'Grow Your Own' with Poundland

If you like the idea of growing your own produce or getting out in the garden, but don't want to spend a fortune, then Poundland has the ideal range for you.  They stock a variety of seeds, pots, fertiliser, garden ornaments, bulbs, gloves, tools, solar lights, hanging baskets and compost all at just £1 each giving every green fingered gardener a selection of great items at bargain prices.

We were sent an assortment of the items to try out and were particularly excited about the idea of growing our own potatoes using the canvas potato planter, the Organic Potato Fertilser, the potting soil and the Maris Piper seed potatoes.  We don't have any room for a vegetable plot in our garden so growing things in tubs and planters works really well for us.  I really hope hope we get a good crop of spuds later this year so the children can get to eat the produce they have planted up themselves.  We also planted up Rocket, Herbs and Strawberries, as well as Sunflowers and Dahlias.  Fingers crossed for a bumper harvest!!

Kizzy and Freddy enjoyed helping their dad in the garden during the glorious Bank Holiday weekend.  Gardening with kids is a great outdoor activity where they can learn about science and nature and get their hands dirty!

I was really impressed with some of the sets of seeds such as the Nice and Spicy Collection that included four types of chilli, pepper, coriander, basil. mustard greens and oriental spicy leaf seeds.  Excellent value at just £1 and an amazing collection of spicy ingredients to use in the kitchen.  The 10 litres of potting soil comes in a small pack which becomes reconstituted to its original volume by the addition of water.  This makes it easy to buy in store and carry home.  The herb seed discs make it very easy to grow your own herbs such as Parsley, Basil and Chives in pots. 

Check out the gardening range in store at your local Poundland and you could be growing your own for just a few quid!!

Quorn Enchiladas Recipe

Our homemade Quorn Enchilada recipe is a favourite with my family.  It is an evolving recipe that has been adapted over the years.  When I received a selection of Gourmet Garden herb and spice tubes, I was excited to put them to work in my recipe to add the benefit of the fresh purees to flavour my filling!

Filling Ingredients

2 sliced onions

3 teaspn Gourmet Garden Garlic

1 teaspn Gourmet Garden Chilli

1 teaspn Gourmet Garden Coriander

150g sliced mushrooms

1 pack Quorn pieces

1 head of cooked fresh broccoli cut into florets

1 can of pinto beans

Sauce Ingredients

Small carton chopped tomatoes

1 teaspn Gourmet Garden Chilli

2 teaspn Gourmet Garden Garlic

small carton of single cream

1 egg

Plus

8 Corn Tortilla Wraps

Mexicana cheese to top

Method

Fry the onion.  

Add Gourmet Garden chilli and garlic and fry for 3 minutes.

Add sliced mushrooms and Quorn pieces.

Add the brocolli florets and pinto beans.

Cook until everything is soft and cooked down.

Meanwhile put tomatoes and Gourmet Garden chilli and garlic in a saucepan.

Heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Allow to cool slightly and add cream.

Beat in egg.

Fill the wraps and roll up.

Place into ovenproof dish.

Pour over sauce.

Top with grated Mexicana cheese.

Cook in a pre-heated oven at GM 6 for 20-25 minutes until bubbling and golden brown.

Serve with creme fraiche and refried beans.

Gardening and the Joys of Growing-Your-Own!

I have never been the most green fingered person in the world, but I do try hard when it comes to gardening.  It isn't through want of trying that I fail to have an amazing and well stocked garden.  I fantasize about having a garden with an orchard growing apples, plums and pears.  I imagine myself making delicious pies and crumbles using my home grown fruit.  I'd love rows of carrots and onions and potatoes, giving my family the freshest possible veggies.  A greenhouse growing fresh chillis and vine tomatoes would keep us in homemade salsa all year.  Embracing the concept of 'grow your own' would be a wonderful way to live a more sustainable existence in this modern world.

When I was growing up, we lived in a house with a huge garden.  I didn't appreciate it at the time, nor did I realise how amazing it was that my dad grew all his own vegetables.  Row upon row of plants tied up to bamboo canes, tethered using a leg from a pair of my mum's old tights stood in a regimental fashion over three quarters of our garden.  As a child I remember longing for beds of beautiful, bright flowers, but my dad's ethos was if you couldn't eat it, he wouldn't grow it!  I recall helping him harvest peas, beans, rhubarb, strawberries, tomatoes, cabbages, onions and my own personal favourite, purple sprouting broccoli!  In hindsight it seems quite idyllic and I'm sure even during times of austerity it meant we always had food on our table.

The reality of gardening for me is however a very different story.  We moved into a brand new house, and although our home is lovely, we had to compromise on the garden.  It is a very uniform square plot with high fences on every side.  The sunlight doesn't reach into all the corners and the soil is very poor.  In fact, the layer of top soil is so thin you can see the rubble left over from when they were building the estate through the turf.  It is not a great garden, but I was not going to let it dampen my determination to grow my own!

Last year my gardening project got under way  and with the children's help we set out to make a potted herb garden.  Using troughs and terracotta pots, we planted up Parsley, Basil, Chives, Oregano and Mint from seed.  We also sowed an array of fabulous sounding salad leaves in a gro-bag.  We tended our seedlings and watered them everyday. We were very proud of our work and quickly we began to see the pots fill up with the aromatic plants.

Snipping our first handful of chives was a real revelation!  Picking a baby salad leaf and eating it fresh from the soil was more exciting than it really should have been.  We had worked with what he had and were reaping the reward of having some wonderful ingredients ready to use straight from our garden.

The end of this tale is sadly not a happy one.  One day a few weeks ago high winds battered our garden causing the next door neighbour's six foot fence panel to crash over, crushing and smashing our herb garden.  My foray into growing-my-own was over.  However, all was not lost.  As I look forward to the time when I move to a new house, the garden will be a big consideration.  A little sunny space with fertile soil to grow some plants is now a definite priority!

Image from Love the Garden.com

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