Hmmm, it's Friday, isn't it?
1) The rocket, chives, and peppers, as well as some five-spot flowers, are up in the kitchen "garden". The first of the rocket will be ready to put as baby greens on sandwiches in about a week.
The chives could probably be used now, but I want them to form bulbs and become permanent fixtures, so I'm letting them go on for a while. (And planted a lot more.) The basil is being harvested almost daily. A leaf or two of fresh basil in scrambled eggs (with cheddar cheese) or in tomato soup is a nice way to liven a meal up. The jalepeno peppers are up, but haven't seemed to be doing much over the last few weeks. My assumption is that they are working on creating a root system. I hope. The cayenne peppers transplanted from their egg cartons into a larger planter just fine, and, while tiny still, have added more leaves.
2) I went to B&Q a couple of weeks ago to get some potting soil to transplant some of the houseplants (and to plant the Lilly of the Valley bulbs), and it seems to have been infested with fungus gnats. So I've been dealing with fungus gnats. I really HATE fungus gnats. Had a bad problem with them last year, so this year I ordered live nematodes off of Amazon.They arrived literally the next day (Monday), and are now in the soil. Since they don't harm adult gnats, but only attack the larvae, I'm having to wait to see if they are going to work. I also ordered some yellow sticky traps from another company and they are not here, a week later.
The Lily of the Valley pot is severely impacted, so it is now in a big clear plastic bag and I'm hoping the nematodes get busy quickly. The LoV bloomed just prior to the bug epidemic, and it was lovely having the scent of them in my living room.
3) The mylar emergency blankets I ordered (4 for 90 pence) arrived and I've installed two around my "tower of garden". They reflect some of the light back onto the plants, and also are keeping it warmer in the tower. They are thin enough I can see through them to see how the plants are doing. I think it's helping. I am regretting not going hydroponic. When this crop is done I will do that - the light puts off enough warmth that I think it would work one of those little pumps that use the heat difference to move a cylinder, so it could be sort of self-circulating whenever the light is on.
4) The Daughter is finished with one of the three papers due for this term, as of last night. She says it is ~not~ the steaming pile o' poo that it looked like earlier on in the process, and is happy with it. (She tends to be pretty hard on herself as far as standards of work go, and if it's not up to them she tends to be rather unhappy.) The faculty have given everyone extensions on when the others are due because of the disruption of the strike - the students couldn't meet with faculty to discuss issues related to the papers, so they pretty much couldn't really start writing on them. So, one down, two to go. (And then, later, the dissertation!)
5) My new stand mixer should be delivered today! Aldi had a sale on little mixers for 50 pounds so I ordered a bright red one. It doesn't have to be much, just make mashed potatoes and help me with whipping eggs and cream, and mixing batters. My hands hurt a lot lately. Since the mixer cost approximately what a good hand-held mixer costs, I thought I'd give it a go. It's one of these, at 600 watts.
https://www.aldi.co.uk/ambiano-stand-mixer/p/083041211793600 I really prefer mixers with two beaters over the single planetary paddle, but the price is right, so we'll see how it goes. It comes with a 3 year warranty, too. I'm like a little kid, every time a truck pulls up out front I have to go to the window to see if it's the Hermes guy. And it's not 9:00am yet!
