After school most days there is some treat to take the kids to: choir, piano lessons, Welsh lessons , swimming, Chapel. But there is also time to drag my willing helpers into the garden for a spot of harvesting and weeding. As you can see below, God is still giving.
The lavender will tonight be turned into 4 bottles of cordial. My younger son and heir is particularly keen on it and that should last us through the winter.
The tomatoes will be blanched and preserved with a home grown Chilli in another two jars for winter sauces. A jar of Lloyd Grossman tomato and chill sauce now costs £3 at Tesco.
You may view me as a bit of a miser but it all adds up. That I am still harvesting tomatoes this far into October gives me food for thought as the plants still host too many green fruit.
My next two treats for myself start with a moveable chicken coop and run so that we can home produce eggs and at the same time fertilize the upper orchard. Six free range eggs at Tesco cost £2.90 and I reckon that this family gets through 18 eggs a week so that is another £40 a month saved. Okay the chickens will eat but that will largely be household scraps so it is more money for the miser account after a 15 month payback on the cost of the coop and the chickens.
And then I want a polytunnel. That would allow for a big scaling up of tomato, and notably ripe tomato, production as well as a slug and butterfly free place to grow lettuces, cabbages and cauliflowers, all part of the staple diet here at the Welsh Hovel. And it should also be a nursery allowing for a booster for my marrow output, again something we eat a lot of here. Ching Ching.
The good news is that the Mrs has agreed to to my plans although I fear thus us merely to defer the advent of goats. Our milk and cheese bill is off the scale so perhaps the Mrs will see that there is logic in my plans.
