Potato salad and coleslaw

As I can't eat shop bought salads (they usually have some onion or chives or leeks) I lived a substantial part of my life without any mayo-based salads. It didn't occurred to me than I could make them myself. Live and learn.

First I tried coleslaw - it was so simple. Then, much later, when I had purple potatoes, I decided to try to make potato salad. It was even more simple to make. With coleslaw you have to grate or chop a lot, with potato salad you just have to cut potatos and pickled cucumbers, and garlic. Or any other veggies you want to add.

I thought everyone else was making those salads every now and then, and I was the slow one not making them. It seems no-one else is making salads at home, because they can buy them!

I've run out of blue potatoes!

I've run out of blue potatoes. Bugger, I like to make potato salad with them, it's very pretty because it's so purple! I have to wait until this yeard crop will be ready. After some digging I estimated I need to wait another three-four weeks for them to be ready to use. Main crop will be ready in september, but I have some in my cold frames, they will be ready sooner.

We (the royal we, it's my sister's root cellar but my parents' harvest) have some old white potatoes left, so I made potato salad with those and saved some spuds to make soup/stew next week. After that I have only my early potatoes, not much. For some reason I have both horse radish and potatoes growing in one of my cold frames, there was supposed to be carrots and parsnips. Oh well. I need to dig that horse radish up and re-plant it somewhere it can grow freely. I don't use it much but it's still good to have in case I want to make something like pickles that requires hirse radish.

But we are really in the harvest season now. I know bluberries are not doing great this summer, but our surraoundings have enough of them:

They are the original blueberry, but nowadays they are called bilberries, because American species is called blueberry. I just took that picture to show my aunt she can go and pick berries. My other aunt sent a message saying they are not having any. First time ever ar far as I know.

I will be picking blueberries, too. But my main target is mushrooms. Our mushroom season begun on monday, and yesterday I even found a single tiny porchini to pick. 

This is just enough for a panful of fried chaterelles, and three teenagers ate them all.

With all troubles in the world I feel I need to harvest more than ever to keep my family safe... We also have much more firewood than usually for the winter. I just hope my blue potatoes will yeld a nice crop this autunm.

(they are more healthier than normal potatoes)

Another

 

Another non-colour pullover. I have loads of clothing with these cannot discribe colours, muted grayish/brownish/bluish/greenish hues. They go well with blue jeans and everything black I have. Or, if you ask my brother, I have loads of grey clothing - he's a certain type of colourblind so everything not BRIGHT colours are same to him.

The picture is horrible, as I didn't steam/soak/press it beforehand. I like this a lot, it's just the way I wanted, relaxed, warmish and neat enough to wear it when going to town to do errands. Yarn is recycled cotton, I know it will easily turn a bit untidy because of that, but that's ok. I can always shave it.

Haven't been on mood for knitting socks, so I started another one, this time crocheting BRIGHT blue cotton.

Moving day

I've been on vacation/holiday/off work over a week now. So far I've written only dozen or so work emails, answered only three phone calls (work affairs) and spoke online with my dearest co-worker (who's still at work next week). I've had my earphones on while I was weeding lupins from my parents' field (invasive plants) - there was this important info which I knew would be important to me (and so it was, it turned out my office is safe for now, but our head office has to move to smaller premises). And I promised to entertain my Norweigian colleague who is about to come here for a few weeks. Because I speak both English and Swedish (Norwegians don't all speak Swedish but nynorsk is close enough so we can understand each other).

All but five pickling cucumbers have died and I have no idea why. It''s good that I planted about 30 cucumbers on my plot at my parents' field😁 and they are doing fine.

I just don't get it.

D moved to the city today. Me and sys were helping to fill the moving van, her friend had borrowed a huge mercedes  sprinter and it was more than half  empty when d's all belongings were inside.

I'm gonna miss my little baby, she's been living in a town for a year now, and now she's even further away. But she'll be all right, her friends are there and her school. There is also easier to get a job, and life would be a bit cheaper there. She's happy.

I'm still gonna miss her.

First one finished

First concrete thing finished:

 I just love the colour theme of that yarn! And it's very airplane suitable, the whole jumper weights 300g.

Summer vacation here I come!

Last day of work today. It was supposed to be yesterday, but we had some compulsory training, and a briefing later on. I had to write a report and make my travel expenses claim, I won't be back until end of July.

It's been so hot I can't even dream of doing any substantial gardening. I did however plant one more row to my veggie plot, pickling cukes, chard and kale. Just went to see them and they seemed to be ok. I dug a hole and watered it before planting, and I made a moat around each plant to hold water.

Now I have only corn, pumpkins and zucchinies and beans to plant to plot. Then I should pot some new plants from strawberries, they have a lot of runners now. And I have one more frame to fill with something, I think radishes and spinach. Then I have all tomatoes to re-place to the greenhouse, but that requires cooler day.

I have potatoes growing in my carrot rows and horse radish in potatoe frame. I haven't any horse radish anywhere near that frame! I also found two parsnip plants ready to flower right in the middle of my field, but my sown parsnips are having trouble to germinate. I've been waiting for a month now, I know they are slow, but...

I picked first batch of radishes to eat, I mean the proper fat red radishes, not only the poor trimmed seedlings. I rinsed greens and I'm going to make pesto with them. I have garlic greens I can use, too. I don't use parmesan in pesto, nor basil - I don't like basil and we usually don't have parmesan at home, it's a bit expensive.

AND I'm nearly finished my jumper I begun knitting at Easter. I love the colour, or colours, it gradually changes from white to pale blue, to electric blue, to dark navy to grey... D saw the yarn and said it's just my colour. I only have to put it together, one sleeve is already on.

I'm knackered

 Last real working day before summer holiday. Drove something like 500km (with rental, not my own car), and for some reason it was really consuming. Maybe it was the heat, even if the car had nice air con. Maybe it was because I talked like five hours straight? Maybe it was I was among people, not in Teams like it is nowadays. Woke at six, took 'Suma for a walk, went to pick the rental and I was back at five o'clock. Then I fed kids, took another turn in neighbour's garden - I found four more big giant hogweeds that needed to be destroyed, they were on different corner so I didn't see them in the spring. Now they are dealt. For now.

I had to water all rows and pots in veggie plot. My allotment at my parents' (oh no, it's at my sister's now!) has so much better soil. I watered with number two yesterday, and the soil was still wet there. Here at my plot soil is bone dry, it's actually cracking 12 hours after watering! It's very dense clay, so very poor soil for growing any edible plants, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't try year after year.

Maybe my stubborness is the reason I'm so knackered...

But at the allotment I've got 12 pumpkins/courgettes, few dozens of pickling cucumber plants, two rows of beans and some chard. I'm still pondering if I should sow some yellow beets. And next week it's time to sow some spinach and other greens that will bolt if sown too early.