expensive is not always best

i gave a fair few lettuce,tomato and brussels plants away a while ago,i may have to again as my icebergs are getting much bigger:gnthb:

don't mention wilkinsons to me...everytime i go in there i get robbed lol

 

The only problem I tend to find with really cheap plants ..... is that in my head they are sooo cheap I just have to have them. Leaves me with the problem of where I am finding space to put them though :hehe:

Tools I would agree, you cant skimp on these. Other half is an electrician and adds to his tools almost every week. Before I met him, I just brought what was cheapest but he has shown me that good tools not only last longer but do the job much better.

However, kids PE shorts for example - not worth buying the best as one child seems to forget to put them back in his bag afterwards .... and I aint too fussed in providing something that lasts a long time to whoever then takes them

Another thing (while im on a rant!) ..... bread. I have no problem paying £1.60 odd for a nice cut fresh loaf from the bakers for sandwhiches. For toast though ...... will not pay more than about 40p a loaf for shops own make cheap bread. I personally think it makes nicer toast as its a bit harder (if you know what I mean) and when the kids eat two loaves of bread purely for toast a day ..... well they aint getting the best, sorry :hehe:

The poundshop is a weakness of mine though ....... well what else can you do with a pound these days :hehe:

 

Hi Andy .... nice to meet another local (ish) :gnthb:

 

"For toast though ...... will not pay more than about 40p a loaf for shops own make cheap bread."

There is a school of thought that the way that price has been achieved may have some health side effects.

I don't know the full details, but I think its along these lines (needs corroboration if accurate facts are important to anyone :thumb

In the '60 milling of Wheat using metal rollers replaced stone grinding.

This changed the nature of the gluten in the process, and it was found that the new flour combined with vigorous beating during to knead the dough reduced the time required to prove the dough. They also had to increase the amount of yeast used.

This reduced the cost to manufacture a loaf (substantially IIRC).

However, there has been a noticeable increase in irritable bowel and a Coeliac's disease since the'60s, and (again IIRC) the milling and kneading processes have been found causative.

 

I can see where you are coming from Kristen. Being born in 1974 though, I doubt I have eaten much/if any of the bread the way they used to make it.

I do know though that I would rather them eat this than crisps, chocolate bars and pot noodles when they get home from school.

I think if we looked into what a lot of food contained or how it was made, then we would ban our children from it completely. However, hungry teenagers would far rather live on junk that eat anything thats good for them ..... I am sure its not just my lot.

 

"I think if we looked into what a lot of food contained or how it was made, then we would ban our children from it completely"

Very true, and I had intended to allude to that in my post. Now, what was I saying again? :hehe:

We have a bread making machine, and are choosy about the flour we use. Both my wife and her father had some form of undiagnosed prolonged stomach pain (more roughage was prescribed which, with the benefit of hindsight, was entirely the wrong solution!) and that has cleared up since they have avoided shop-bought bread. They found that the bread in France didn't upset them, and deduced that the bread here which, unlike the French bread, keeps "fresh" for ages must contain something that was upsetting them. Improvers, whitening agent, preservatives ... or perhaps the manufacturing process. Anyway, home baked bread is much better IMHO - only downside is that its far more tempting too

 

Much more tempting Kristen. I too had something wrong with the ol' canalworks and found that by eating a lot less flour based products it has cleared itself up miraculously well. I seem to rememebr my Nan saying something about her not using yeast to make bread-can't be sure though.

 

Stone-ground flower still available ... dunno if that is a cure though

 

Yeah it's a trailing plant. I have it on a dry bank by the pond, but it would probably be good for baskets too. Masses and masses of pink flowers, lush foliage, and has been flowering for about 3 months already.

I had never heard of it when I bought it - had to look it up to find out what it was. That's my favourite way of buying plants actually.

 

HI SAM1974X. the shrubs i planted named as follows>FUCHSIAS,
HYDRANGEA,BLUE AND PINK, DAHLIAS , HOSTAS.but since my
last post i have found out ,that a burn used to run through the bottom of my garden.the burn has been diverted for a great number of years.this may have something to do with the soil/clay.
the roses are going (GREAT GUNS!!) so i will stick with the roses.
they seem to be thriving in the conditions. thank you. :yho::dh: MUSIC.

 

HI JAZMINE. i was on line to one of the so called ,
(CREME DE LA CREME) garden centres a couple of nights ago.
saw a lovely (ROSE)! price £14.95!!, pass. amongst the roses i purchased from POUNDSTRETCHER,was a rose called,
PEER GYNT,absolutely first class rose. cost £1.50!!. the garden centres must be making a fortune. the laugh i got at the last garden centre ,i visited was (A BOX OF STONES!) for your garden
water feature £15.00 ,a box!.you could go to your local beach and
collect them for nothing!!. i think thats where they got them.

 

Its illegal round here to take the stones or sand from the beaches ,
out in Swansea Bay there are dredgers but i think they are restricted to how much sand/stone/gravel
its all to do with erosion

 

:yho:

was on a beach near ARBROATH,(THE LAND OF THE SMOKIES),last year.
it was ,whats remaining , of a thriving community,of years gone bye.
the way down to the beach was very very steep.a rusted broken hand rail was our only way of holding our balance,as the steps down were also broken with age and weather. it was a cove, high cliffs rolling down to the beach,with caves dotted at the bottom of the cliffs.the beach was not sand,but stones worn with the sea, for who knows how many years. when the waves rolled in ,it brought in more stones ,and laid them on the beach.on the ebb the waves would take the stones back out again ,and this continued all the time.this continuous ebb and flow polished the stones and they had fantastic grains,of colour running through them.i cannot remember the name of the cove, but will let you know (when i remember!) one more thing i remember was
when you closed your eyes and just listened to the sound of the stones coming in with
the tide ,and dropping onto the existing beach was, ( FANTASTIC).
(THE KIDS PICKED A FEW OF THERE FAVOURITE STONES !) AND SO DID I!!.:yho:

 

Every body picks up a few i have some from various beaches round the world, but a neighbour of mine makes cement slabs for his garden and he gets all his sand from local beaches , i know hes been told off by people on a couple

 

"Every body picks up a few i have some from various beaches round the world"

Well, at the risk of being told I am a "prude" we don't allow our kids to pick up shells from beaches - simply because most of the beaches we have been to have signs saying "You are not allowed to take shells from this beach" - and if many don't allow it, those that do are, presumably, liable to suffer if all folk do help themselves.