I decided this morning to hand wash some of the lace I had bought a while ago. It was a hot sunny day again, with a little breeze coming up from the valley, so a good day to hang out washing. And no, these white bits dangling from the line looking like ancient mummy wrappings are not the monsters of the post title, lol, they are sweet crochet laces and beautifully hand stitched broderie anglaise -
A little while ago we had a couple of days with a goodly amount of rain. The last few days have been really hot again, temps in the mid/high 30s. So last night I decided to water the veggie patch as the forecast for today was hot hot hot. All went well for a half hour or so while I watered the tomatoes, the beans, the cavolo nero.......... and then I got to the yellow courgette. Good grief, I almost fainted when I saw those courgettes, they were monsters! Three days ago, when I checked, they were dinky little yellow courgettes, last night, they were giants, monstrous giants -
Bigger than my beautiful Sussex trugg, longer than my hand and forearm together, and weighing an absolute ton. How could that have happened in three days?
I was going to use a yellow courgette for tonight's roasted vegetables dinner,
but I picked a small one for that, lol, these giants were just too big. They'll be in a big pot of vegetable soup tomorrow with leeks and onions and chilis, and sprinkled with crispy fried lardons ( bacon bits ).
Off to bed now, its almost midnight and I am so tired, but I had to finish listing a few things in my Etsy shop and showing them on the vintageland blog.
Toodlepip xxx
Here we are again, at the cottage in France. We got back on the weekend, but since then it has been a whirlwind of activity. I couldn't believe how much the veggies had grown in the ten days we were away! All thanks to my very dear friend Christine, who watered them for us. I got to post pics of the veggie patch, lol, I am so pleased with the progress of my little plants -
The potatoes on the right, an English variety, have gone crazy, the plants are huge!
Next to the potatoes, in front as you look at them in this pic, are the tomatoes -
Tiny toms are beginning to appear. This is my favourite variety, a very old one called Andine Cornue -
In front of the tomatoes, from right to left, are bush beans, red onions and the big plants on the left are round courgettes. The smaller ones at the bottom of the pic are another variety of courgettes-
The flowers on the round courgette plants -
See those little round things? Those will grow into big round things, lol-
Chili peppers -
My wonderful DH, who spent many hours digging the veggie patch, looking at the rainbow beetroot plants right in front of him -
From the left - broad beans, then peas, then climbing beans and right behind DH a small row of mange tout -
Peas are flowering-
Broad beans are flowering -
Even the potatoes are flowering, lol. The flowers are so pretty, darned shame though that they all got eaten by the crickets and grasshoppers -
We wanted to plant more things, so had to dig another small patch on the other side as well -
The two vines we have are already full of grapes, tiny still, but getting bigger every day -
A different variety of potatoes, planted just before we went back to England, coming along nicely -
And another view, towards the cottage of the bigger veggie patch -
Well, the veggies might not be ready for harvesting yet, but the soft fruit is! I picked whitecurrants, blackcurrants and raspberries. Didn't have any strawberries or cherries,with so I bought a few cherries in order to make a SUMMER PUDDING, yay! A very simple English dessert -
The last pic fits in with this domestic post as well. The theme over at the Our Beautiful World blog this week is MAIL. This is our little French mail box -
Tomorrow it will be back to crafty stuff. I have some wonderful ATCs to show you!
Toodlepip xxx
