Month: August 2018

The downside of gardening…. combating green cabbage caterpillar

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When I first started blogging as I love gardening I told myself why I don’t I write something about gardening? Gosh how little I knew!! There are some amazing blogs out there on gardening then one my journey. I found a great facebook group called  Gardening Hints and Tips UK  It’s a great group lots of members on hand to help you with gardening do’s and don’t. Indeed I would of course take the advise with a pinch of salt. However it just saves time searching on google looking for the right and correct information.

I don’t monetize in any of the links I put here. I just post the links that I find useful and hopefully it will help in return.
Sometimes I use loo rolls of sow some carrot seeds as the weather has taken a turn for the cold lately the seedlings have taken their time to sprout. I found some mould on them but thanks advice from this group they continue growing till today.

mould
mould loo roll I use to sow carrot seeds

Recently I found out that my purple sprouting broccoli looks like they have been chewed to death. Apparently it’s cabbage caterpillar tips are too remove them (caterpillar and eggs) and douse them with some chrysanthemum. So will try that and post the results. If anyone has got any advice to make these plants grow better it would be much appreciated as well. Happy gardening everyone.

I will post on chapter the outcomes of the methods recommended to combat green cabbage caterpillar. Update 20/9/2018 weather has taken a colder turn today. My purple sprouting broccoli are still surviving not by chrysanthemums but by putting mixture of salt and flour?!! No more caterpillar seen so far….finger crossed hope it stays this way….

Sweet potato crisps

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sweet potato crisps
Sweet potato crisps

I love making sweet potato crisps as it’s an all time favourite in my family. I have been making them ever since I started weaning my son and it was then I discover how good sweet potato is for you. There is not much needed to make them except an oven and a bit of patience.

One medium sweet potato (‘Beauregard’ variety with it’s vibrant orange flesh commonly found in supermarkets) washed, skin left on. I find the skin keeps the sweet potato together while cooking. As the sweet potato is thinly sliced one can hardly taste the after taste of the skin.

Method

Pre heat the oven to 190 degree celcius fan assisted. Slice the sweet potato into thin slices about 2-3 mm using a kitchen knife. Spread them out thinly on a ovenproof dish I use Pyrex as they are easy to clean in the dishwasher and the flesh doesn’t tend to stick as much as the baking tray. Alternatively one can use an ovenproof non stick silicon baking mat or a grease proof baking sheet like baking parchment lay on top of a baking tray.

After about 20 minutes in the oven the sweet potato slices is starting to dry up. If you overlay like I did the top layer will begin to dry out. If you see it is starting to go brown take them out as this is sign of the sugar in the sweet potato caramelising. It will have a slight bitter after taste as it has got the skin on. If you see a soft sweet potato it is cooked but not at drying out stage yet. Before it turns brown while drying out it will have a white-ish dry ‘thinge’. For it to crisp up the sliced sweet potato has be a bit brownish and and white thinge stage. another tip to watch is they are slowly curling up into crisps.

I am pairing this with watermelon cubes, cherry tomatoes, my link on Tomato harvest todayTomato harvest today and homemade Fish Cake recipe

oven bakes sweet potato crisps

Make your own Matthew Williamson kaftan (from a free pattern)

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free pattern

linkIt is not always one stumble upon a free pattern on the web. Here I found a free pattern and it is to make a Matthew Williamson (he is a British fashion designer) kaftan Make your own kaftan It’s a newspaper article online not another one of those sign your life (email address) away links. I … Read more

Tomato seed saving

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As now it’s harvest time for some plants grown here in London. It’s also a good time for seed saving and definitely will be my yellow cherry tomatoes (it’s orange paruche). Fingers crossed it’s not a F1 hybrid type of seed. As if a seed is classify as F1 seed then the regrowing from the … Read more

How I started dressmaking. Why make your own garments?

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why dressmake?

This post was made back in the days of my old domain on hosted domain called cityediblegarden.com at that time I was still very new to blogging. this post is about why I started dressmaking. Why one should make your own garments? Why learn sewing? This post does contains affiliate links which means I make … Read more