Plaiting Garlic: it's fun, but not easy!

Last week I picked our garlic in the allotment. The bulbs were smaller than I'd hoped for, but still they were bigger than the single clove we'd planted in the autumn last year, so it felt like a small win. And I'll definitely be using them in the kitchen. 

I'd left them to dry - mud and all - in the conservatory; it gets relatively warm in there, is dry and there's often ventilation with the doors open. And they're drying out nicely.  But I needed to do something with them though so last night, as it was wet again, I decided to plait them.  

First things first, the mud and roots needed to go so crumbled the dried mud away and cut the roots with my gardeners knife. Rubbing a layer from the bulbs with my fingers to reveal mostly a glistening white papery skin was very satisfying.  

Next came plaiting. It wasn't so easy - and let's face it, I haven't plaited for a while. In the end I headed over to YouTube for some advice and got the hang, or sort of the hang of it partway through. Ah well, it's good practice for my onions, which are also on the small side. 

It's not the tidiest, but it's doing the job and now my baby garlic are hanging on the dresser in the conservatory drying some more and waiting for me to use up the shop bought stuff. I think with the size of the cloves I'll be using that shaking technique for peeling garlic which seems a lot less fiddly.  

And I'll be hoping that next year's garlic and onions are a more usual sized. I've read recently that they do well on ground that's had potatoes in, so that's where they'll be next year. I was hoping to share a video of me plaiting it, but that wasn't pretty - so here I am adding raffia so I can hang it up. Maybe we'll get to a plaiting video in a couple of years!!

Clouds, sun and branches

To say it's been gloomy so far this summer would be an understatement.  There's been glimpses of sun though, it's just been a matter of being able to take advantage of it when it appears hasn't it? 

I took this shot in our back garden looking through one of our trees towards the sun, most probably willing it to come out from behind the clouds!  I quite like its black and white effect, the laciness of the trees contrasting with the obvious brightness of the sun.

It's been a while since I've posted a photo on Sundays, and it's a habit I'm hoping to continue.

Planning some digital magazine reading with Readly

On Sunday I'm providing support vehicle services for MOH while he completes a 100 mile cycle around Essex. The ride starts near Kelvedon Hatch, which has a secret nuclear bunker - well perhaps not that secret as it's got a website.  But anyway, he needs to start by 9am and has to finish by 5pm when the course closes.

So that means an early start as we're easily an hour away from the start line, and of course the bike won't strap itself to the car beforehand. The weather forecast isn't looking great, it's much the same as now, so you see what I mean.

It also means a day hanging around in Essex for me and MOH has helpfully been sending me websites to things I might do, including the secret nuclear bunker and local National Trust properties. In all fairness it's likely I might do some of that, maybe even the secret nuclear bunker. I think he really wants to do that, but we'll see...

I am of course, capable of planning my own day and you'll not be surprised to know I've already had some ideas. You're right I could take my own bike and pootle about nearby, but as I can't get it back on the car myself it then becomes a bit of a liability. And if it rains, well there's no point being out in it if you don't need to be is there?

So I have other, more sedate plans.

I've recently re-discovered Readly, a digital way to read magazines. And well, you know how much I like magazines. So I thought I'd plan some reading for my day using the app, downloading magazines in advance (as I'm not sure what wifi access I'll have) that would be broadly supportive of MOH's activities. Bear with me, I did say broadly!

Stocking up on local information

I thought I might start my day of reading about the local area, so I've downloaded the July edition of Essex Life. If I was visiting almost any other county, I could download their magazine too, or more generally Country Life, or perhaps Country Living. Actually I'm going to download those too, as I do like Country Life and Country Living sounds an interesting read.

Upping my cycling game

So having discovered the local information perhaps I should be sympathetic to MOH's 100 mile challenge. To show support I could have a read of August's edition of Cycle Sport, which interestingly has an article on the Tour of California. We're hoping to go to the States next year and I wondered how easy it would be to get my cycling holiday fix in. Maybe I'll find out.  

Or there's Cycling Weekly I could try, but that sounds a bit of a commitment to keep, and might be above my more social cycling. I'm not sure many of the bikes featured in either of these magazines will have wicker baskets. Clearly in my opinion that's wrong and I'd love one day to do one of these sportives on my own bike, just to show them how wrong they are. I have to be a bit better before I actually sign up, until then I'll do some cycle reading.

Getting into the homes and garden mood

As part of my day will most likely be visiting at least one of the local National Trust properties, something like Period Homes & Interiors and Gardeners World would get me into the right mood. Or perhaps The English Garden whose July edition has a feature on the Romance of the Rose, which was by chance the flower of our recent holiday in the Loire Valley.

And if I'm feeling peckish

Well I'll need food at some point won't I? But I'm not sure quite when I should be reading the food magazines as I don't want to make myself hungry. There's plenty of favourites to choose from in this category including Good Food and Olive which I have paper subscriptions too. Or I could flick through Sainsbury's magazine or Eat in, or I could get tips and inspiration for the allotment in Grow your own.  Although most likely I'll be reading about all the things I should be doing, it seems we play catch up on our plot!

And if I've time

I could catch up with a flick through my favourite "women's interest" magazines like Prima, Woman & Home, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, oh boy how my tastes have changed!

By now I'm sure you've realised that there's plenty of choice in Readly, so let me tell you more about it. It's tagline is the ultimate magazine subscription and it offers unlimited access to over 1500 top titles and you can read as much as you like for just £7.99 a month.

It's a great way to trial new titles and magazines outside of your more normal genre. I mean, it's highly unlikely that I'll ever buy a paper version of a cycling magazine, but I'll be giving Cycle Sport a go on Sunday.  And yoyu can share your subscription with family on up to five devices - how great is that?

As I mentioned before I've used Readly, a good few years ago, so I was keen to see what had changed and the new titles it had. I've been impressed with it all over again, and I think being able to share a subscription with your family is fantastic. And if you're wondering why I stopped using it, my full time job and life took over and for me, it became the gym subscription I never used. I'm looking foward to sticking my nose in it again. It'd be fab to have you along too!

What do you like to read magazine-wise?  Is it already on Readly?

This is a collaborative post with Readly, but all opinions are my own.