R2BC In Isolation

The pink flowers are radishes and the yellow flowers are lettuce.
Grown from Kibbutz Alumim vegetables received at the beginning of April
Birds have eaten most of the lettuce leaves...
...I didn't have the heart to scare them away. 

There are, surprisingly, a lot of Reasons 2B Cheerful whilst stuck in quarantine, so here are some of them. Then if you fancy you can visit the linky on Becky's Lakes Single Mum for more R2BC posts.

1.10 days after DD's exposure to a covid positive pupil at school we are both still asymptomatic.

2. DD hasn't actually missed any school because although only 6 pupils from her class (but 83 pupils and 13 staff in the whole school) are in enforced quarantine, the Parents Association shut down the whole school. Well, it's open but only about four kids show up each day. I love it that when the government didn't close the schools because of the economy, the parents took matters into their own hands and closed the school for the health and safety of our children and families.

3. There's no online learning going on but DD's teacher has been holding a daily Zoom-in with the whole class, just to keep in touch and make sure everyone is doing ok. This is so important in case someone is struggling but also because not all kids have friends that they can call and chat with if it's not organised for them.

4. As soon as I let it be known that we're in isolation, loads of people sent messages asking if we needed anything. Three of my neighbours messaged me again today to say they are going shopping and please send a list if we need anything for the weekend. I know people are kind, but it's heartwarming to be on the receiving end once in a while - even though we didn't need anything. And lovely to be reminded of what lovely friends and neighbours we have.

5. I registered DD's quarantine on the Ministry of Health website on Sunday night and first thing Monday morning our healthcare provider called to give me instructions about isolation and testing. I was impressed by that.

6. I've not been able to do an online shop with my supermarket of choice for almost a year. When my credit card was renewed last year, the number was the same but the expiry date was obviously different. The online website couldn't deal with this wildly bizarre event. I called customer service a couple of times but kept being told that it was a problem with my credit card and I should call my bank. Bollocks to that because they accepted my card every week in the store. In the end I gave up trying to shop online.

This week I didn't have a choice. So I did the shop, my card was rejected because they already have the same number registered to another card (mine), and I called customer service. This time I had the inspired idea to go directly to technical support. I explained the problem, I suggested that all my card information needs to be deleted so that I can start again, and I emphasised that we are in quarantine so we need this shop or we will starve to death.

It took less than two minutes for the woman to make it all go away. She put the order through for me, gave me the order reference number, and sent confirmation to my email. Sorted. And the delivery came on time the next day. It was so easy I'm going back to online shopping big time. I think this R2BC ties for top reason with neither of us having coronavirus symptoms.

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy weekend. xxx

Prepping My Estate For Doomsday

Garlic and Carrots

This morning I went out onto the estate balcony and did some gardening. I've been obsessed with small balcony vegetable garden videos, how to grow vegetables in pots videos, and vegetables that you need only buy once from the supermarket and then grow your own videos. I think it might have something to do with the world as we know it shutting down. Best to be a bit self-sufficient eh? Unfortunately I've no room for chickens let alone a cow.

I started by making a composter out of an old plastic rubbish bin. It's about 65 cm high and has a lid. I bashed some holes into the bottom for drainage and stood it on an old plastic tray. (Yes even and despite three years of decluttering, I still have some old things for upcycling. Very few though.)

The spring onions are sprouting
along with the garlic and carrots

Did you know that you can compost without worms? This is good because I don't have any worms and I don't like the thought of worms on my balcony. Maybe if my compost heap was way down at the end of a long garden. But it isn't. You do need soil to layer with the fruit and vegetable bits and egg shells. Luckily I have a huge bag of soil left over from the last time I fell in love with gardening. Apparently you also need to add some shredded paper or old egg boxes to provide carbon.

I learned that after sprouting your carrots and garlic in little pots of water, it's good to plant them near each other because the bugs that like carrots hate garlic and vice versa. I also read a blog post about things you can do with garlic scrapes (garlic shoots). So I'll be harvesting my first crop later to add to homemade humus.

Did you see that the spring onions are already sprouting? I intend to plant some more and harvest them as needed.

I also planted slices of tomato in quite a deep pot. The man on You Tube says it works. We'll see. The main thing is to keep everything moist. I think our rains have finished for this year so it'll be up to me. I tend to forget but I'm going to make a special effort not to this time.

Next stop lettuce and radishes and assorted herbs. Watch this space.

Homegrown Chips

This year's yield washed and ready to sort.

You won't remember but almost three years ago I planted some sprouting potatoes on my balcony and harvested enough tiny spuds to make a potato salad all of four bites big. In that post I had designs on using an IKEA storage box to plant a bigger crop next time.

This is a small two-egg frying pan.

I planted a bigger crop in the IKEA box last year but it was not a good plan. For a start I didn't make holes in the bottom of the box for drainage. The whole thing ended up smelly although, as with last time, the potato plants were nice and green.


With the spring the IKEA box dried out stopped being smelly. I was waiting till after our holiday to chuck everything out and start again. However, DD decided to go digging to see if there were any actual potatoes.

Frying tonight!

There were! Fewer and even smaller than last time. We disgarded the ones with the thick skins as the insides didn't look too healthy. We also disgarded one that looked a bit too green for my liking. The rest I made into chips which DD had for supper (along with other things of course).

The tomato and banana are to show the scale.

Served with ketchup on the side about two hours ago. And she's still alive.