for home grown food.
Today from the garden and poly tunnel we had lettuce/salad leaves, radishes, beetroot ,tomatoes, onions, red pepper, eggs, apples, white cabbage, potatoes plus pears from the freezer.
Not forgetting the homemade cake, bread and jam!

This afternoon Him Outside went off to collect the tractor from the agricultural engineers -AGAIN. This is the second time this year it has been brought home from there and the third time its been repaired. So another big bill is undoubtedly on the way before Christmas. 

And Finally another one from the April list of 30 Ways to save £1

DAY 6 - Have a look around local industrial estates and see who chucks what.
This is where we find pallets for burning and for lifting hay off the floor in the hay shed. Water butts for storage and the big IBC containers to store huge amounts of rainfall and to sell.
I would love to fish in the rubbish skip at one company because that's where all the Tala kitchen ware is imported - might be some treasures there. But they have security so I wouldn't dare!

Back tomorrow

30 Ways to save £1 ---DAY 5 + Clearing up for winter

Mixed weather here today with rain first thing.

We had decided that we would take down the runner bean canes  but delayed until the rain stopped. So Him Outside did a bit of wood cutting and I did a little house work. I usually take off beans that are starting to dry out so that I can save them for next year but because of the wet warm weather there were very few. That job done I had a look around to see what else needed doing and realised we still had several red cabbages. I'd thought about doing some pickled red cabbage for Christmas gifts but as I'm not sure if anyone likes it and we definitely  don't, they might as well be sold. I'll hang a couple in nets in the shed to keep for red cabbage casserole. I also brought in several red peppers from the polytunnel, wrapped them individually in kitchen roll and put them in the salad drawer of the fridge.

All this storing of food reminded me to have a proper look at  one of the library books borrowed last Friday. This is all about various ways of preserving  food.

  It answers the question of why our stored squash never keep as long as they should, or at least I thought it had and then I turned a few pages and got confused.
On one page it say's keep them in the house at a temperature of between 16 and 20 degrees, then a bit further on it says store at 10 degrees. I've got them in the hay shed at the moment but that will be too cold later whichever page I look at.
There are several ideas for storing food including lots about fermentation the Korean way and from other countries too. I didn't fancy any of the recipes. Some look positively yuck. I think I'm just too old and too English!
I have no intention of paying anywhere near its proper price of £16.99, but I might put it on my list to look out for secondhand sometime in the future, perhaps 1p  from Amazon!


Now, Day 5 of the 30 ways to save £1 was

5. Buy refill packs of things if you can

We used to have a shop locally that we could get refills of Ecover washing up liquid. But it is no more. Large containers of Ecover liquid clothes wash and w-up-liq are available on line but delivery costs are high. So although my idea for buying refills is a good one there are not many available. I do buy good coffee in refill packs. Anyone know of anything else?  ( Does refilling the biscuit tin count?!)


Before I sign off for today, I must just say Welcome to Janice who is a new follower and thank you to everyone for comments yesterday and some from a few days ago too which made me smile.