The Good Life...

..if you don't count Saturday standing out on the allotment in torrential rain picking raspberries for tea. We feel very Tom and Barbarish these past few weeks. We have been almost self sufficient in fruit and veg (we don't intend keeping any pigs). ..we have had peas, beans, beetroot, radish, lettuce, courgettes,cucumbers, tomatoes, red cabbage, gooseberries by the thousand, strawberries, blackcurrants and now, our Autumn bliss raspberries. So, it will be back to making jam in the next few days as our nephew has a partiality for raspberry jam. We are also going to be digging up our Red Desiree potatoes and the corn is coming along nicely, must be our scarecrow, Zak watching over them. Then later we shall have our very own plums, apples, swedes, parsnips, onions and leeks and perpetual spinach which we have just planted out. We have also risked a second crop of peas which are almost mature and Reg from further down the Hill says that they will more than likely mature before the first frosts and they will be o.k. As he has won firsts for so many of his beautiful veg, we believe him. Yes it is the good life if you don't count the pesky slugs.

Pond - ering

After walking to our plot yesterday afternoon and seeing squashed dead frogs on the driveway, I decided to do my bit and have a good look round for something I can use for a little tiny wildlife pond on our plot. John of number one plot, said a little washing up bowl or the like would do plus a few plants to keep the water clean and clear which I could have from him and, as we all know, frogs too. I fancy the odd newt though or something like. I have seen the said newt at the back of our plot under our greenhouse when I moved an old damp brick, he may just need a home. I haven't found the perfect pond yet but I know Hall's Garden centre have a real good variety of tiny ones. I love the one in the picture don't know where to get it from yet. I have a new quest!

a nice little haul

We had a lovely surprise when we started harvesting today we came home with a basket full of tomatoes, cucumber, beans ,red cabbage, a few raspberries that we hadn’t eaten on the way round and of course, yes you’ve guessed, courgettes. Alison on the front of our plot asked us to pick what was ready on her patch while she is away and so we had a second crop of beans, great they are a different variety to ours, thanks Alison. Julie was hidden in her fruit cage picking red gooseberries which we sampled and they were sweet and a lovely flavour and they didn’t make you run about sucking in your cheeks either! We also ran into JB, plot number one and his granddaughters and all had a chat about the show this Sunday which was nice. He was also trying to off load frogs today, he has a glut...so if anybody should need any you know where to go!! Well, now we are home and I need to do something with the red cabbage, which weighed in stripped down at 5lbs. I shall braise it with apples, onions and sultanas ready to go with those autumn casseroles, with the next one I shall probably do pickled red cabbage and there will be one for my friend Cara who loves them. Tonight I think we shall make a tomato, courgette, onion and basil sauce to go with pasta for tea and tomorrow we shall have beans with - well everything there seems to be more than I thought...

P.S Molly is also having courgettes for tea as I notice Felix has put some in their with their salmon packets