Kate McCarthy

What about all those still green tomatoes?

Kate McCarthy — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 13:59:08 +0000

Outdoor tomatoes

Well, they took a while but now they’re turning red, there seems to be no stopping them! I keep picking them and every day there are more - great as we use a lot of tomatoes, they most definitely won’t go to waste. Also, there are still so many green tomatoes that I am thinking of making a green tomato chutney with some of them (recipe to follow – when I have tried and tested it!)

It is now starting to get cold so I think the days of tomatoes turning red outside may be numbered. Many of you may have the same problem and not know how to ripen that last glut of tomatoes – these do not have to go to waste as there are ways to ripen them, or there are many green tomato recipes out there. I will give a couple of suggestions on how to ripen tomatoes so you can have lovely juicy tomatoes after the season has ended for growing outdoors.

One way is to wrap each tomato individually in tissue paper and place them all in a box stalk up and leave somewhere with good air circulation (cellars and sheds are good for this, remember though that they need a temperature of a minimum 14C to ripen so make sure it’s not somewhere too cold (temperature is more important than sunlight – if they have the right temperature they will ripen). This way will take around 3 weeks for the tomatoes to ripen.

A more well known method is to use an apple – put the green tomatoes into a bag with an apple, the gas that comes off the apple (ethylene) will speed up the ripening process. Keep a check on tomatoes ripened using this method and ensure any with signs of rotting are removed.

Another way is to place them on a south facing windowsill at this time of year, it will be warm enough inside and any sun they do get won’t be too hot now.

How to get new strawberry plants from this years strawberry patch!

Kate McCarthy — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:10:42 +0000

If you have strawberry plants in your garden then now is the time to get some new plants from them! – no seed sowing needed!

You will probably noticed that your strawberry plants have long stems shooting off all over the place – these are called runners. On these runners you will see new shoots. These are what you will use to get a whole new strawberry patch – depending how many strawberry plants and runners you currently have.

Pick the runners that look at their best so a couple of healthy looking leaves
Take some small plant pots and fill with compost (one per runner)
Place the part of the runner with the leaves into the compost, pressing down (you may need to use some garden staples to hold the runner in place to start with
Water and leave
Keep compost moist at all times
Once the plants are strongly rooted you can snip of the runner and replant into prepared ground – do this with them all and there you have your new strawberry patch, ready for next year.

Strawberry plants in general only last around 3 years so by doing this, you will always have fresh strawberries in time for Wimbledon!

Lots of vegetables!

Kate McCarthy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:40:53 +0000

I am loving having a garden so much! We moved into this house in December last year and previous to this I had been living in a flat close to the centre of York (about 20 minutes walk). We now live about 15 minutes drive away from the city and a mile out of a village!

Spring time – looking bare!

Before I moved to the flat I was used to country living having lived in a few houses out in the country and at least 3 of them had been a mile or more from a village so this part wasn’t totally new to me but having lived in the flat for 5 and a half years it was certainly a big change – a very welcome one I must add!

I loved living at the flat due to it’s convenience but I was constantly wishing I was out in the country and in particular I missed having a garden. We now have a big garden – both front and rear which is fantastic!

Kevin made me a raised bed – my salad garden

I have claimed a large (and growing!) part of the rear garden for my vegetable plot. Although I have grown a few vegetables before I have never grown them very seriously – just sown a few seeds in a spare bit of garden! This is very different – I have a part of the garden allocated solely for growing vegetables. So this year I made a start albeit a bit less organised than I would have liked – but it’s all part of the learning process and I think I have learned a great deal from this years crops.

So far we have had:

Potatoes – many (we haven’t bought potatoes for a good few moths now – we had new potatoes early in the season and we are still harvesting them now!)

Runner beans – these went on for ages and although they are a little stringy now, they are continuing to grow!

Strawberries – we had quite a few fresh strawberries, I have to say though that not many of them made it from the garden to the house as they were so tasty!

Spring Onions – we use a lot of them and we have been harvesting them bit by bit and still have many left.

Beetroot – although we don’t use much of this we have had quite a few, my grandma loves fresh beetroot so she has benefited from the fact that most of the household here don’t like it (though they did all like the Chocolate and beetroot cake – recipe pinched from my brothers blog, also posted on here, I believe he stole it so I will do the same!)

Lettuce – another thing we use a lot of, we still have lettuces coming through now and looking very healthy. Unfortunately due to lack of knowledge some of my earlier lettuces bolted (went to seed), the good thing is, I know why and how to avoid it next year.

Pumpkins – these are looking great and starting to turn orange now.

We have apple trees that were here when we moved in and are just ready now – and delicious!

Chillies – we have had a couple of chillies from the chilli plant – and maaaaan they are hoooot!

There are carrots nearly ready and a few parsnips.

Tomatoes are just turning red now – we have had a couple so far and they are so tasty.

Cabbages, curly kale and brocolli are also on their way ready for a winter harvest!

Small selection of the herbs that are growing

I almost forgot to mention the herbs I have grown too – plus the ones that were here already, there is: mint, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, sage, purple sage, lemon balm, basil and lavender (I may have forgotten some here!), next year there will definitely be some coriander and parsley added to that – amongst others!

I have to say, things from the garden are so much tastier than from the supermarket and of course being fresher they are also so much healthier too and completely organic at the same time.

I now need to get myself a greenhouse so we can enjoy more all year round!

Estoy aprendiendo Espanol

Kate McCarthy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:29:10 +0000

I have ‘spoken’ Spanish for many years now. Although I can understand a fair bit and sometimes reply (more likely after a glass or two of vino!), I have never done a formal qualification in Spanish.

If you have been reading this blog you will know I recently registered to do my degree in Modern Languages (French and Spanish) through the Open University. I have now received my course materials for the first Spanish module with the French ones winging their way to me right now, hopefully!

I have started to read through the Spanish module as I want to get through this one as quickly as possible – my next Spanish module starts in February so I would ideally like to get this one as near to finished as possible before that one comes through. I am really looking forward to being buried in books and CDs – it’s been a couple of years now since I last did any serious studying. Looking at the materials for this module I think I should be able to get through it pretty quickly and although I think I know most of what’s in this one I am going to read it word for word in case there are bits I have missed anywhere along the way – having not actually studied for a qualification in Spanish previously there are almost certainly many parts of the grammar that I don’t yet know.

Keep reading this blog and if you are familiar with Spanish I may even – when I feel confident that my Spanish is good enough – post some blogs with a Spanish translation (and a French one while I’m at it!). For now I won’t subject you to my bad grammar!

Beetroot and Chocolate Cake

Kate McCarthy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:04:51 +0000

The idea for this cake and indeed growing beetroot came from my brother Ciaran. I didn’t think it sounded like a particularly tasty cake but then carrot cake is delicious so why not beetroot?! So I decided to give it a try. Here is the recipe and I can highly recommend giving it a go as it was a very tasty cake – I think it got tastier on the second day (no idea if it would have got tastier later as it was obviously already very tasty and there was none left!):

First switch the oven on to 180 degrees C
Grease a tin and line with greaseproof paper.
Grate about 4oz of raw beetroot (straight from the garden if you grow it of course!)
Melt 3oz of dark chocolate (preferably one with 75% cocoa) with 3 oz of butter – I use the glass bowl over a pan of boiling water method.
Beat 2 eggs.
Sift 8oz self-raising flour into a bowl
Add
- 1oz cocoa powder
- 4oz caster sugar
- 1tsp baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- grated beetroot, eggs, melted chocolate and butter
Mix it all together to a dry dough-like consistency
Put the mixture into the tin and squash down
Cook for around 45 minutes depending on your oven (keep checking – use a knife and stick in, if it comes out clean then the cake’s ready!)

If you try it – let me know what you think, if you are giving to anyone else don’t mention the beetroot straight away and get their opinion before mentioning it!

The time has finally arrived!

Kate McCarthy — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 11:13:44 +0000

Finally! 13 years after doing my first module I am finally able to get on with my Open University degree! I have been trying for 13 years to be able to carry on with it and the time has now come.
I started in 1997 with my L120 (Intermediate French) with a view to doing my Modern Languages Degree, but due to financial circumstances I was unable to get any further.
I have now registered for Beginners Spanish and Intermediate Spanish. The first on starts in about a month from now. I do already speak some Spanish having spent time in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries but have no formal qualifications in it and as I have never seriously studied the grammar side it will be great to start from the absolute beginning.
So what have I been doing over the last 13 years you may ask?! Well, other than raising my gorgeous daughter who is now 19, many things have happened in that time. I have done an accounts qualification, and interior design qualification, nails and spray tanning (including owning my own salon for a little while), I have been an analytical chemist and done my Chemistry A’level, I have been a lettings negotiator and valuer (lister) and an estate agent! I have learnt some HTML (via my fantastic partner) and we have completed a few websites between us including our own which advertises our website design business which is based here in York, where we live. Our website is http://www.byITsizePro.co.uk and has links to the other sites we have done. I am now getting back to my real passion which is languages.
I am really looking forward to getting my head back into some language books and am eagerly awaiting the course materials arrival. Once they arrive there will be more to go on here as I intend to keep my blog updated with my progress.

Websites, seaside and VW Campers!

Kate McCarthy — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:21:01 +0000

Here it is the website we’ve been working on this week. It’s been such a great one to do and we and our client are very pleased with the end result. Because of this I wanted to put a few words on here about Felicity the VW Camper.

Ever thought of hiring a VW Camper for your holiday, I had thought about it on many many occasions (not being able to get one myself – YET! – this was the next best thing). Nearly 2 weeks ago Kevin and I went to Scarborough for the day, had a lovely day there, we went out on a cruise around the bay and on a pirate ship, had fish & chips (you can’t go to the seaside and not! – same goes for ice creams of course!). Fran and her boyfriend joined us for part of the day and came on the pirate ship with us, we were then made to go into a haunted house (which I thought would NOT be scary)….we got chased by the guy from Scream and actually ran out at the end.

The point of writing this was that walking back to the car we saw a beautiful VW Camper Van and spotted on the back that it was available for hire. I took down the website details so I could get some more information when we got home.

Pretty much as soon as we got home I went online to get some information on the VW Camper Van hire, unfortunately the website was still under construction and there was no information on there except for a mobile telephone number. I decided to text them and ask for some more information, in the text I thought it would be worth asking if they had someone working on the website. Almost immediately we got a text back saying they would post out some information and asking if we do websites as they had a friend doing it and it was taking rather a long time. Of course, I texted straight back saying that is what we do and would they like us to look at theirs the answer was yes and the rest they say is history. Felicity’s website is now online still working on the search engine optimisation side of things but it’s there and – we think – looking great!

Felicity is a 2006 Brazilian T2 bay camper converted by Danbury, she is water cooled and is the height of camping luxury. If you are interested in hiring her then please check out the website for more details including how to book. Also, more information below:

There are seat belts front and rear for 5 people and sleeps four – there is a king size bed and a double bed above with mattress if required and for extra space you can hire a 2 or four man awning. The stereo system has MP3/iPod connection so you can take all your favourite music with you on your travels. http://www.northeastvwcamperhire.com

Toad in the Hole!

Kate McCarthy — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:18:11 +0000

This afternoon I went down the garden to the vegetable plot to see if there was any sign of life yet. There most certainly was but it was far from what I expected.

While I was there inspecting the soil for seedlings I realised I was being watched – I spotted what looked like a little eye sticking out and looking up at me! I gradually moved some of the soil away to discover what looked like a frog. As I moved the soil away a little more here is what I found. Anyway, I had a good look at him and then popped him back into the soil to bury himself again.

Then later when I went out to the car to get something I stepped out of the front door and guess who was there with something to show me…..

Happy 25th Birthday .com!

Kate McCarthy — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:19:54 +0000

It is 25 years ago today that the first .com was registered. It is unlikely that anybody under the age of 20 can even remember what it was like not ot have the internet – it is an enormous part of our daily lives today.

The first .com address to be registered was symbolic.com – today there are over 80 million .com websites registered with this number constantly on the rise.

Do you remember life with out the internet? – can you imagine not having the internet? why not join our facebook discussion on this subject at: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=327684858643&topic=14537

Oscar’s Bedtime

Kate McCarthy — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:04:23 +0000

Oscar is my bearded dragon, he is 8 months old now and doing really well. He is probably around half his fully grown size and growing quite quickly – although this does seem to have slowed a little over the winter months due to him hibernating on and off for a few days at a time. He is eating really well though when awake and loves his vegetables.

Oscar loves to come out and really seems to enjoy being handled – although he prefers to run around the room at top speed, he does have a habit of forgetting to stop though when he reaches a wall or a piece of furniture! His favourite place when out is right next to the fire if it’s lit and even likes to climb the fire guard and ‘sunbathe’ there – a bit like me it can never be too hot!

He gets a little grumpy around the time he sheds and tends to show his beard at these times – sometimes he gives a little his at the same time but he can be picked up and soon calms down if given a piece of lettuce.

I will keep posting photos of Oscar on here to show how much he has grown – I will also upload one or two to show how small he was when I first got him at the end of August 2009, at that time he fit quite snugly onto my thumb now he takes up a fair bit more than my hand!

Oscar the Bearded Dragon