Potatoes for Christmas, saving rocket seeds, slug hunting and sunflower seeds

Potatoes
Going to try to grow some spuds in a container this year for winter. Have always used the excuse that I don't have enough space for potatoes, but I will give a container a go and see how I get on.
Have placed 3 healthy medium sized tubers from a shop bought bag of Wilson's garden potatoes into a cardboard egg box on the windowsill in the kitchen. When they sprout I will plant them in about 15 centimeters of compost and add a layer of compost as the foliage grows.

Rocket seeds
The rocket has gone to seed. Very quick as always, but I left it there to let the pods ripen a bit. Took them all off the stalks today and tidied that bit of the vegetable patch up. This is the seeds after I picked them.

Rocket seeds in their pods

I have put them on newspaper to dry out for a few days before I put them into a jar for storage.

That's rocket to the left and something else leafy on the right

 I have also planted a few of the rocket seeds in a pot for the windowsill. I read that they can be planted in September and should do ok. I am skeptical, but am going to give it a try anyway.
The rocket came in a packet of mixed leaves and I took pods from some of the other leaves and am saving those too. Not sure what they will come up with, but it will probably be fine to eat next summer.

The first few rocket seeds are under there

Slug hunting

We had a relatively slug free summer this year. It is very wet out today and I took a jam jar full of slugs out of the garden. Important to keep them under control and get them out before they get a chance to reproduce. I don't like using slug pellets, so I will use some of the waste beer when I am bottling next week to make some traps. 

Sunflower seeds

I only got one decent sunflower this year. Picked it today and have left it on the bench in the shed to dry. We have plenty of sunflower seeds saved from a few years ago and they germinated very well this year (the problems came with neglect following germination), so I think we will eat this years ones after roasting them. 

White yeast bread

Had some friends coming over for lunch on Sunday, so made a beef stew with red wine.
Made this loaf of bread to go along with it. I just followed the instructions on the packet of flour and it came out perfect. So much for yest bread being complicated. I egg washed the top and put some sesame seeds on there too to make it look the part. Improved the flavour too.

Herb and flower seeds in pots and the first go at tidying the border

I planted a bunch of herbs and flowers in plastic pots today.
The parsley plant that had been doing its thing well for the last couple of years finally gave up to encroaching grass. I lifted the whole tussock out with the fork. Read here that they only last about two years anyway.
Chives went in a nice earthenware pot for the kitchen windowsill. The rest went into old plastic pots, not display stuff really. I will have to get some nicer earthenware pots to cover those ones up before they are allowed into the kitchen.
Did not bother planting rosemary again. It is a waste of time. Read that the best way to propagate this is vegetatively. Just have to find someone who will let me perch a pot of compost beside their rosemary bush for a couple of weeks :-)
The sage bush is still doing fine, so no need to replant there.
The others were basil, sunflowers, coriander and dill.
Next I need to get the tomato, chard and beetroot seeds and get them planted out.
Had great success with tomatoes last year. Chard is something that we tried a couple of years ago on the advice of Jamie Oliver (not direct advice, he was on the telly!) and have not looked back. It grows like wildfire and is very nice in a lot of different dishes. Beetroot is delicious steamed with a horse radish and creme fraiche dressing and some fish. This is also a Jamie Oliver recipe.