Sprouts day 1

The beans have been soaked overnight and then drained of excess water and the cloth lid put on held in place with the rubber band. They need to stay wet but not too wet. They grow fine in sunny or dull conditions. They are in a conservatory at the moment but they grew fine in the old house on a north facing window.

They are already starting to grow as you can see below.

Growing Beansprouts

I decided to do a tutorial about growing beansprouts. They are dead easy, cheap and nutritious. Chuck them in stirfries, rice dishes, anything you can think of. And they will taste a damn sight better than the limp things you find in supermarkets.

So all you need is:
A large jar - I use a gherkin jar that use to hold about a kilo and a half of the horrible things. Be sure to wash the label off as much as you can so that as much light can get in as possible.
A cleaning cloth - this keeps most of the water in that jar while being able to circulate air
A rubber band - that will fit round the top of jar snugly
Sprouting beans - I generally use Mung but hunt around your local health food shop as different beans have different flavors.
Next door's kitty - non essential.

To start off soak some beans on water for 12 hours. This washes out the enzyme that stops them from growing. Other types of beans may take different times. I've been experimenting with the amount of beans to use and this time I've decided to use 20g. That may not sound like a lot but I used 80g last time and had to move half to another jar and then ended up with two jar fulls that I didn't have the capacity to use. Also they need the space to grow or they start growing leaves and roots before the sprout is big enough to eat. These are so economical to grow. I found the cheapest place for mung beans was at my local market where 500g was £1.18. That's a lot of sprouts.

I will be documenting the growth of the sprouts each day and in 4ish days there should be lovely sprouts ready to eat.

Craft-a-go-go!

I started to make some sheepy key rings yesterday. As with most things I did it to avoid doing something else, yesterday I was avoiding helping make tea (Or dinner or what ever you want to call it.) So anyway I've got something started and that's great!. I also felted my knitting the other day which turned out to be rubbish as far as making a bag was concerned but fantastic for having some felt to cut into bits and bobs. I think I'm going to make some cloud badges or something. I've also found where my local bead shop has been hiding, it disappeared from its usual place in the market and has turned up in a pretty little shop.

I've been job hunting recently which is going pretty awful. I have another interview on Monday for a job at a hardware shop. I don't want to job but I'll take it because there isn't much better.

Hopefully I will be able to set up my etsy shop and sell some crafty goodness. I keep meaning to go and buy some bits of wood that I can stretch some canvases and paint to my hearts content. However the weather keeps stopping me. If it isn't baking hot its thunder and lightning!

A Broken Break

I've had an involentary break from the internet for the past week or so becasue I happened to underestimate the stupidity of my internet service provider. Well after many £££'s spent ringing call centres its fixed. Pheew!

Anyway the move went smoothly enough and I'm just about starting to get back to crafting hopefully lots of interesting updates.