Gold fabric necklace gets made and worn

I have been wanting to make a fabric necklace using suffolk puffs for years. This last month I have made one using gold fabric and gilt buttons from my stash.

It looks more "gold" in reality.

It did not turn out how I imagined it, mainly because the fabric I had was not flimsy enough, but I am still pleased with it and I wore it to a birthday party yesterday.

I want to have another go using finer fabric. I have some in my stash. However I need to think what outfit it will go with. Then I will need to get more party invitations so I can wear it. Very few events I got to involve dressing up (before yesterday, the last party I went to was Christmas eve!).

I have been getting a little frustrated recently not having a car. But travelling by tube yesterday (nearly 2 hours each way) did mean I could enjoy the cocktails. I had 3 "London flower" cocktails which included vodka, elderflower and grapefruit juice.

fuchsia berries eddible!

Fuchsia berries are edible according to James Wong's new book "Homegrown Revolution".

All berries are edible but some varieties are tastier than others.

I do have a space for a pot with a fuchsia in that gets a reasonable amount of sun. Unfortunately they are moisture lovers so that means lots of watering and I am trying to use less water in the garden. (My mother used to bring her fuchsia indoors every day in hot weather and soak the pot in the sink.) I think I will leave it to fate. If I find a bush of one the varieties James mentions then I'll get it.

I will be able to try the berries - my neighbour has a bush in her front garden and I am sure she won't mind if I ask. [Today I looked at my neighbour's fuchsia - full of flowers and no sign of berries!]

Journalists should not be allowed how to books!

My mother bought me the book "Window-box allotment" by Penelope Bennett.

She actually has a roof garden measuring 5 x 2.5 metres (16 x 8 feet) - so one pretty big window box! But that is not what I have found annoying as it will still be useful for me with my small area of garden that gets the sun.

No, it is her instructions for growing tomato seeds:
".....it is time for them to go outside. First into a miniature outdoor 'greenhouse' (ie a large plastic cloche), but only for choicest slice of the day - its middle. Then back they come in the late afternoon."

Despite the high unemployment figures and the rising number of people who work at home, including presumably Penelope Bennett, large numbers of us go out to work. We are not around to take plants out late morning and back in again early afternoon!

Grrrr!

Wet weeks and sunny weekends!

I believe we should take at least as much notice, and preferably more, of the good things that happen to us as the bad.

We have had some very wet weather these last few weeks. Someone at work was in her doctor's waiting room and a women in a wheelchair came in with her lap full of hail! But last weekend and this weekend it has been dry and sunny. So I must remember this the next time it happens the other way round!

It was a bit chilly when I started out on my bike ride this morning, though already 9.30. So this afternoon I moved most of the pots near the house. They get no sun there, but we could have frost any day. Still need to put fleece on the fig tree.

A pumpkin is forming, but don't expect that to come to anything before the cold weather come.

Vegan vegetable grower on Gardeners World

I haven't watched Gardeners World for years, but Friday night a friend rang me to say that there was a vegan vegetable grower featured. So yesterday I watched it on i-player.

The section on the vegan's vegetable growing was very interesting. Monty Don was definitely impressed!

He does use manure (which makes him a vegan by diet rather than a someone who practises vegan gardening. However, the manure was only mentioned in passing. Instead was featured how he used old path mulch (I didn't take it what it was) which is sieved 3 times and each sieving used for a different purpose. and how he fertilised his tomatoes EVERY day.

He uses nettles, comfrey and potash. I don't have nettles except the occasional small plant. I used to do liquid comfrey fertiliser but then the comfrey stated getting rust so have to pick the leaves when they are small, so only small quantities now. I do have plenty of potash from the wood burning stove. Each week over the winter I put it on to the bed that is going to have tomatoes next season. This winter I am going to put it into a thick plastic bag and then make liquid potash fertiliser when the tomatoes start fruiting. I will also get some comfrey pellets from the organic gardening catalogue.

The organic gardening catalogue has already arrived; it is usually worryingly late! I have had my first go through, ticking what I would like. I will now have to go through again, reducing the order to what I have space for and can afford.

Nice bike ride this morning, to Victoria Park in Hackney along the towpaths. First time in 2 months because the towpath was blocked off during the Olympics. However successful the Olympics were, and I know lots of people really enjoyed them, I don't think they justified the cost or the amount of public space taken.

Pesky foxes

Out in the garden to pick autumn raspberries for my breakfast (which have benefited from the recent rain) to find two pots knocked over and my one and only asparagus pea dug up. Presumably foxes playing and looking for worms.

There is also a hole dug under the fence between my garden and Piers' and Charmaine's. Piers will not be pleased! He goes to great lengths to keep cats and foxes out of his garden and almost succeeds. Now they have an easy route. We will have to block it and hope, having had the idea of digging once, they don't try the same trick again.

Rain bringing me to my senses?

I have often got very nice clothes which receive compliments from "Nomads" , a fair trade catalogue.

In the autumn/winter catalogue just received is a patchwork high collar coat which I was very tempted by. It is rather expensive for me, but very nice, and I could wear it for best for years and years. So I was seriously considering buying it.

But today is very wet, so I am being reminded that, not having a car, I need something to keep me dry as I walk the mile to Leyton or Leytonstone tube stations, or wait at the bus stop for a bus to Walthamstow Central. This cuts down when I could use it quite considerably

It can be a drag being green and sensible!

Further thinking needed!