Oh my, I have been so slack with this blogging
malarkey!
So,
apologies, I am still here honestly, I have just been a tad busy lately what with friends, family and work and also:
Gardening
The garden is now winding down for
autumn but we have had a fantastic crop of sweetcorn and runner beans and the chard is still going strong. Most of the tomatoes stayed green and we didn't get many, only about 4lbs. So I made green tomato chutney with the green ones and we have eaten the red ones all up....
mmmmm yummy.
Unfortunately the squash never got round to making any squash, not sure what that was all about. There are five plants, loads of leaves, loads of flowers and NO squash!
humph! if anyone out there has any ideas on what we did wrong I would love to know as I want to try
again next year. The courgettes on the other hand... well they made up for the distinct lack of squash by pumping out loads and they are still going strong with little ones still. I suppose they will keep on
courgetting (hey, new word!) up until we get a frost?
I also got a second row of chard and one of beetroot in and a row of
pak choi. The carrots and the first row of beetroot need to come up over the following few weeks so I'm looking forward to that.
On the flower front, the sunflowers have been lovely, all happy and cheery as they look out over the garden wall at passersby. I will
definitely be growing them again next year.
Also, great news, our Parish is going to get some allotments; so exciting as we currently don't have any. The Chairman said that "land has been identified" and "negotiations are ongoing" so hopefully there will be space for
little'ol me to have, maybe, 1/2 an allotment to start with? Then I can grow DH loads of sweetcorn....he likes that idea,
lol:-
Cooking and Brewing
Lots of cooking has been
occurring as well. Well, with all the courgettes, sweetcorn and beans! So, as well as the green tomato chutney, mentioned above, I have also made more onion
marmalade, some
courgette salsa and a load of blackberry & elderberry wine.
The onion
marmalade and salsa went down very well with our lovely friends from Devon who we went and spent a weekend with during September. If fact the salsa is so good that out of the six 2 pint jars I made we have only one unopened jar left which tells me that I must plant more courgettes next year!
The wine should be ready for the Solstice Dinner Party and should make
approximately eighteen bottles, not that we will be drinking it ALL that evening you understand!. It has calmed down now as it has been in the demijohns for about one month. Prior to that it was
exceptionally lively so it was just as well it was in the brewing bucket! otherwise it would have been all over the kitchen floor like a pink monster! Mind you it made the kitchen smell lovely:-). It will need racking soon to
separate it from the sediment that is forming at the bottom of the
demis, probably next weekend? we'll see.
Knitting
Well, not much knitting has been happening although when I went up to stay with my folks in September I did take my latest knitting project -
The Thrifty Knitters Woodland Shawl, which I am knitting in Olive Grove from the wonderful
Yaffle Yarn (created by the supremely talented Ali).
While I was there my mum took a shine to my Garter Yoke Cardigan so we bought the pattern online and went to her
LYS where she picked out a contrasting yarn to make the yoke as she already had some lovely yarn for the rest of the
cardy. For me, well, being in a yarn store was just too much of a
temptation so.....I bought some green
aran so that I can knit another
GYC for myself.
Photography
On the photography front, in order to try to get to grips with the finer
attributes of my
DSLR and achieve a level of bravery that means that I can take pictures without the auto functions I have been going to photography evening classes (although they don't call them that anymore). It's been fun, and I'm learning stuff! so I am hoping that my skills will improve and you may (or may not!) notice a difference,
lol!
So
that's kind of what I have been up to lately. Ill be back in a bit, honest! take care and love to you all, Em:-)
