Happy Friday!
I’m on holiday now, so next week there may not be a Friday Links, it really depends on how rainy Northumberland is!
Since last week, I’ve posted a recommendation, some music, the usual Monday miscellany, an update on the plot and a recipe for granola
Here are this week’s links….
Why your desk job is so damn exhausting. Good to know why…
How Pedialyte got Pedialit. It’s a fascinating look at marketing (and hangover cures), I guess that dioralyte is the the UK equivalent and that stuff is horrible, you’d have to be really suffering. Also worth noting that until I just checked I didn’t know you could buy it made up, I thought it always came in sachets..
Bread prices to keep rising after reduced wheat harvest
Trump’s Effort to Strong-Arm the Palestinians Will Bring More Suffering, Not Peace
Why Married Women Are Using Two Last Names on Facebook. I find the whole married name thing really interesting because it’s not an issue for me maybe.
Spotted: giraffes in the snow. Parts of South Africa does get snow (aside from the mountains, I didn’t know this)
A four-day working week? Bring it on. We were talking about this at work the other day. I love the idea!
‘So shocked’: customer wins bookshop in raffle. Every reader’s dream..
The Problem With Terraforming Mars
The cliche is French food is better than ours. The trouble is, it’s true
Javid rejects MPs’ calls for exclusion zones at all abortion clinics One woman being harassed is enough, but not for the Home Secretary…
The Wonky Donkey: viral video of grandmother makes picture book a bestseller.
As usual there was some modification from the original. I’m guessing that it’s an American recipe but I used UK cups for the measurements and then weighed the ingredients so it’s now in weight because as I get older I prefer it. I also used more cranberries and sunflower oil because we don’t have cannola oil (we actually might but I have never used it!)
It feels like we’re running out of time, September is the the opposite of May’s ‘plant all the things’ hurry. We’re still in maintenance mode but things are coming to an end, the summer squash has slowed down production (and the leaves are mildewed), the cucumbers and corn are done, and the tomatoes and winter squash are racing the weather to be done before blight or the first frost does for them. We’ve done some planning for winter, with leeks, kale and chard all planted out and in the case of the chard and kale, producing loads but we’ll also overwinter broad beans, garlic and shallots. We’ll close up some beds next month but the plot will be working through winter too.
I took a quick visit to the allotment on Friday and picked sweetcorn for Oli and tomatoes for sauce so I wasn’t expecting that we’d pick up much produce on Sunday, which wasn’t quite the case. Although the winter squash seems to have had a new lease of life, I called time on the boston squash (it’s enormous) and cut back the leaves on the sweetcorn so I could see the borlotti beans, they are there and just need time to dry out.
Some of the tomato plants were done so I took them up and gave the basil plants what will probably be their last haircut of the year. Note to self, regular haircuts makes the basil grow more, we have lots of pesto in the freezer for winter. I’ve been really pleased with the basil, this year and this year I grew it from seed and didn’t have to buy it from Waitrose and plant it out. However, I do need to work on not having so much of it die off as tiny seedlings. The joy of gardening, is that there is always next season to get it right!
It was also time for the cucumbers to come up as they have been limping along for a while. I sowed pak choi, black radish and mustard greens in that bed, it may well be too late, we’ll see. I also gave the nasturtiums a savage haircut. They are all self sown and were rampaging over the tiny butternut squash so I cut them back and gave the 13 little squash some sunlight. I took 1 more uchiki kuri from the front bed but there are three more squash and a small pumpkin that need some more time. Hopefully, by the end of the month, beginning of October, they’ll be ready to come up and we can close the bed.
Even though we’re still in the thick of it, we have some lessons for next year already. Carrots will be grown in a bed next year, they didn’t do well in the buckets! We need to really manure and compost the front bed that we made for squash. We didn’t put enough compost in it this year and that patch of soil was open to the elements for the previous two seasons so was lacking and the squash suffered for it. As our plan for that bed next year is three sisters, it’ll need a lot more nutrients to feed the corn, squash and beans. I also want to try more little squash but go back to growing full size butternuts.
Another favourite game was standing in front of me (I was sitting on the floor), asking ‘Aunty Nic’ to be wrap him in the blanket and then asking me to lift him up to the sofa. We did that a lot!
The chard and kale are doing well
and the leeks are looking good
so the work list is the same as it was last week.
Walking
Things I have learnt this weekend, I apparently don’t age (this is not true but sweet of them to say so), the cake was fine, an evening spend dancing and drinking results in a Sunday migraine. To be fair I just thought I was hungover but it was a migraine.
Nic Dempsey 