Winter foraging and more making do!

You may have noticed I completely forgot to say anything about winter foraging in my last post.

Duh!

Just got carried away talking about my Mantras ...back to business!

As we all know there's not a lot around to forage in winter. So this will be short and sweet.
If you are a serious forager  then you will no doubt be able to list all the wonders of the land and sea around at this time of year......As for me..

Nettles....great for making fertiliser...not so tasty just now. Wait till Spring!

Wood....with the leaves off the trees you can see all the dead broken wood. Collect it up for kindling and you may even be lucky enough to find some bigger branches. Leave it to season and use next year. Don't try and burn it if it's wet....smoky mess and no heat!

Pine cones ....for Christmas decorations and using on the fire.

Mushrooms...there are still some to be found. As before pay attention and check out your finds.


Water....you always have plenty if it when you don't need it! Make the most of the rainfall by having lots of collection points. Buy more containers each year...it is an outlay but will pay you back if you have a lot of  produce to water in the summer. Avoid the fancy expensive containers......you can pay hundreds of pounds for these.

You will see a lot of these around France

....not the most attractive things....but if you have a small holding or a lot of land where you can keep it out of sight it does the job. Anyone with access to well or river water can pump water into these containers.

If you are looking for something to blend into the garden a bit better then I would check out the 310 litre Récupérateur d L'eau by GARANTIA at LeRoy Merlin.fr

They are only 28.90 euros ...and they are green and will blend in with the garden! Forget the stand to put them on as it costs as much as the container...just use a few breeze blocks to lift it up to the height you need.


If you dont redirect the rainwater from your pipes you can ...like me.... keep buckets and watering cans all over the garden ... It's amazing how quickly they fill up after a downpour....I then transfer them to the larger containers.

MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THE LID ON YOUR CONTAINER OR YOU WILL ATTRACT LOTS  OF EGG LAYING INSECTS.....ESPECIALLY  MOZZIES


AS FOR MAKING DO......

I really missed having my shelves on the wall for my array of jars.....I tend to store most things in glass jars and then you can buy lentil;s, beans etc loose.  However..as we are in the process of relocating our kitchen I am temporarily using these old wine boxes as my shelving.

In fact...I like them so much I think I will make them a permanent feature in the new kitchen!Just need to acquire a few more as I still have lots of jars in the cupboard ... The boxes  are not easy to get hold of without having to  buy the wine. Unfortunately most of the wines that come in nice boxes tends to be the pricier wines. However a few times a year LECLERC have their buy 2 boxes get 3 free promotions. This way you can get a great deal on the nice wines and get the boxes too.

The other way is if you are lucky enough at a wine cave to catch it  when they are close to selling the last of the bottles of wine in a box. This way you can buy the last one or two bottles and get the box as well.

The boxes are also great to use for making hampers for Christmas and birthday presents.

SO THATS IT

I'm not going to ramble on too much in this post as .the weather is once again being kind ..beautiful sun and temperatures of 14 degrees so I am making the most of it and getting into the garden to begin ground preparation for this years potatoes and onions.

Also I am very excited to announce that soon I am gong to launch my very own WEBSITE

Whoooo Hoooo

You may ask "Why have a website when you have a blog?"

Reason is.....to have in order what  I am writing about and to make it easier for everyone to find something specific they may be interested in

Nothing worse than trogging through a blog just to find a recipe you saw weeks earlier.

I like order and I like ease of use . I'm a bit of an order freak with things like this.

LOOK OUT!!!!    I hope to have it up and running soon.......NO STOPPING ME THEN!!!

Speaking of being order freakish ...last week  I spent a few hours rearranging our wardrobe and drawers. Now....., Kev and I really don't have many clothes so between us ..... we only have 1 wardrobe (which is now shelved due to lack of posh hanging up stuff )...and 1 chest of drawers.  No matter how many times I tried to organise these they never stayed tidy for long.....UNTIL.....

I discovered the KON MARI method of folding clothes

Hubby was a bit sceptical but afterwards I could tell he was secretly impressed...so far so good.  We seem to get a lot more in there  and clothes are easier to find.

I like to call it Feng Shui...Kev just calls it being a neat freak.

Speak soon

A Bientot from Happy Neat Freak x