Veggie garden

This is my third year of trying to grow veggies in my garden. Each year I feel that I'm getting a little bit better. It's been a steep learning curve as I've always had more of a black rather than green thumb!

I started my seeds about 2 months ago. I was collecting the trays that our mushrooms come in for months ready to start my seeds in. They are the ideal size, and best of all, they are free! I've even given surplus ones to a neighbour to use.

My seeds were started early this year as I planted them in the trays indoors instead of straight into the ground. I'm hoping that they will have a longer growing season this way as I find weather in the UK to be so unpredictable these days that the seasons have become blurred. Thanks global warming. NOT!

My seeds were started in mushroom trays I'd saved. The milk bottle in the
background has been turned into a min-watering can
by piercing holes in the lid. Ideal for seed starts and totally free.

My seeds were started in my conservatory. I figured that we don't really use the conservatory much as it's too cold in winter and too hot in the summer. So why not use it as a greenhouse? It's also become the general dumping ground for everything as we've been sorting and slowly decluttering since the new year. Not to mention it's become a parking area for my various mobility aids, wheelchair, scooter, walker etc. It's not really a place to relax this year so why not give it a use as a greenhouse instead.

Hubby brought in our garden table for me to lay the trays out onto. I can't get bend down to do things on the floor so this was ideal. We are not using the table just yet as the weather isn't warm enough for eating outdoors right now. It can go back out once the seeds are more established.

I planted a variety of veggies that we eat. I have spinach, that did very well last year. I also have salad leaves and kale this year to hopefully bulk out the spinach in our salads. Hubby and Missy like to take a salad to work/school each day. With these plants I can harvest leaves and the plants keep on growing. I also throw in a small amount of leaves from my various herb pots for some added zing.

One of my two tree sprites who watch over my garden.

I've planted tomatoes this year to try again. I've got both the normal toms and cherry toms this time as Hubby likes the normal ones to slice for sandwiches but Missy and I prefer the sweetness of the cherry toms. I didn't plant them last year as I found the outside mini-polytunnel a pain to use. Frankly, it's easier for me to look after plants indoors. The tomatoes will stay in the conservatory this time and I'm not bothering with the polytunnel. It was too small for tomatoes, at least it was for the monsters I grew two years ago. That was, the plants were monsters but there were very few tomatoes as I couldn't easily look after the plants and prune them properly. When I realised, they were already too big to get out of the polytunnel without damaging the plants. This time they are staying in the conservatory! I have enough as well for my mum to have a few plants. Not to mention the conservatory smells gorgeous with the tomato plants in it.

I have my usual carrots. They seem to do well for me and are really sweet carrots, ideal raw for salads as well as cooked after being frozen. I intend to keep the leaves this time as well and use them in soups and stews for extra nutrition. I might give some to next door's guinea pigs too.

The beetroot have just been planted outside along with the two
cheeky potatoes from last year. I'm hoping the eggshell barrier
will keep snails out. 

This time I'm trying beetroot and courgettes for the first time. We love both veggies. I seem to do well with root veg and a friend does really well with courgettes and squash in our climate too. So why not?

Both my beetroot and courgettes have now been transplanted outside into pots. The first night snails got at my courgettes and they killed one plant by eating through it at the soil level. I was not impressed! We get a LOT of snails here. I did put some slug pellets around the plants at first but this isn't ideal as I want to avoid chemicals etc. if at all possible. I then started collecting our egg shells. I washed them and crunched them up. I sprinkled the egg shells around the plants as a deterrent to bugs that slither. I don't yet know if it will work. Fingers crossed.

My courgettes went outside about 3 weeks ago and are thriving,
except the one eaten by snails!

Two years ago I tried using copper tape around my pots to keep the snails out of my carrots (another fave of snails it seems) but the little devils ignored it completely and left slime trails over the tape, then stayed inside the tape where food was plentiful! This year it's egg shells. Otherwise the pellets will be back out again. Snails, you have been warned!

What else do I have? Oh yes, exactly two runner bean plants! These were old seeds and most refused to germinate. I'd even given up on these but after about 5 weeks they popped up to say hello. Interestingly, I accidentally planted some with my carrots (I got confused with pots that all looked the same!) One that came up is with carrots and the other isn't. I added coffee grounds to my carrot seeds as I'd read that they like coffee. Who doesn't? It seems that runner beans also LOVE coffee. The bean with coffee came up last but is now about 20 times bigger than its friend. I think the other bean is sulking because I didn't give it coffee for the first 6 weeks. It's had some now so hopefully I'll have another caffeinated runner bean. Seriously, it's like it was given steroids!! I just hope it flowers before it reaches the ceiling.

For the first time I'm trying to grow radishes. I really like the peppery flavour they add to a salad and they are so expensive to buy then have a short shelf life. It will be far better to be able to harvest just what I want to use. They are looking healthy and will be planted outside when I get a favourable day to potter.

My chives are flowering. Sadly, I found I'm
allergic to everything onion family.

I did have to chuckle when I was planting out the beetroot seedlings. I had cleared a raised bed ready for them and forgotten about it. When I went back to plant it I found two potato plants! I must have missed two potatoes from last years crop and they have now started to grow. Why not? I've left them there to see what I get.

Other self seeded plants I've found are two parsnips. One must have blown down the side of the house and germinated in the gravel. There's no soil there, just building rubble as this entire estate was built up a metre before being built on for flood protection. We have awful soil, which is why I have to have raised beds. Anyway, this parsnip didn't seem to mind. I pulled it up before I realised what it was and it was the funniest parsnip ever. It had split into three main roots to work around the lumps of gravel. I wish now that I'd photographed it to show you. The other parsnip is seeded in our lawn. This time I recognised the leaves and have left it there. Again, I expect the same odd shaped root as our lawn is turf on top of building rubble! We'll see. I didn't actually plant parsnips this year as I don't have any more places I can put pots. They do well in our garden though. I simply choose to try something else as we can get cheap parsnips at the market.

Baby berry bushes destined for wine production.
Can you see the sneaky parsnip hiding in the
forget-me-nots in the lawn?

Last year, I planted four berry bushes. They are still very small but are flowering and looking healthy. I planted blackberries, blueberries, logan berries and raspberries. My hope is that we can produce enough fruit to collect and freeze (before the birds get there) to be able to make wine from them in the autumn. Again, we'll see. I have big ideas that sometimes don't quite work. I might only get enough berries to eat with some pancakes but I'll still enjoy them.

In February I pruned my potted plum tree. It's doubled in size since but didn't have much blossom. I don't know if we'll get any plums this year. I know some fruit trees don't particularly produce fruit every year so it might be one of those varieties. If I get a few fruits I'll add them to the berries for wine.

My tiny plum tree has put all its effort into growing this
year instead of producing blossom

My pear tree, on the other hand, had loads of blossom. It was really pretty. The wind has since blown it all away. I'm waiting now to see if any of the stalks (stamens? stigmata? I can never remember which it is) will swell indicating fruit. The pears on this tree are so, so sweet that I only ever eat them straight from the tree. They are simply too good to do anything with except eat them.

Looking at this list I can see that I've really scaled up my production this year. I do have a few flowers in the garden too but I prioritise plants that we can eat. My climbing rose was moved last autumn to a sunnier spot as it didn't produce any flowers at all last year. I have already found two buds this year and it's only just turned to May.

My hydrangea didn't fully flower either despite the hot sunny summer we had last year. The flowers stayed green instead of going purple like before. I think that the tree next to it is now blocking too much sun and we don't get much sun down here in the valley anyway. I have to look for plants that don't mind the shade and water logged soil we have being never the river. Ferns usually do well!

I'm really looking forward to warmer weather when I can potter a bit more in the garden. I'm a complete novice but having fun learning. I find it relaxing, even if it doesn't always work out. Our next house (when we retire) must have a good garden for me. I don't go far any more so I really want to create a piece of paradise at home. I see these years in between as a chance for learning about gardening. I really aspire to the garden I remember my Grancha growing when I was a child. It was beautiful and full of food. And my ultimate dream is to have a big enough garden to have fruit trees. My very own mini-orchard, topped off with a hammock swing underneath for me to curl up in and read my books. Bliss! I'd better keep on learning!

Homemade laundry detergent saves loads

Laundry detergent, it is soo expensive! I mean, even the store own brands are a lot. But do we really need them? I say no.

Actually, they are extremely bad for my health with all the chemicals and fragrances in them. I've had a problem with some detergents ever since I've been doing my own laundry (a long time now as I'm no spring chicken anymore). The big brands are worse than the cheaper ones too. 

I never really knew why they got to me so much until in recent years when my chemical sensitivities got more and more severe. Now I know it's the hundreds of different chemicals used to produce various "fragrances". So while I'm talking about the undisclosed ingredients in these fragrances, let me ask you, what does clean actually smell like? It smells of nothing. Mind blown!!

As a side note, look up the documentary on Netflix called 'Stink'. A single dad investigates into why his daughter's Christmas pyjamas smell so strongly of chemicals when she opened her gift. It opened up a whole world of toxic chemicals that we don't even know are in our lives and are not regulated for. Scary, scary stuff. 

We have become to think over the last 50 plus years that everything has to smell fragranced to be clean. A great example is with the use of bleach in hospitals. A massive bugbear of mine. You only need the smallest amount of bleach to do the job of sterilising as it's extremely potent. You shouldn't be able to smell it after the area has been cleaned and is dry. So what is that hospital smell that we are all familiar with? Chemicals in cleaning fluids, that's what. It's a dangerous place for me to be as it makes me sicker.

I'm pretty sure that we, as a society, use too much of these cleaning fluids because we think that these fragrances/chemical smells mean that something is clean. But really, if you spray body spray on top of dirty skin, the skin is still dirty! Teenagers, I'm looking at you!

For the past 2 or 3 years, I've been making my own laundry detergent. Ok, I do have a cheap brand (that I'm not reactive to) as a backup plan in the cupboard but I've never needed it unless I've been too lazy to make another batch of mine.

I looked on Pinterest (a wonderful place) to find various recipes and there were several to chose from. I settled on a liquid recipe and over the last few years have tweaked it to suit me. I've made what I think is my best ever batch, by accident, this weekend.

Please note that there are a few affiliate links in this post that will earn me commission at no extra cost to you if used. Thank you.

All you need are soda crystals, borax substitute, liquid Castille soap (I like Dr Bronners almond scented as it smells subtle and doesn't irritate me, but there are cheaper unfragranced brands too) and water. I use a large stock pot on the stove to make it in.

• To make it, add 5 cups of water to the pot and add 1 cup of Castille soap. Warm it on the stove until it starts to gently bubble then turn off the heat. 
• Add 1 cup of borax substitute and 1 cup of soda crystals to the pot. Stir until all the solids are dissolved. It took me a while this time as my borax substitute had gone a bit hard, but it still worked fine. You will feel this bottom of the pot turn from a sandy texture to a smooth slimy texture as you stir. 
• When everything is dissolved, add 5 cups of cold water to the pot and mix well. 
• At this point, I leave the mix to cool in the pot while I go off and do something else. 
• Once cooled you will find that the soap tends to separate out into layers. I used to whisk it by hand to mix it up again but I found a little bit of magic this weekend all because I have a very painful arthritic shoulder. So rather than struggle with a whisk, I got out my electric hand blender. I thought I was being lazy but wow! What a great pearl of wisdom this turned out to be. The mix turned into a smooth set custard-like consistency. It was awesome and so easy. 
• Finally, spoon your laundry custard into large jars until use.
• When I use it in the washing machine I only need 1 tablespoon measure (from the measuring spoon set) or 1/2 tablespoon for a half load. 

A batch of homemade laundry custard detergent 

My first attempt years ago was like a thick sauce but my others were a bit more runny. I thought it was due to the storage temperature in my laundry room being colder but maybe I just wasn't beating the mix enough. The other major difference is that I now use liquid soap as I find grating a bar of soap hard work (again, thank you arthritis) and then I get bored waiting for it to dissolve in the warm water. So laziness (or self-preservation from pain) meant I switched to liquid soap and I much prefer the results.

I bought the ingredients for less than £19 (unless I upgrade to Dr Bronners soap which is more expensive). I only used half the borax substitute, about a 1/4 of the soda crystals and a 1/4 the bottle of Castille soap so there is plenty left over for another 3 batches is you buy a second borax substitute. I don't know how many loads I washed (as I don't count) but one batch lasted my family of 3 a full year. I even give a small jar to my mum.

My approximation of cost is £23 (with the extra box of borax substitute) for 4 years worth of laundry detergent for my family. That's less than £6 per year!!

I've had to look up the cost of Bold laundry pods (25 pods) as I haven't bought any for so long. I was shocked to see it is on Amazon for £20! That would last about 1 month. With these calculations, it would cost £240 per year for Bold compared to my £6 per year by making my own laundry detergent that works just as well. A saving of £234 per year to go in our early retirement pot!!

So making my own detergent not only helps keep me well (my main motivation for doing this) by avoiding unnecessary chemicals, but it's also very eco-friendly (especially if you use a bar of soap that is wrapped in paper rather than plastic). Then, of course, it's so much cheaper that you have to wonder why we pay so much to have it made for us with all those nasty chemicals added.

I seriously recommend you give it a go sometime. It took less than 30 minutes in all (with cooling time in the middle). That's a very good monetary return on your time.