My Frist Baby Tomato

Just spotted my first baby tomato on my plants, hopefully it will be the first of many, as this is my experiment to growing my own and becoming a little more self sufficient, and in the process cutting down the costs on my weekly shopping bill over the summer.

We spend an average of about £75 per week, I only shop every two weeks, as I have found this prevents me buying less 'extras', those ones that you pop in the shopping basket thinking its a great idea.  Supermarkets are great at helping you do this too.  When they have special offers and money off, I always look on the shelves around and compare the costs of everything.  I have found numerous times that the offer is not always the best deal.  There are exceptions to this though, and sometimes 'buy one get one free' are a good deal, but only if you needed the item in the first place.  I always try and stick to what I need, rather than getting carried away, and plan what I am going to buy, and make sure that I make things last.  For example, a pack of chicken can feed two meals for a family of 4, it may sound surprising, but when you are on a forced budget you learn to make things last.  Normally I search for chicken with 4 equal sized peices, and then use two pieces in my 'chicken spicy rice' recipe, and then flatten the other two pieces, cut them in half, and flour egg and crumb them and serve them with potatoe wedges and salad or vegetables.

There are so many things you can do.......what here for more hints and tips, much more coming soon, will be frantically typing over the coming weeks to pack all the information into here :o)

Have a great sunny weekend, we are spending it in the garden, planting and weeding and getting reading for a fruitful summer we hope :o)

Suzanne