My son really disliked peas. The way to get him to finally after years of cajoling him try some and announce ‘Yum!’ was staightforward but long winded in the extreme. I had to sow peas, grow peas, stake the peas, have the children pick the peas, shell the peas and only then did he feel the urge to put one in his mouth.

Bit of a shame I didn’t plant acres of the things as this evening he asked ‘Where are the rest of the peas we picked?’ (I ate them with my dinner last night) cue lots of boo-hooing about how he didn’t know he liked peas and now he does he wants to eat more but they’ve all gone! I feel a trip to the greengrocer coming on.

What I don’t know is whether pea plants are like runner beans and keep on producing more pods the more one picks them (perhaps yes as that’s the theory with sweet pea flower crops) or once the harvest has been taken is that all there is from that plant (like potatoes). I recall that the packet of pea seeds instructed me to plant another row or two every few weeks so I would have a continuous crop which makes me think perhaps the latter is true.

Veg growing, it seems, is very much a lifelong process of learning.

[Update - I just found this which is helpful for those new to pea growing like me]

http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_april_1b_pea.asp#Harvest%20peas

Harvesting Peas
Garden peas are best when slightly immature - when fully mature they become hard and loose the sweet taste. Harvesting them early also encourages them to produce more. As a guide, peas are normally ready for harvest three weeks after flowering. Peas quickly loose their flavour after harvesting, so pick them just before they are required for cooking.

The peas at the bottom of the plant will tend to be ready first, so begin harvesting here, working up as time progresses. When the plant stops producing peas, cut the top of the plant off and leave the roots in the ground to compost for next year.

When our friend asked if there was anything needing doing in the kitchen the other day I told her no because I only had to make a bit of coleslaw before we were ready to eat two minutes later.

When she asked me how to make it I made a note to myself to add the details here for those who haven’t discovered the joys of homemade ’slaw:

• A chunk of white cabbage, very thinly sliced
• A few carrots roughly grated
• Sping onions, finely chopped (optional)
• A big blob of mayonnaise
• Salt & black pepper to season

Put all the above ingredients into a bowl and mix together. It doesn’t keep for more than 24 hours but only takes 5 minutes to make and is great with burgers, jacket potatoes, chunky sandwiches (ham, cheese, salad).

(This is blatantly pilfered from my husband’s blog but luckily we exchanged vows in 2001 stating what’s mine is his and vice versa)

Ozficici Salsa

June 24th, 2007 by Bealers

For a while now I’ve been seeking the Holy Grail in salsas with my efforts to-date not really cutting it in both texture and subtlety stakes (though tasty enough and certainly spicy). So during this weekends Uptonbury I asked my mate Kurt Ozficici who’s a great cook for his recipe; he didn’t disappoint.

Ingredients

• 8-12 tomatoes
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 spring onions
• 1 green pepper & 1 orange pepper (others would do but we want some colour variations)
• A ‘good handful’ of coriander
• 1 Scotch Bonnet chilli (you could put less in, if you’re a lightweight)
• Good olive oil
• Lemon juice
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp crushed black pepper

I began by chopping the toms on a nice big chopping board with a good sharp knife. A key part of this process was to keep chopping over the top of the last one to further reduce the chunk size down. I also sprinkled the toms with the salt half way through chopping to help grind it all down a bit more. Once done with the toms they all went into a bowl containing a good glug of olive oil and taking care to not lose any of the tomato water.

To the toms I added very finely chopped garlic (crushed first), finely chopped peppers, chopped spring onion, micro finely chopped scotch bonnet (from the freezer and last years’ crop) and the black pepper.

Finally Kurt took a spoonful of mustard (apparently making it up from powder is better) the lemon juice (we only had it from a bottle) the sugar and water and mixed it up into a cloudy brew. This was added to the salsa and everything was mixed up into a delicious juicy, erm, salsa.

Yum.

We had a really close shave on Sunday. I took the children to the local car boot sale for a VERY VERY special treat. They were thrilled to be going and within minutes we had found the treasures we had had on our wish lists for ages: a pretty swinging crib and high chair for Edie’s baby dolls/bunny and Toy Story characters Woody & a boxed Buzz. The kids were beside themselves with excitement and the nice youngish bloke behind the stall obviously had some entrepreneurial spirit in getting rid of all his old stuff so I shelled out the £3 necessary to buy the amazing finds.

The kids were literally skipping with joy as we carried our new booty back to the car and I was pretty happy too as I bought a ‘tree lupin’ (never heard of them but apparently they grow to be 5ft and have a thick woody trunk) for 25p and a lovely Readers Digest gardening book for my mum’s birthday.

As we got near the car I explained that I’d put Buzz and Woody in the boot until we got to our friends’ house a twenty minute drive away. My son begged and begged to be allowed to unwrap him in the car as we drove. He was so keen to get his hands on the new toy I couldn’t refuse so I handed the box to him and started the car and just as I began to pull away I could see in my mirror that the box was so huge and was full of polystyrene that his little 4 year old fingers wasn’t up to the job. Still in the car boot sale car park I stopped the car, got out, opened his door and told him I’d get Buzz out so he could play with him and I’d put the box in the boot (he really loved the box as much as the toy what with all the pictures on so this took quite a bit of negotiating).

EXTREMELY lucky I made that decision as I found a porn mag behind the polystyrene packaging where I guess our young stall holder friend had once hidden it from prying parental eyes… I can’t even imagine what my little lad and his twin sister would have made of it had they made the discovery while I was hurtling along at 50 miles an hour on our way to our friends’ house.

When I was seven my friend and I found the remnants of  an adult magazine in a rugby playing field. It shocked us a lot and even to this day I can still recall the images I saw.

Close thing! I get a bit wierded out each time I think of how different things could have been and how our innocent, picture perfect Sunday could have been changed.

Loads of visitors have wondered what we have growing over our willow den to make it look so leafy so I thought I’d post an update to the original post ‘How to make a willow den for under £40′ so that anyone interested in making one next year will see that it GETS LEAFY ALL BY ITSELF!

There is nothing growing over the willow den, the willow withies are so easy to grow that just by sticking them in the ground and giving them some water straight after building the structure it grows to look like this by summer time. We love it.

Last month my daughter and I decided to create a mini pond in our rented garden with the hope of finding some frogspawn to come and live in it.

We built the pond from an inexpensive ‘tub trug’ and placed loads of rocks in it and around it so the small creatures could get in and out of it without drowning (according to our bee keeping friend Janet - even bumble bees need a rock to stand on when they drink or they’d fall in and drown). We used rain water collected from the rain butt to fill it and the final touch were a couple of pond plants bought at the Malvern Gardening Show (a miniture pink water lily and a water iris).

We never did find any frogspawn as everyone we asked claimed that the local herons eat all the tadpoles but instead we have enjoyed watching loads of birds discover the drinking facility. It also brings a small bit of height and interest to our newly created triangular herb/cut flower border and the two of us girls really enjoyed creating something together.

Making the mini pond:

The mini pond in June:

Goodness me it’s been nearly a fortnight since I last wrote. Time flies when you’re suffering from a mysterious virus which makes you sleep all the time at the same time as four year old twins struggle through chicken pox!

I’ve been looking at the photos I took BEFORE I drenched my beloved camera with sparkling water and realise that I’ve got a few bits and pieces to post  (before looking through the pics I thought I can’t write ‘Got up, unloaded dishwasher, gave small people breakfast, had cup of tea, got dressed, opened post, put washing machine on….’ and thought perhaps my days of blogging my passage towards becoming fully domestic had perhaps finally ended).

Anyway, the photo which caught my eye was the one below which reminded me to share the new found knowledge that a teeny weeny wet suit on a teeny weeny body can bring joy for the whole family as nobody is left having to deal with blue, shivering, whimpering children after 10 minutes of splashy play at the beach on a windy day instead everyone can have lots of fun for hours in the waves (while Mummy eats most of the picnic snacks and reads) and stay nicely warm.

We rented these suits for the day for £2.50 which seemed to be a bargain. I’m now looking on eBay for similar long sleeved wetsuits (rather than shorties) so the kids can continue to enjoy traditional British seaside for the rest of the summer AND not get sunburnt in them either. I won’t be buying new because (a) I tend not to anyway (b) kids grow fast and at least one of them will be too small next year).

Wow, I’m truly amazed. I have had a sore throat that has been getting steadily worse and worse for a few days now. It is getting to the point where I can’t swallow and even my ears were beginning to hurt and I was worrying that I might have full blown tonsillitis.

I typed in ’sore throat remedies’ into Google and came across this wonderful little gem. I decided to try it immediately especially after reading all the happy ex-sore throat sufferers feedback comments *and* knowing that I live in a house where cayenne pepper is never in short supply (in fact only yesterday we planted two rows of chilli plants into the vegetable garden, one row being cayenne):

#1 REMEDY: Cayenne Powder Cures Sore or Strep

We think the best remedy on this page for a sore throat (whether viral, bacterial or strep) is cayenne pepper. You may still need to continue the remedy for 2 - 3 days to see final results, so be patient! This remedy works when antibiotics do not and is excellent for those weird sore throats that don’t seem to go away after 4 weeks (the ones that possibly lead to chronic fatigue syndrome). This remedy works so well (and so fast), you will probably grow bored reading all the positive reader feedback below!

190 Yea 12 Nay

http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/sore_throat.html

I’m literally gargling cayenne pepper water as I type this and only started doing so about 5 minutes ago but ALREADY I feel like I might be able to get some sleep tonight as my throat feels strangely better (and yes a little warm). I used a very small amount (five shakes) of spice and about three eggcup’s of water.

One testimonial on the above site states that ‘I even have cayenne pepper in my bathroom cabinet now so I don’t need to go to the kitchen for it when I am ill in the middle of the night’.

How can it be that I’ve never been told of this remedy after 20 years of having tonsillitis several times a year? I shall continue to gargle with this over the next day or two and will report back as to whether it really has stopped me from having to visit the doctor with a pair of infected, green toncills!

Next time I get the first tingle of a dodgy throat I’ll be shovelling cayenne pepper down my neck instead of sucking on throat lozenges which only dull the pain for as long as I’ve got one in my mouth.

Bealers was most definitely right to insist we budget for buying an awning to attach to the side of our new caravan. Having an awning doubled our living space which was especially great for the 24 hours when the weather was ferocious.

While the 60km winds whipped around the campsite and horizontal freezing rain lashed at Big Bertha we were all cosy inside either the main cabin or the rather lovely Dorema awning. Men folk (Bealers and Karl) got busy with a gastronomic feast of fried breakfast delights while the ladies and little ‘uns stayed extra snuggly inside with colouring, reading and chatting.

Unfortunately we did not think to purchase storm straps for the new awning so each evening during the gales Bealers spent a good deal of time (dressed in all-weather gear) hammering each peg back into the ground over and over again for fear of seeing our newest investment carried away into the Cornish sea. It was not in vain either as many of our fellow campers had their tents destroyed or carried off and had to abort their bank holiday fun and drive back home. Meanwhile I was snug as a bug in a furry rug with a hot water bottle, a mug of tea and a large selection of DVDs to watch on the laptop mildly wondering whether I should be worried about the furious rocking of the caravan or whether Bealers was still alive.