The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

Can you dig it?

My parents-in-law recently got an allotment. I'm not sure if that's a universal concept so here's a wee definition from allotment.org.uk:

"In the UK, allotments are small parcels of land rented to individuals usually for the purpose of growing food crops."

(See also Wikipedia for difference between an allotment and a community garden)

They put themselves on the waiting list about a year ago as they don't really have space for veggies in their own garden. Finally their number came up, and it turned out to be one big mofo of an allotment so there's plenty of room for Gareth and me to join in. We've always wanted pumpkins but don't have the space to give them a proper go - remember the micro pumpkins of 2009? I hope to grow a shitload of kale too.

But first, we must dig. The plot is absolutely choked with weeds. Layer upon tangled layer of weeds, about a foot deep. Like a giant stinky weed trifle. With occasional wooden planks, old potatoes, plastic bags and a 6-foot piece of guttering thrown in for flavour.

Edit: I totally want to try a kill mulch to snuff out the weeds, as suggested by the lovely Debbi!

I think it's going to be the ultimate metaphor. For lard-busting. For life.

It takes ages. It feels like you're getting nowhere. Just when you finish one bit you turn around and see metres and metres of un-dug space and you want to cry.

Some days you are in love with it. The pissweak November sun warming your brow; the promise of a sandwich at noon.

Some days you hate it with a passion. Surely we'll be done soon? It's only been twenty minutes.

Some days while you're wrestling with a particularly stubborn weed, some smart arse will shove a pile of grass down the back of your jeans.

Some days you can't stop smiling from the simple pleasure of hanging out with loved ones. Some days everyone gets on your nerves ("Can I just make a small suggestion?") and you long to whack them over the head with your garden fork.

But then you remember it needs time. And consistency. And there is pleasure to be had in the process. Just gotta keep on diggin'.

Beetroot Baby

For me a big key to not eating when not hungry seems to be keeping busy. But not just any kind of busy. When in the throes of Workplace Busy, my brain still reserves a sector for perhaps this would be better with chocolate thoughts. No, the most effective kind of busy is absorbing, interesting, hands-on busy.

Yesterday afternoon I got home in a munchy mood, ready for some mindless spearfishing in the fridge. I was interrupted by Gareth needing a hand with a ladder (a gutter was blocked). It was pouring rain and miserable, but once I was out there it felt good after zombie-ing at the computer all day. I splodged on over to the veggie patch and saw that the beetroot and garlic were ready to harvest. Next thing an hour has passed. I was covered in mud but had a big pile of veggies and no d'oh feeling for eating a bunch of food I didn't want/need. Instead I felt relaxed and calm. And just a little bit proud of this fella...

On Saturday night I was full from dinner but could not stop thinking of biscuits. I thought I'd try a distraction technique. I'd been asking Gareth for about seven years to teach me a bit of bass guitar and he always said When? and I'd say I dunno. Righto then. No time like the present!

Three hours later I was slowly, paaaaiiiinfully plonking out about five notes from each Smells Like Teen Spirit, Everybody Hurts, Seven Nation Army, Walking On The Moon and Day Tripper* thanks to Gareth's improvised Bass for Dummies curriculum. Sure it sounded bloody terrible but the time flew and it felt so good to exercise the brain instead of the outer limits of my stomach.

Of course it's not possible to spend all day every day doing absorbing, interesting, hands-on things. You gotta scrub the loo and pay the bills. But I reckon making time for things that make you feel happy, alive, challenged, busy... there's less room for mindless eating. Interesting!

* That one was my request and proved too much for the Dummies curriculum. Hehe!

Parsnip Extraction Day

Nine long months after chucking the tiny seeds into ground, today we finally got to meet our parsnips.

"Just like having a bairn, but better... it's cheaper and you can eat them!" said Gareth.

The parsnips were buried under a couple of inches of ice from the late November snow plus some fresh powder from last night. I was worried they'd have rotted away but they were just waiting patiently and getting extremely large!

I'll spare you the three minute epic video of Gareth grunting and swearing as he wrestled this baby from the earth and fast-forward to the moment of triumph instead:

They are very weird and gnarly looking. Some have three legs from their attempts to burrow deeper into our crappy soil. But I still love them too bits. Did I mention they are freaking HUGE? Here I have used a 400g/14oz can of coconut milk for scale. The can is about 10cm/4 inches tall so you can get an idea of the height of them. Some of the tops have a bigger diameter than the can.

It just blows my mind that for nine months while we've been working, eating, sleeping, angsting, travelling and running around like idiots, these beasts were just growing growing growing like mad under the ground.

I made this parsnip and ginger soup tonight and it was bloody tasty. Still have gazillions of snips left for Christmas Day too. Happy days.

Today's other highlight: watching this pigeon refuse to let a snow shower interrupt his dinner.

2010 - The Year In Dirt

Summer is over - the days are shrinking and we're huddling under the duvet when watching telly coz we're too stingy to turn on the heating. A good time to look back at my second year of novice gardening!

Potatoes - the Grow Your Own Carbs experiment worked a treat. I wholeheartedly endorse the tatties-in-a-bag method for lazy gardeners short on space:

1. Fill an old compost bag or some sort of container with potting mix
2. Bury the seed potatoes
3. Wait four or five months (watering when necessary - here in Scotland you rely on the sky for that)
4. Empty bag
5. Eat your glorious tattie bounty!

I tell you what, if you can't afford skydiving there are cheap thrills to be had in growing potatoes in a bag because that suspenseful MOMENT of ripping open the bag and wondering if there'll be anything inside... that's gold, baby!

Silverbeet, a.k.a. Swiss chard - this tiny crop was my favourite of the whole summer. Every man and his dog seemed to grow it when I was a kid in Australia, but you rarely see it in the shops around here. It has a really iron-y kind of taste that makes the best pie with feta. I only chucked a few seeds in a pot so ended up with about half a cup of cooked silverbeet but it was so good. I could quite happily dig up the whole back yard and grow nothing but silverbeet.

Baby carrots - Another "chuck seeds in a pot, cover with dirt and wait" effort but somehow yoinking that first carrot out of the grown was so freaking triumphant you think we'd tended them daily, played Mozart and massaged their leaves. You can see them here for with one of the two strawberries we managed to grow.

Brussels sprouts - FAIL! Poor Dr G had been nurturing these babies from seed since New Year and once planted out they soon shot up well over four feet high... only to be gnawed to bits by the evil spawn of cabbage white butterflies. The butterflies has managed to infiltrate the mesh fortress he'd built around the plants, the bastards.

Spring onions - grew about a dozen of these from seed... seemed like an awful lot of faff for 12 bloody spring onions but of course we convinced ourselves they were the most mindblowing onions in the world EVAH. Shown here with a bar of chocolate for scale, wtf.

Blackcurrants - turns out that Ugly Brown Stick Thing I was threatening to rip out last December was a blackcurrant bush! By the time I remembered to pick them they'd started shrivelling up, whoops.

Butterhead lettuce - grew two in a pot and two in the ground. Slugs liked the ones in the ground but were too lazy to munch the potted ones. The lettuces had big fat tasty leaves perfect for rolling things up in. Generally food type of things.

Chillies - I grew two pots on a sunny windowsill indoors. The tiny wee Habaneros got chomped by some weird bug but these Hungarian Hot Wax fellas are doing well.

Buttercups - we didn't grow these deliberately; they just appeared in the lawn. But I have to tell you what Gareth said to me one day in June: "Do you know if you hold a buttercup under your chin and there's a yellow reflection on your chin it means you like butter?"

"What kind of bullshit is that?" was my elegant reply.

"It's true," said Dr G, "Well. We used to say it when we were kids."

"You did not say that. I know you're making it up and I'm not falling for it!"

"I am not making it up!"

"But it is completely ridiculous! It means you like butter?!"

"You're just mocking because you probably didn't even have buttercups in your barren Australian homeland. You probably said instead, If you hold this dry stick under your chin and there's a brown reflection it means you like... dirt!"

Turns out he wasn't making it up, it is an old wives' tale. It's still ridiculous though!

UPDATE: From your comments it's evident that everyone but me has heard of this bloody buttercup thing. Dr G is probably right with his theory of my ignorance - we didn't have any buttercups where I grew up... but lots of brown dead stuff :P

Leeks - this is where I just can't get over the wacky magic of growing stuff. I mean look at that tiny, tiny seedling... it was barely 2 centimetres high. Somehow those spindly little seedlings turned into big fat leeks. They were incredibly tasty... I dunno if it's coz they were good leeks or because I braised them in white wine, thyme and butter. Hehe.

Here's a leek fresh out of the ground, with a pint glass for scale. And on the right a pint of Dr G's homebrew, which would no doubt be the highlight of his summer!

Now all that's left are few parnsips in the ground, but apparently you have to wait til after the first few frosts before they're ready. Soon it will be all bare branches and grey skies. But it was a great summer at Crooked House with some yummy food without too much fuss! Next year I think I'll have a go at growing some flowers.

Any gardeners out there? How was your summer?

How to grow pea shoots

I've been busting to tell you about the quickest, cheapest and easiest-to-grow salad leaf ever - pea shoots!

Pea shoots are simply the young leaves of a pea plant. Normal garden pea plants take months to grow and require more space and effort that my garden and enthusiasm currently allow. But pea shoots take just 2-4 weeks, and with minimal effort you are rewarded with delicate, juicy and tender leaves and tendrils.

I'd seen pea shoots in restaurant dishes or in expensive plastic bags at the supermarket and thought they must be a bit posh. But when the most excellent Alys Fowler recently demystified them on her show The Edible Garden, it looked so foolproof I had to give them a bash. She has red hair and you have to trust your own kind.

You start with a bag of ordinary old dried peas from the supermarket. This 500g bag cost about 60p and I've sowed six batches from it already.

If you're lucky you might come across these daggy Leo brand dried peas, just like the ones Alys used on her show. These were 51p for 250g so you are paying for the retro packaging.

Grab a container of choice and some potting compost (potting mix as they call it in Australia. What do you call it in the US? Is it all the same? Help me, proper gardeners! I guess I mean some nice healthy brown stuff? I use peat-free). You're only after the shoots here so you don't need it to be very deep - I use an inch or two.

Now scatter over some dried peas, then lightly cover them with some more compost. Water them gently - don't get too carried away like I did otherwise the peas will float to the top and you'll be cranky.

Leave them outdoors or on a sunny window sill. Water them whenever the soil looks a bit dry. If the sun is blasting hot move them into a shadier spot so they don't wilt. Not much of an issue round these parts :)

While you wait for the pea shoots to grow you can observe the loony squirrel across the street that climbs up to a second-floor window ledge then can't figure out how to get down.

Honestly he sat there for two hours. At first I thought he was asleep but then I zoomed in on his little face and it was a genuine "how the feck did I get into this mess?" expression. We were just about to head across the street with a ladder when he finally scrambled down.

So here's the first batch of pea shoots. I went completely overboard with the dried peas so it was like a pea afro. Once they're an inch or two high you just head outside with your scissors whenever you want a salad and snip off some leaves! Or just stick your face right into the plant and nibble like a rabbit.

They taste best when they're young and crisp - here in Scotland it's taking about two or three weeks. The flavour is delicate and fresh and faintly pea-some. After that the leaves start going a little flimsy.

Uses for pea shoots: Salads (especially when feta is involved!), stir-fries; garnishes for soups. Maybe stick them in those green smoothies. I like just munching a handful of shoots by themselves.

Growing pea shoots is so easy and perfect if you're short on space. They grow in pretty much anything - I'm using old yogurt pots and those dishes that mushrooms often come in - just punch some holes in the bottom for drainage.

So if you love your greenery and resent paying £2 for a plastic bag of weeds down the shops, why not give them a go?

The Forbidden Eclair

Highlights of the past few weeks:

Kicking off a mission to bake 50 different kinds of bread before I leave this earth.
This is brown soda bread, which is like Bread for Dummies since you just use baking soda - no faffing with yeast. It was bloody beautiful, especially dunked in Reassurance Soup.

Looked after the kids.
It's still a "shove random things in pots and cross fingers" approach because gardening books and websites just make me scream in confusion after awhile. But it's all looking green, so rock on!

Watched Scruffy, my new favourite Eating Disorder Pigeon, potter round the yard.
Maybe he got into a brawl or a cat tried to take him out. He was pretty much ignored by the other EDPs...

... but recently began to pursue a pretty little bird.

A week later and they are inseparable, guzzling seeds and wandering side by side down the rows in the veggie patch. Until Dr G yells out the window, "Oi! Get arf my parsnips!"

Dr G and I also spent a couple of days in Belfast and saw a Metallica gig.

And Dr G ate a chocolate eclair the size of his head.

(I had a custard tart with berries on it but the photo was blurry; hands shaking from anticipation)

Gareth is usually indifferent to sweets so I was surprised when he said, "Oh man, I'm having that eclair!"

"Really?" I said.

"Oh aye. I always wanted to have a chocolate eclair when I was a kid and Mum never let me have one so now I'm going to have one!"

"Dude that's a slippery slope," I joked, "I spent years eating all the stuff my mother never let me have when I was a kid and I'm still paying for it!"

He only got halfway through before threw down his spoon in defeat, saying that maybe his Mum had his best interests at heart after all.

How to grow your own sprouts

I've had some emails asking how I went about growing mung bean sprouts. Sprouts have to be the easiest way to get some homegrown greenery in your life so I thought I'd share what I've learned so far.

What is sprouting?
Sprouting is the fine art of soaking, draining and rinsing seeds and beans until they germinate, or sprout.

The most common kind you see supermarkets are alfalfa and mung beans but there's gazillions of sproutables, such as adzuki beans, broccoli seeds, chickpeas/garbanzos, hemp seeds, lentils, quinoa seeds and sunflower seeds.

Why should I grow spouts?

• They're dead tasty – they're magic on sandwiches (my favourite chicken, alfalfa and avocado) and have a magic way of pulling a salad together. Try the Leon superfood salad if you need convincing!
• They're cheap – a little bag of alfalfa costs £1 in my local supermarket and I get a maximum 3 salads out of it. 100g of alfalfa seed is £2.70 and you can grow piles more.
• They're good for you – see below.
• They're easy greens –You don't need a garden. You don't need dirt. You can grow them any time of year. They hate direct sunlight so they're perfect if you live in the dreary north.

What you do need is...

• Water – as they need to be rinsed twice a day. So if you live in Australia or lived there for a long time you'll have to deal with great stabs of guilt every time you rinse.
• A decent memory – it's so easy to forget to bathe the little fellas!

Why are they so good for you?
I don't know. I just like how they taste! Allow me to cut and paste some information from the internet.

Sprouts are highly nutritious because "they contain all elements a plant needs for life and growth." This is from World's Healthiest Foods:

“In the life of a plant, sprouting is a moment of great vitality and energy. The seed, after having remained quiet for an often long period of time, becomes more and more active and begins its journey up through the topsoil and into the open air. When it sprouts, a healthy seed activates many different metabolic systems. It converts some of its sugar content into vitamin C, to act as an antioxidant in the new open air environment. It also begins to synthesize a variety of new enzymes... On a gram for gram basis, sprouts are richer in vitamin C than the older, more mature plants they eventually become, because this moment in their lifecyle calls for a high level of vitality. For you to get the benefit of healthy sprouts, the sprouts need to be very fresh, and carefully refrigerated and handled.”

Now I shall quoth lazily from Wikipedia:

“Sprouts are rich in digestible energy, bio available vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, beneficial enzymes and phytochemicals, as these are necessary for a germinating plant to grow.”

What do you grow them in?
You can be as cheap or as fancy pants as you like. Sprouts will grow in a simple glass jar or in a made-for-purpose sprouting vessel, like a tiered plastic one.

Where do I get the seeds and beans from?
I got my first packet of radish seeds from B&Q, a popular hardware shoppe here in merry old Britain. I later Googled "sprouting seeds" and ordered more from Living Food, a Cornwall company. The seeds are organic which is great because according to Wikipedia, "with all seeds, care should be taken that they are intended for sprouting or human consumption rather than sowing. Seeds intended for sowing may be treated with chemical dressings."

Now how does one sprout?

1. Soak your seeds in a little dish for time period that is correct for your chosen sprout type - it will usually say so on the packet. I just soak mine overnight whatever the type.
2. Drain the seeds into mesh sieve, rinse and drain again.
3. Transfer to your clean jar or sprouting container. Spread them out evenly.
4. Cover the container (with muslin or cling film or a lid) to prevent the sprouts from drying out. (Note: Most instructions I've read have this step but my three-tier sprouter doesn't have a cover. The top layer of sprouts seem to be working okay without being covered)
5. For the specified number of days, rinse and drain the sprouts every morning and evening to prevent mould forming. I do this by emptying the contents into a fine mesh sieve, rinsing, draining then shaking thoroughly then putting back into the jar/sprouter.
6. After the specified number of days your sprouts are ready for ‘harvesting’. Rinse the sprouts with fresh water and transfer to a bowl.
7. Eat immediately for maximum nutrition or store in the fridge for up to a few days.

Note: Let me know if any of the above makes no sense or seems grossly inaccurate, as I woke up at 4am today for no good reason and my brain is mush!

Now here's some photographical evidence.

This was my first ever batch of radish seeds, in for the soak


After a couple of days they were coming along nicely...


... until disaster struck. Mould!
Okay it was an entirely preventable disaster. I kept forgetting to rinse them.

Despite this setback I'd seen it was possible for those little puppies to grow even during the miserable armpit that was February 2010.

Keen to try other varieties, I took the plunge and spent £20 on a three-tier sprouter.


Radish, mung beans and snow peas all soaked and ready to go


Snow peas after about five days


A mix of mung beans and snow pea sprouts, ready for scoffing


Alfalfa on a salad. Sure it looks kinda hairy but it tastes great!


This is a resident Eating Disorder Pigeon, flopped on the needs-a-mow grass having just munched all the Brussels Sprout seedlings in the veggie patch. Moral to the story: Stick to indoor seed sprouting and you'll never know such heartbreak!
 

Waiting for the sun

Spring has unsprung here in Scotland. Last week I'd started an entry about sunshine and gardening and daffodils jumping out at you from every corner. But now? Snow! Sleet! Rain! All the daffodils have been flattened by wild winds.

Dr G and I had been busy getting the garden sorted but it's looking a bit rough now. Grrrr. At least these little leek seedlings were safely inside.

If you're scared of carbs LOOK AWAY NOW!

Hehe. We planted some potatoes in old compost bags... great if you don't have much space. Of course the poor buggers have probably drowned or frozen to death now.

I'm slowly getting to know the local wildlife. There's a cranky robin, two feuding blackbirds, some extremely destructive rooks  and swarms of Eating Disorder Pigeons. The EDP's like to hang out in the field behind us.

Meanwhile inside Crooked House there is still crookedness to admire . After replacing the stinky carpet we've been laying low on the home improvement front. The walls are blank and furniture is sparse but I have a SPICE DRAWER so I don't care.

A shallow drawer under the hob/stove/whatever you call it in your country was just the right size for a dusty collection of useless spices. I stuck a shoe box lid in there to keep them tidy. After decades of rummaging I have to say this made me spew with happiness! I'm actually using them now I can find them. I tried turning the labels down so you could just see the lovely spices, but then I sprinkled cumin on my porridge instead of cinnamon so am reconsidering that idea.

This is the kind of minutiae that blogs were made for. Mwahaha.

The Great Lanterns

Our beginner's luck in the garden has run out. I should have known better than to crow about the tomatoes and salad leaves so much!

Gareth had carefully nurtured three pumpkin plants from the seed packet with a view to carving his very own pumpkins this Halloween. They were truly thriving for awhile there but I think we started the process about 2.5 months too late so now we've run out of daylight hours for them to grow.

So here are the results of the pumpkin harvest with a matchstick for scale!

Maybe we'll draw some faces on 'em with markers and they can spook the sparrows.

I've never been one to apologise for not blogging because it sounds bloody ridiculous, like you're some sort of media baron with slobbering fans are hovering by the computer clicking reload all day long when in reality everyone has 100 other blogs to read not to mention jobs and lives and stuff. But my efforts this month have been shambolic and I just wanted to say it's not because I'm wildly busy and/or have nothing to say; I do, but I can't seem to get the words out in the right order. I've got three drafts on the go of equal rubbishness. I'll have another crack on the weekend.

Hope you all have a rockin' weekend!

The End of Summer

Have you seen the tomatoes? Do you want to see the tomatoes? Come closer! Let me show you the tomatoes!

I'm hoping that this tomato hysteria means I'll get all the excess exuberance out of my system now, so if I ever become a parent I won't bore folks to death by shoving dozens of blurry photos of my shriveled offspring in their faces. Here it is sleeping. And here it is screaming. And here it is screaming from another angle. Here it is screaming with snot streaming out its nose. Isn't it stunning?

Seriously, the tomatoes are ace. They've turned the greenhouse into the jungle.

I can't believe we grew enough stuff to fill a bowl. I wish you could smell how good this smelled. Also shown: a few kickarse little chillies.

Five months of labour has produced approximately two punnets of cherry tomatoes. It may not be time and cost effective but it's been excellent learning something completely new. And the mind-blowing taste made it all worthwhile. If you think I'm exaggerating just ask Gareth. I think I've mentioned before in the six years I've known him he has only ever used three different phrases to positively describe anything in life: food, holidays, hot chicks, concerts, books, thrilling sporting events, etc:

1. Pretty good!
2. Not bad!
3. Alright!

But when he ate a tomato straight from the vine on the weekend he actually paused in his tracks and said, "Whoa. That is amazing."

!!!

Now summer is most definitely over and things are happening on the farm behind Cow Poo Manor. Namely, the complete destruction of the Cow Poo Pile!

Sunday morning:

Sunday afternoon:

Indeed the mound was not just for decoration. They ploughed it all into the fields once the hay had been harvested. Now they've put in something else (gee I'm down with the farmer chat). I spent Tuesday evening watching seagulls chase the tractor.

O Bountiful Harvest

The first home-grown tomato. Behold this wondrous bounty! Enough to feed a family! Of fleas.

 

Love its bulbous face and jaunty green hat. It's begging to have eyes and mouth drawn on it. But too late... it's been scranned. That brief moment was quite delicious. But after all those careful months of watering and feeding and gently shaking the plant to help the pollen it felt like you were eating your own children. Sweet, delicious children.

Even better was the wee fella I picked yesterday from the weirdo feral plant (we have four tomato pots in all). I don't know what the hell breed this one is; some sort of cherry tomato. It was a cast-off from Gareth's dad; a mere stick at the time. Now it is taking over the greenhouse. In the past week it's gone from three little green blobs to dozens of little green blobs. It's taken root beneath the pot and is shooting extra arms all over the place, threatening to choke its neighbours. Nature! What a beast.

Anyway. The other day there was a chef on the telly waxing lyrical about summer tomatoes, groaning and guzzling with seeds and juice splashed over his face. Nothing like fresh off the vine, blah blah foodie piffle blah blah. But this cherry tomato from the beasty plant... holy moly. I'd absentmindedly plucked it off the plant as I was watering it, and actually staggered backwards at the taste, it was so shockingly sweet and tomatoey, it made my eyeballs hurt. How could something so small be so powerful and good? I wanted to ring up the newspapers and parade around town with a megaphone, sharing the news of this moment.

Oh man I had other things to report but it's 11.15PM and my brain has closed up shop. Think I am coming down with something. Non-swiney, mind you. Will just hit publish instead of faffing about any longer. Apologies for abrupt ending! Hope your week is treating you well.

Why gardening is like weight loss

While shoving a few seeds in pots and washing bugs from the crevice of lettuce leaves hardly qualifies me as a gardener, I'm finding this growing malarkey so addictive and relaxing. With all that learning and bumbling error, gardening is a great metaphor for life. But I know most people come here for the lard busting chat, so it's time for another episode of... Dodgy Weight Loss Analogies!

It's best to start small
I nearly went beserk on my first visit to the garden shoppe - OMG obscure berries and fancy tomatoes and potatoes with girly names! We should get chickens too! And keep a goat in the bathroom!

It was just like the old dieter's mindset: Must lose 2 kilos, revolutionise lifetime of crappy eating habits and do 5 gym visits by Sunday!

So I slowed down - starting out small meant less chance of falling into a defeated heap two weeks later. I internetted "easy plants for absolute beginners" and settled on salad leaves and herbs for my debut.

Knowledge is power
If you're out of your depth you can't be afraid to ask for help. In this case it's been my father-in-law, gardening blogs and "The Kitchen Gardener" by Alan Titchmarsh - a very straightforward book that explains the basics in gentle, encouraging tones. Whenever a plant does something weird or looks close to death our mantra is, "Ask Titchy!" The good thing is, the more you learn the more confident you become and eventually/hopefully you'll get bold enough to test your own thoughts and ideas.

You gotta get dirrrrty
You could shove seeds in the ground then admire a la distance while hoping for the best. But if you want sexy results you have to get mucky. You have to nuture your babies, water them regularly and patrol for snails. As with lard-busting, it all boils down to time, sweat and toil.

From little things big things grow
At first it looks so pointless and insignificant - a broken pot, some dirt and £1 packet of seeds. Then you spy a tiny hopeful shoot pushing through. Then suddenly a few weeks later you're greeted with a lush spray of poncy salad leaves. Just like when you start your healthy quest, a brisk walk and forsaking Pop Tarts for porridge can feel like it will never amount to anything. But give it time and patience and those small efforts sprout into bigger rewards.

Mind your own business
It's easy to get Garden Envy when the neighbours are retired and have more time and fancy equipment and fancy flowers and whatnot and all you have is a rusty spade and a half-dead strawberry cutting. I was no stranger to lard-busting jealousy either - She's losing weight faster than me! She's got a personal trainer! She doesn't have to work! Rah rah rah!

But you have to focus on your own situation and budget and channel that energy into making the most of the tools you have to hand. You might have a second-hand DVD instead of a personal trainer... but you still have YOU and your own imagination.

PERFECTIONISM IS FUTILE
Holy moly this is a lesson I need to learn. So often I'm frozen into inaction for fear being undeserving or doing something wrong or rubbishly. But the gardening is showing me that it doesn't bloody matter if you cock up. It's more fun to let go of the outcome and plunge your hands into the soil. What's the worst that could happen? The plant might cark it but you only lose a few hours of your time or a few pennies for the seedling. Failure is your friend. Embrace ineptitude!

Some things are beyond your control
You can be diligent with your diet or pamper the hell out of your plants, but sometimes the weather turns nasty or a pheasant craps on your head or a snail gnaws away at your resolve. But at least you're DOIN' IT, baby.

Freshly Baked

This weekend at Cow Poo Manor: a fresh delivery...

 

... accompanied by a strong breeze which wafted right through our kitchen window. It was just the ticket for a hangover.

(ETA: The Pile is about 300 metres from the house - this was the first time I'd ever caught a whiff!)

I read an interview with Matt Lucas of Little Britain fame where he said, "If I never drank alcohol again I wouldn’t be in the least bothered... You could be spending your money on crisps, couldn’t you?"

I feel exactly the same about booze. And yet I ended up quietly rat-arsed on vodka when I met the lovely former House of Sport colleagues on Friday night (if any of you are out there, HELLO! It was rockin to see you). I got home just as Gareth arrived back from a thrash metal gig. He said he was hungry so I said, "I KNOW, chips and curry sauce!"

Next thing it's 2AM and we're watching Twenty20 Cricket highlights and I'm waxing lyrical about how good chips and curry sauce and fried rice are together; how I was a fool to mock Gareth for the combination all those years ago; how the nubbly texture of the rice balanced the slop of the sauce; how it was oh so wrong but somehow right... this is why I don't drink very often; it always leads to trouble.

Then Saturday 1PM; finally functional enough to make some vegetarian sausage rolls...

Whoops, conjoined.

Tastes amazingly sausage-like but no animal parts here whatsoever... just nuts, oats, herbs, breadcrumbs, etc - recipe here at Green Gourmet Giraffe. Best sausage roll ever! Aside from Cornucopia Bakery in Braddon, Australian Capital Territory, OZ.

Next up: stumbling around garden, giddy at first sign of actual tomatoes.

Currently the size of your pinky fingernail!

Also a sudden glut of roses out front that we have no idea how to look after, in the most daggy coral colour that reminds me of old ladies I have known. 

 

Then we headed off to Carnoustie to see more good friends and their herd of children and dog. Went for a walk and got chased by frothing German Shepherds. Then curry - proper; not the drunken chip kind. Then almost falling asleep into a glass of wine.

Today, a kayaking party at the lake for two of the kids' birthday. I didn't partake because I cannot kayak for shit. I know you have to do it more than once to improve but I choose not to improve with ten eight-year-olds as witnesses!

Then we had a BBQ. Then the kidlets toasted marshmallows and when they ran out of marshmallows they just toasted anything they could find. So here we have a delightful fusion on a stick: strawberry, cherry tomato, cocktail pork sausage and a Terry's Chocolate Orange segment.

Now salad and leftover snag roll then BED. Hope you all had a good weekend!

Salad Days

Less than four weeks ago these little green whippernsnappers were floppy and uninspired. And planted really crookedly by some flaming amateur.

Despite their snug quarters and my long history of killing plants, they're actually doing pretty well now!

 

So are the herbs, despite repeated attacks.

The rocket plants were reduced to shreds by the same boofheaded creature but after a week in the greenhouse ICU, they were back from the brink!

NB: Rocket means arugula in the American language. Rocket is also a Scots word for a crazy person. Try it on your friends today, ya mad rockets!

The greenhouse also features a random pile o bubble wrap and this stunning portrait of Urquhart Castle.

This flower has nothing to do with our efforts, it just appeared on Friday. It's a biggun. Does anyone know what it is?

Today I finally chopped down some salad. That is once I'd removed the stray feathers and dodged the leaves anointed with pheasant crap. But there was plenty of goodness left. Oh YEAH... it was tasty! And the rocket was the most peppery and delicious I'd ever eaten. Much better than paying 99p for a withered bag of supermarket stuff. I go through about three bags of various salad leaves a week so this is GREEN GOLD, baby!

Friday Link Feast #4 - Active Recovery Edition

Mornings are brilliant, if you can get past that having to wake up and get out of your scratcher thing. Mornings mean you get a fresh start every twenty-four hours.

This is painfully bloody obvious now that I think about it, but nevertheless an opportunity I'd been ignoring. Recently I gawked up the ceiling the morning after a particularly rubbish day and thought, I could do something differently today. Doesn't have to be important or perfect or loud or dazzling, but it could be different. It could be better than yesterday. Why the hell why not?

Anyway. Here are some links to things that have lit up my world lately.

• Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal
  The title is self-explanatory. It's a journal that you systematically dismantle. Every page has a simple instruction - punch holes in this page, set fire to this page, rub dirt on this page, sew this page, scribble on this page, chop out this page and mail it to a friend, etc etc etc. I bought it back in 2007 but was too scared to mark it; I couldn't decide which pen to use, for goodness' sake! But now the time for mindless destruction. It's great.
• Jazz Apples.
  Not to be confused with jazz mags. I bought a bagful just for the amusing name but they are sweet and crunchy. Normally I fall asleep halfway through eating an apple because they are so bloody boring, but not so the Jazz Apple.
• The Black Dog Books
  Kylie May, are you out there? I've been trying to hunt you down to say a huge thanks for sending two wonderful books - I Had A Black Dog and Living With A Black Dog.
  
  They are both picture books, the first about depression and the latter designed for someone who knows a depressed person. If you struggle with depression and can't put the fuzzy bleakness into words, these are the books to shove into a loved ones arms. They take all of ten minutes to read but are funny, insightful, helpful and full of hope.
• 8 Steps To Conquer The Beast Within
  This Martha Beck article about tackling your demons was in an Oprah magazine I'd bought for purely the cupcake recipes. But months later I felt compelled to read the non-cupcake pages, as I feel the same guilt for an unread magazine that I do for a shriveled carrot in the bottom of the fridge - the object has not fulfilled its destiny because of my laziness and neglect. Turns out every article resonated, and this Beck one mega useful, particularly the Lifeline Graph exercise.
• My Tiny Plot
  It's been eight whole days and my brand new herb garden is not yet dead! I'm devouring all things gardening and Gillian's blog about her Bath garden is the dogs' bollocks. That's Bath as in the City Of, by the way; not a garden full of bath tubs. Although that could look very cool.

Note: I didn't end up finishing this until Monday, but let's not spoil the alliteration!