Nancy Reading

Derek Thille wrote:In a matter of a moment I discovered there were two ways to get to my bookmarks - the menu from hovering over my name in the top right corner, or viewing profile, and selecting bookmarks.  I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

And another way I discovered fairly recently - you should be able to make the default view of the forums "with bookmarks"  - then as well as 'recent topics' in the main screen, your bookmarked topics are on the left in recent order too. If you use them a lot then you may find that a handy view too - I really like it, it shows me when my project threads are 'bumped' for example.

It's a while since I've made puff pastry, but I don't recall it being particularly difficult, there is just a lot of folding and rolling and chilling! I sometimes do a 'rough puff pastry, which involves rubbing in half the fat, then mixing the rest in as small cubes when you add the liquid. When you roll it out the butter is crushed into little enclosures which blister when cooking giving a less even puff pastry effect.

I'm with Anne on using your favourite pie crust recipe though - I looked up the recipe as a dish I'm not familiar with. Normandy apple tart appears to be an apple tart with integral custard (what a good idea!) but most of the recipes I found called for standard or sweet shortcrust pastry. Maybe they've been anglicised though.

Not finished yet, but I'm 2 rows away from splitting at the armpit on my husband's gansey, so I feel like a pat on the back is deserved! There are one or two (ahem!) features that prove the jumper is hand knitted, but on the whole I'm loving the knitting rhythm.

Gansey knitted jumper progress!

I'm still pretty slow stitching but trying to get faster. I'm trying to knit without a knitting sheath by sticking the needle I'm knitting onto under my arm (having read this awesome thread on fast knitting). It takes me a bit less than 20 minutes to do a row - which makes my speed about 20 stitches a minute. Not very impressive perhaps, but there is a lot of switching back and forth with knitting and purling to get the pattern. I think I am about half way through now.

please pick a real sounding name - should be pretty easy to do.

I think whether you want to keep and divide the old crowns or use the new ones depends on whether the original crowns were a modern variety from a crown or grown from seed themselves. If they are all seed grown, then I feel it won't matter and just select the crowns that you like the look of most - if you can remember for example which gave the best spears. I've certainly heard that asparagus can remain in the same bed for 20 years or so - 100 is outstanding! Your family must be doing something right Leora!
I struggle a little bit with asparagus although I have some in my old polytunnel space which I am intending to move, so it is reassuring that it will divide. I think I probably don't feed mine enough and it definitely seems to appreciate the extra warmth from the polytunnel in the summer here. I'm hoping I can get it to grow outside on some of my mini hugel beds - better drainage and selected sunny positions perhaps.
My suggestion is to divide when you think it needs it - whether that is 3 years. 10 years or never If the crowns starts to lose vigour, are crowded, and a good dressing of rich stuff doesn't perk them up, then division seems like a good plan.

Good news

Lisa Wesley from Growild wrote:We are deeply touched and overwhelmed by the support of the community of gardeners, rare plant enthusiasts and members of the horticultural industry. Although we reached our target in 24 hours, anything extra will help us keep our heads above water until we can sell plants again. A huge hug and thank you to everyone who has made a donation, bought seeds from us or shared our Crowdfunder on social media. Thank you to everyone who has left comments or sent personal messages. We appreciate all your kind words, they have kept us going.

Deane Adams wrote:This may not be what Judith had in mind with this post, but yes I mend some of my clothes if using a Swing line "Tot" to staple a tear in a shirt sleeve counts.

You can make a statement about it - remember punk? There is visible mending!


source

I'm going to accuse Luke of being a permie with squash on the stairs!




Luke's attempt at 100 000 calories

I've heard other people have had problems with condensation initially, but I think it does go away in time. Unless the flue gets really hot (so you're losing that heat too) the water will condense on the cooler pipe. I don't know if anyone has fixed that problem yet....

Ac Baker wrote:We who've been watching this, are now very excited to see if you might do Spring, Summer & Autumn versions of this walk-through!

I could do that; spring and summer are always fun. Autumn is a bit more tricky to identify as late summer slips into winter sometimes..

I was wondering, would it be helpful to have a go a documenting some more of all this knowledge in your head about just what all these wonderful plants & guilds are planned to do, and doing in practice?

I'm happy to do that. Do you think video will work better than written posts? Any special requests? I suspect most areas will be more interesting when things are growing!
I'll maybe have a look at the coppice trees though, once I've finished cutting and started tidying up a bit. At the moment it is a bit like a disaster area in places with fallen trees!