Human Lifestyle

A morning full of phone calls, paperwork and pretty boring stuff... and the afternoon I did a lot of work in the conservatory and on the lawn just out the back, preparing growing medium for pots. I filled one huge ceramic planter with a branch for support, 4 Chinese Yams, 2 beans and a cucumber. I did a large plastic pot with a tomato, bean and yam. Another pot with 3 beans only, and another pot with a tomato and I think a bean and a yam.

I have space for another 15 large pots... but preparing enough growing medium for all those will be quite a job. I'll be going to Brunswick Organic Nursery soon to get a few more different tomato plants, hopefully a bit more interesting than the Shirley and Tumbler that I've just put in.

Gill made chips to go with the pastie and salads, which was nice as we don't have chips very often. Then I went to a Car Free Day meeting, with people from York and Ryedale Friends of the Earth, and we had good conversations at the Seahorse Hotel. Our slogan for the Car Free Day on 22nd September is 'Walk It, Bike It, Bus It'. We have some interesting plans but I cannot divulge them as some bigwigs have to make some decisions before we can move forward.

I got in at about 10pm, and at about 11 I lit the stove to get enough hot water for the washing up.

I got up in time to say bye to the kids.

Then it was paperwork time... I finally managed to get some admin done which I've been avoiding for a while, and posted it off. Went to the bread shop for a large bag of 'Yesterbake' rescued bread... this was baked on Saturday, not sold on that day, and available at quarter price today.

I did a lot more dried fruit, some washing up, a bit of outdoor gardening (OK, composting, I confess!), and some pallet smashing.

Then I tried an experimental tomato planting experiment, inspired by Tracey Smith.

How to do Upside Down Tomato Plants with Tracey Smith from Tracey Smith on Vimeo.
I had rescued 3 large plastic milk bottles last night from someone's recycling on Thief Lane (!), the biggest sort, and washed them out with hot water off the stove. Then today I cut off the bottoms with scissors and carefully filled the first few centimetres around the pouring hole with home made seed compost (not too rich) and then above that, richer soil. I laid this on it's side, and carefully made a small hole in the seed compost. Then I took a side shoot off a tumbler tomato and inserted it into the compost. I'm hoping that these will root and then be able to be hung up. I did this with two bottles and two side shoots, each less than 2 cm long. Then I took the mother plant, squashed the root ball and cut the milk exit-hole a bit to allow the insertion of the root ball... and then I put a load of compost mix in the bottle around the roots. I'd made some holes in the base of the bottle (the top, if upside-down) and used re-used string from potato sacks to make a hanging device... and then hung this in the conservatory. I expect the big one to do fine, but don't know about the cuttings.

I enjoyed Gill's mushroom omlette and asparagus, and then went to Ben's for a LETS meeting... actually a seminar to learn about the new YorkLETS website, which is really good. Ben talked us through what the non-logged-in visitor would see, what a logged-in member would see, and how to use the site. Then he explained about the different levels of access... member, committee member, administrator, and we had a go at uploading the newsletter, doing things to peoples' accounts and doing some trading. Magic... this makes LETS come right into the 21st Century and is a lot more user-friendly. And I enjoyed Jill's home-made ickle cakes... yummy!

Home at about 10pm, to do assorted computery-based activities until my usual bed-time of well past 1am.

Up at a civilised time and was please to see Valerie's expression when she saw the life-sized Native American figure that Gill's been making for the past couple of weeks. Val is involved with a theatre group and Gill's helped with set painting before, and this time has created a standing Native American for the next production.

Then I spent quite a bit of time tidying the conservatory, pruning tomato side shoots and winding the leaders around their supporting string, and potting up some sprouting ginger that I've rescued from the compostables. I've also got some other tubers which I don't know the name of which are beginning to poke out a spiky green shoot. I'll pot them up too!

After lunch I cycled down to the station with my eldest and bought our rail tickets for the trip to Weston Super Mare, plus two bikes... and was happy that it only cost £47 for the both of us, return. Excellent. The only slight problem is that on the way down we have a 4.20 to 9.30pm journey... a bit late. We'll stay with Lucy that night.

Came back via Argos to see what kind of tents they have, as last year my tent ripped and is not really repairable. The camping shop in York doesn't have any with the shape I want, and neither did Argos.

So, after an afternoon collecting logs from Woodlands (how appropriate!) and loading a compost heap, I had some time on the computer googling tents. I found relatively few with the shape etc that I wanted but there is one which is on sale in various places. I'll phone tomorrow...

Finally, did my Carbon Account meter readings...

A slow start to the day and spent some of the morning on the computer dealing with an email issue... at lunchtime Gill and the boys went into town on the bus to go to City Screen and see Monsters vs Aliens. I had lunch, lit the stove, washed up and tried to find enthusiasm for planting seeds.

I didn't plant seeds... I made tea so when Gill got in she didn't need to do too much. I did a nutloaf with a layer of spinach in the middle, from the garden. Gill put some potatoes in the microwave when she got in, and I popped down to Country Fresh where I was delighted to find they had some tomato plants in... a 'Shirley', 'Moneymaker' and 'Super Sweet' which were 89p each, or £1.50 for two... Richard gave me a bit of a better deal than that. I'll have to riddle some more finished compost for him to sell... it's that time of year! So I came back with these three little plants and two sacks of compostables.

I popped into Scummerfield to get some stuff Gill wanted and came back to take stuff down the garden. Gill called me in an hour later saying that if I was any later, the nutloaf would be dried up! So came in for that and it was delicious. The children both said it was lovely! Hooray, a hit.

Watched Mastermind and Gardeners World. GW is turning into Blue Peter. It's got a cute squeaky kid and a 'make' ('here's one I made earlier') and a thing on Gnomes. HELP!
Later, on Jools Holland (hahahaha) I really loved seeing Grndmaster Flash... took me back over 20 years back to my days of body-popping... excellent!

Walked to South Landing and along the cliff tops to nearly as far as the lighthouse. Found a skip which had a load of vegetation in it, including a couple of tomato plants absolutely laden with tiny cherry tomatoes. Couldn't help myself, picked the lot, probably 100 of them, at least a kilo, and bagged them up for use during the week. Why would someone throw these away? Madness prevails, even in deepest East Yorkshire.