Homemade beetroot playdough #blogtoberfest13 day 26

Afternoon, here is a lovely and quick project that the kids and I made over the summer hols, using beetroot as a natural dye for homemade play dough. My lovely pal Sue sent me the link to this super blog post that offers up a good selection of natural dye suggestions and it was an irresistible temptation to go pick a beetroot from the lottie.

I chopped up the beetroot in to big ish chunks and boiled with a little bit of water to leach the colour out of the beetroot and then sieved out the lumps then I cooked the dyed water over a low heat in an old saucepan with a cup of flour, ½ cup of salt,  1 tablespoon of cream of tartar and 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. The mixture came together in the pan very quickly and was so easy to make. It was a big hit with the kids - and none of that odd manufactured playdoh smell! It kept pretty well too, I wrapped it in tin foil between play times and it was moist and workable for weeks.

I hope you are having a lovely chilled out Sunday

Jolene xx

Plot 26 - Lovely gifts

I am quickly finding that being part of a growers community has brought me in to contact with the kindest and most giving and most helpful people I have ever known. I've been given a lot of seeds and great advice and books and often been lent tools. The children, just 2 and 4, are made to feel very welcome on the weekends when they come with me too, even when they are extra noisy! At this time of year there is a lot of potting on and planting out going on and as a clueless newbie I am often offered wonderful young plants to re-home on the lottie. These 3 inch high baby gem lettice seedlings and beetroot seedlings were a gift from a friend of my lovely pal Sue.

In fact the pics above and below are just half the plants I was given, the rest I passed on to one of my daughters teachers who had told me just that day morning that her beets had not germinated this year and how that was her favourite veggie from her lottie each year. I was a nice feeling to be able to share these with her and repay the kindness of all of the seeds she gifted and books she loaned me when I first got the plot.

I had a lot of fun splitting these up and potting them on in to their own homemade paper pots and have kept them in my kitchen by night and garden by day to harden them off.

When I came to the lottie last week I found this pot of wonderfully strong baby leeks, a gift from lovely Gary who is up one and over one from my plot. 

I've spent the past couple of weeks digging over a new bed for the beetroot and lettuce and leeks. Fingers crossed I can get them in the ground by the end of this week.

I hope you have had a lovely weekend
Jolene xx