Allotment Life: What to Do with Your Green Tomatoes

 

What do you do if you cared for your tomatoes until they are about to ripen only to realise they contracted some kind of disease so they turn brown instead of red?  Would you give up or find the most amazing green tomatoes chutney recipe? Yep, the latter is the better option. Absolutely yummy!! 😋

My Gardening Planner

 

I was very inspired to create this gardening planner which is packed with drawings, descriptions of plots, gardening tips from my own experience and recipes. This is my first year of gardening and I absolutely loved having an allotment to keep me busy during these strange times. The weather was glorious which was an absolute bonus. 

Courgettes Five Ways

 

I haven't posted anything lately as I was very busy with my allotment. This is my first year of having it and I am a complete beginner. So amongst reading gardening blogs, taking photos and watching 'Gardeners' World' every Friday, I was way too busy to learn than actually having the time to post. I won't be getting into details about successes and failures, but one of the unpredicted consequences was that I ended up with a prolific crop of courgettes. 

Recycled Planters and Plant Labels

We were so lucky to get an allotment last year in summer and because it was too late in the year and wildly overgrown, we only started to work it this year. We got some seeds on sale from a local garden centre in autumn to get ready for planting this year and when the lockdown restrictions came, I knew that gardening would keep me busy. But one thing that I didn't have enough of and could no longer get were planters. Internet is full of inspiration and you are just a click away from the next idea for your projects. So here are my solutions as inspired by other keen gardeners and recyclers. 

Lockdown Sketchbook

Take the lockdown isolation, gorgeous weather and an eagerness to experiment with drawing flowers, my sketchbook started to look rather colourful these days. I am not doing it in the hope to transform the sketchings into paintings, but for capturing the flowers from my garden on a different media other than a photo. Not to mention the practising factor which I have been doing rather sporadically lately.

Sundried Tomato, Pesto and Cheese Palmiers

Dyeing Eggs with Turmeric and Onion Skin

As Easter is fast approaching, I thought I would show you how I dyed real eggs last year using natural products - turmeric for yellow and onion skin for red-orange.

Starting Sugar Free February with Healthy Banana Bread as Seen on BBC Good Food

I am not signing up for this challenge as I have no experience with raising money and I have no idea what to do and where to start, but I just want to give up added sugar this February for my own health. However, if I see other people doing it, I will definitely support them. 

My relationship with sugar (in fact, cakes) is a love-hate one and it goes back a few years now when I started to develop a sweet tooth (no idea how as I was into savoury). On one hand, I am craving cakes and I would eat them every day for breakfast but on the other hand, I know that too much sugar is not good for you. Then I discovered no-bake ones with no sugar but dried fruits and maple syrup, yet I would still slip back into the old habits of eating old-fashioned full-of-sugar indulgent cakes.

A Very Folksy Christmas