Can't tell your Seedlings from your Weedlings? 
Useful information from Real Seeds https://realseeds.co.uk/seedlinggallery.html

I like chickpea hummus - so versatile for spreading on toast, eating with salad or as a dip with vegetables.
The recipe usually requires Tahini but they didn't have any in Lidl so I asked the Duck for an alternative recipe. 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/easy_hummus_96922
This recipe uses smooth peanut butter instead of tahini and, as luck would have it, I was given a jar of that recently. I only buy Whole Earth Crunchy PB so the smooth stuff was going to be used for satay sauce and not eaten. 
Anyway, back to the recipe, which claims not to need a blender and can be made with a potato masher instead. Don't believe it! Either my tin of chickpeas were incredibly hard or my mashing power needed a bit more welly. I couldn't be faffed to resurrect the Kenwood from the top shelf so I used one of those stick blenders instead. Once I added the water and lemon juice, the chickpeas started to blend, before that they were flying everywhere and clogging the stick thingy. 
The verdict - looks and tastes good, not as gloopy as shop bought hummus but at least I know what's in it and, all the ingredients were FREE.

I've mentioned Dr Michael Greger before, when I was doing Veganuary in January. He's a nutritionist and has written several books that  intrigue me - although I'm too mean to buy them. There's "How Not to Die", "How Not to Diet" and "How Not to Age". Basically he recommends  "A Daily Dozen" of foods to be eaten to be healthy. https://veganuary.com/wp-content/uploads...t-2021.pdf Portion sizes at https://veganuary.com/dr-gregers-daily-dozen-checklist/
I've been dabbling with this list since January but I rarely manage to incorporate everything in my daily eating - because I forget something! 
My plan is to build a new habit every week, concentrating on just one item on the Daily Dozen List. Some are harder than others so I'm going to start with the simple ones, starting tomorrow. 

First challenge - to eat Berries every day. 

Berries are versatile foods you can enjoy fresh, frozen, blended, dried or straight from the pack.
They’re also the healthiest fruits. Colourful foods are often healthier because they contain antioxidant pigments. The colours are the antioxidants, which means red onions have more than white, red grapes have more than green, red apples have more than green, etc.
Include plenty of acai berries, barberries, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, goji berries, raspberries and strawberries in your diet.
Serving sizes:

• 60g fresh or frozen – (3 tbsp)
  
  
• 40g dried – (1 generous handful)
  

My living room window faces Northeast. I need a couple of smallish plants for the windowsill. They could be either foliage or flowwring plants. I had a mother-in-laws-tongue whisch is supposd to be 'bombproof'..........and it died. Same with another foliage plant.

Any ideas folks?

I haven't done hanging baskets for years.... but my Step Dad has requested some, he doesnt ask for much so I want to do a good job. 
BUT he isnt good at dead heading  and he wants them to look as good as those down the road -
What would you put in? I dont really want to spend a fortune...

Just in case any of you are members of the GW Forum, I've just seen that its closing down tomorrow! https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussions.
As they say "Another one bites the dust!".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68664644

I have to admit that when I saw the censored photo I thought AT's trouser's must be unzipped. 

I’m going to bore you all silly with the growing of cockscomb plants again this year.

It’s starting very well with incredibly quick germination. Only 4 days for my self saved Bombay bronze and 5 days for crystal beauty.

I’ve sown a lot more this year. I may have got carried away!

   

 I’ll do a little experimenting with the Bombay bronze as I have so many. I’m going to pinch a couple out again even though I know that’s not what you’re supposed to do. Because one the plants I did that to last year. Produced some stunning stem for my jam jar bunches. But the other really did nothing. So I’ll have another go this year with a couple of them. I’m also going to plant a few of them close together. And a couple in their own pots.

Share your delight at picking your first ******* of the year. 
Earlier years for comparison at https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.php?tid=1858

Since there's a lot of seed sowing going on, its time for an Announcement.

Any commercial seeds (part or full packets) with a sow by date  of 2023 or later, accepted. Also, saved seeds that weren't in the recent swap.
Seeds to be sent to me before 14th April and sent back during April so that there's still time to sow them.
As before, if you send in 20 packets (all different) you'll receive 20 random packets back.  Just an example, you can send in however many you like and I'll try to send the same number back - no guarantees though if you send lots!
Put your names on the packets so that they're not sent back to you. 
Seal opened packets well - I hate it when an envelope contains loose, unidentifiable seeds (they go to a random patch somewhere in the garden).

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