Tag Archives: garden

Potatoes grow fruit that look like tomatoes – who knew?

Posted in Gardening/Permaculture, Simple Life by

You learn something new every day. At the veg social enterprise I’m involved in, all the potato plants have long since died, but they’ve left these funny looking little fruits behind. Apparently it’s rare, but potato flowers will become fruit in the right conditions. The little fruits contain seeds that can be harvested and stored like tomatoes, and sown the next year. This will produce lots of new varieties of potatoes. Whatever you do don’t eat the fruit – they’re poisonous!

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I’m going to try it out next year. Have you ever done this? Let me know how it went. I’ve also got some beans stored, and apparently they’ll develop into new varieties too. Waste not, want not, n all that.

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Salmon with nettles & roasted veg

Posted in Foraging, Recipes, Simple Life by

I just had the most delicious meal… made with nettles!

I got about 15 nettle leaves (fairly young ones), washed and chopped, and put them into an aluminium foil parcel. I added about 3 tbsp. of white wine, a glug of olive oil, plus lots of salt n pepper, and then put a frozen salmon fillet on top. I rubbed about 2 tsp of English mustard into the top of the salmon, and wrapped it all up. I popped it into the oven with some potatoes, artichokes and parsnips roasting in thyme alongside it. The fish took about 20 mins (it was a small fillet) and the veg a bit longer… it was delicious!

Recycle or re-use? Ways to use rubbish

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English: Recycle logo

English: Recycle logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like a good green consumer, I faithfully recycle all the rubbish I can. My local council will take most items, like paper, plastic, glass, and even garden and kitchen waste.
But… I’ve decided that rather than put my rubbish out for an energy-consuming lorry to take away, to who knows where… I’m going to try and reuse it myself.
So:

  • I’m keeping paper and cardboard ready to make paper bricks. I’ll be trying them out in my stove in winter time and telling you all about it.
  • I’m composting my garden waste in the back garden, which didn’t achieve much until I found out what an activator was, and a cheap and plentiful source of it!
  • And, I’m keeping a large pile of jam jars, which I’ve written about here.

You definitely need storage space to take this route – luckily I’ve got a pantry which stores my paper and jam jars. And I’ve got an understanding housemate.

What ways of reusing rubbish have you find? Please comment below.