In and around the garden

Although the plants need rain some of them also need sun, especially the tomatoes and plums.  We've had a few tomatoes from the greenhouse but they still need to ripen more.  The 'spares' which have been left outside are still green.

There are three varieties of tomatoes above - Santa Mama, Gardener's Delight and Roma.  There was also a small crop of French beans.

The plum tree has lots of plums this year and one or two look as if they are going to ripen, perhaps next week we will have a little more sun to help them.

Potatoes haven't done as well as hoped the crop below are a variety called Acoustic

Lots of flowers in the garden at the moment although they are being battered by the wind and rain.

There were a few sunnier late afternoons and evenings this week and bees and butterflies appeared later in the day.

One afternoon I was visited by a Comma butterfly.   It settled on my back.

It flew away after a short while but then it returned and settled on my shoulder.  Perhaps it  liked the colour of my blouse or perhaps I was standing in the sun and it wanted to be where it was warm.  Perhaps I was a handy stop along its flight path.

 

On a recent walk I spotted a dragonfly on the ground in front of me. Luckily I had my camera ready so I was able to take a photo before it flew further down the path and then skimmed back over the lake.

 

Is it a Black-tailed skimmer?  I know one or two of you are more knowlegable about wildlife than I am so please let me know if I am wrong. I got the ID from a Wildlife Trust site.

 

All for now.

Plums, Books and Butterflies

All the plums have been harvested from both trees.  The larger Victoria plum tree and the smaller one which produces yellow plums that have a beautiful fragrance but don't taste as sweet and sharp as the red ones.

We've had more fruits than we expected so some have had to be prepared and frozen.  Others will make jam and crumbles.

 

Two more punnets over the weekend were definitely the last.

We have plenty of empty jars for jam making.

Above four books I've enjoyed reading recently.  All very different.  I loved The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain which was recommended by a friend.  It's a short, sweet and satisfying read which I needed as I was getting bogged down by a few of the books I'd chosen and couldn't finish reading some of them.  I loved all the characters and the setting in Acts and Omissions by Catherine Fox and will read the other two books in the trilogy later this year.  I also enjoyed Two Women in Rome by Elizabeth Buchan.  It certainly isn't as 'happy' as the other two but the mystery is intriguing.  Rewild your Garden by Frances Tophill is an interesting and useful book you can go back to and dip into many times. The illustrations are lovely too.

At present I'm reading the book above and according to my Kindle I'm 20% of the way through it.  It's a very long book but I'm determined to work my way to the end especially as I also have three books reserved at the library all newly or about to be published.

1979 by Val McDermid - I'm number seven in the queue
The Heron's Cry by Ann Cleeves - number ten in the queue and The Stone Chamber by Kate Ellis - number three in the queue

I hope they don't all come at once, I expect it depends on how quickly people read them from when they first become available.

The warmer, sunnier weather last week brought the larger butterflies into the garden.  Also two dragonflies which flew around a bit but didn't settle.  Just glimpses as they wizzed by showed one had a green body and one a red body.  It seems ages since we've seen dragonflies which have settled for long enough to be identified let alone photographed.

The Echinacias have been popular with both butterflies and bees.

Although one of the Red Admirals preferred the Hydrangeas.

Whilst one of the Tortoiseshells liked the Zinnias.

Five Things in the Garden

Friday again already.  I seem to have spent the last week drifiting along in a dream like state.  The heat having slowed me down to almost a standstill.  Sleep deprivation hasn't helped.  I have managed to read a few books (when I wasn't falling asleep over them) and I did struggle through ironing early one morning.  Today is slightly cooler, rain is expected over the weekend and we and the garden are ready for it. 

Anyway, here are five things from the garden.

1.  A New Shed has been installed.

Not by me I just watched the worker from under the shade of the gazebo.  It took three or four days from start to finish.  the hardest part was laying the concrete floor.

 2.  A Water Lily has appeared

I spotted it this morning, the photo above I took around 9a.m.

By 11.30a.m. it had opened up its petals.  Earlier this year we had to take quite a large chunk of the lily out of the pond as it had taken over.  Several pieces were saved in buckets of water and they are now happily ensconsed in their new home in a friend's ponds.  I hope they will develop flowers too.

3.  Pink Roses

They have been wonderful this year.  They seem to like this hot weather.  I've been dead heading them every so often.  This rose bush was here when we moved in over twenty years ago and has been moved several times.  I've no idea what variety it is.

4.  Garden Fruit and berries

Time for Gooseberries, the Strawberries have all but finished and the plums need to grow and ripen.  Time to make a gooseberry crumble.

 

Berries on the Amelanchier tree, the birds love them especially the wood pigeons and blackbirds.  The wood pigeons fly onto the tree and then there is a great deal of wing flapping as the branches sway up and down under their weight.
 

5.  Other flowers in the garden.

Take care.

On Friday

A week of staying local, staying around home, only venturing out to the local shop when needed for fresh goods like milk, yoghurts, fruit and vegetables.  Also to the library to collect books, an appointment at the optician and a couple of walks in quiet places. 

 Friday has come around so quickly again so below are five things from this week.

1.  The first rhubarb from the garden turned into a crumble and served with our favoruite rhubarb yoghurt. 

2.  Also in the garden the first signs of Lungwort, Wild Garlic, Bluebells and White Windflower.

 

3.  Iris and crocus at Trentham, we went early one morning to walk around the lake whilst it was quiet and ventured up into the gardens to look at the spring flowers.

4.  Library Books.  One read - the latest Louise Penny, one being read - the latest Kate Ellis Wesley Peterson novel.  The other two to be read.  I've been reading books on Kindle so it's good to get back to real books although I did struggle a bit with the print size of the Louise Penny novel.

5.  A few treats, a Sunday breakfast of orange juice, croissants and coffee.  A bowl of crisp, sweet red apples and a homemade cottage loaf made to an old recipe for Paul's bread website.  He makes all our bread but we do occasionally buy wraps, bagels and croissants from the supermarket.


Tomorrow will be an anniversary for this blog as I will have been blogging for fifteen years.  My first post was written on Monday 14th March 2005.  Where has all that time gone?  Those early posts have no photos with them as we didn't have a digital camera then.  Now I feel the posts are more photos than text.  I find I can't write long passages of text now because of how being on the laptop for any length of time affects my eyes, but I hope to carry on for a while longer if possible.

Monday Miscellany

With the rest of the windfall apples that I mentioned in my last post we made jam.

 

I peeled, cored and chopped the apples and washed, stoned and chopped some plums we had bought very cheaply at the local supermarket.  They were Italian plums and I couldn't help but wish that we had had more plums on our own tree this year.  A couple of years ago we had so many we had several bags in the freezer and it would have been nice to have had some this year to take out of the freezer and put with the apples.  The fruit was cooked in water and then sugar added.  The mixture was brought to a rolling boil until setting point was reached - this caused a few  anxious moments with dripping spoons and testing with plates and spoons taken cold from the fridge.

 Jars were sterilised in the oven and Paul spooned the mixture into them whilst I sterilised the lids with boiling water from the kettle. It was satisfying to hear the popping of the seals as the jars cooled down throughout the evening.

 Overnight the jam had set quite well so we chose a jar to open and test.

 The jam was sweet and refreshing with the scones I made yesterday afternoon.

Two of the jars have been set aside as a thank you to the friends who gave us the apples from their garden. 

 Whilst I was making scones Paul was mixing bread dough and leaving it to rise.  A couple of hours later we had two lovely crusty cobs.
We did seem to have quite a productive time in the kitchen over the weekend.

A Bit of Rhubarb

The rhubarb seems to have grown so quickly through this month.  At the beginning of March there were just  a few signs of life in the rhubarb bed - now look at it.

I love the colour of the leaves and stems.

It was time to pick just a few stalks to use in the kitchen

To make the first rhubarb crumble of this year.  This means a big decision later on - shall we serve it with custard or ice-cream?

Meanwhile, back in the garden, yesterday I planted some new strawberry plants picked up at Aldi for £2.99 for six.  They are Elsanta variety and  I hope they will grow and produce fruit;  I love strawberries but only in the summer season.

I also bought two new lavender plants to replace the ones we have lost.  An English Lavender and a French one.

Also from Aldi a couple of bunches of bright cheerful tulips.  I usually choose pink, white or purple tulips so these orange and yellow ones are a colourful change.

Just an observation but over the last few days we have noticed lots of herring gulls flying over head and calling with their mournful cry day and night.  They woke me early yesterday morning.  Whilst working in the garden yesterday it sounded as if we had suddenly moved to somewhere near the sea - what a great thought!  I could almost hear the sounds of the sea and feel the sand between my toes.  Has anyone else noticed this?

From Tree to Table

Some of the plums have started to ripen but they seem to be struggling this year. Last year we had loads and loads of fat juicy plums even though it was a fairly wet summer. This year, although it is just as wet, the plums are growing differently in that a lot of them are going bad before they are even ready to pick. Is it the weather, is it some sort of insect or is the whole tree diseased in some way? I'm going to have to find out!

Yesterday I managed to pick a colander full but not many are ripe enough to eat raw so I decided to make a plum crumble so I could soften and sweeten some of the less ripe fruit.

I cooked them in a pan with a little water and some honey and then put the crumble topping over the softened plums.

Just half and hour in the oven and the crumble was ready to eat with some custard.

Today I made scones for afternoon tea. We will eat them with the plum jam that we made last year - we still have some jars left - perhaps next week this year's plums will be ripe enough to make some more.

A Late Summer Harvest

I love fruit at this time of year. Soft, luscious plums straight from the tree in our garden and crisp, new English apples bought from the local shop. It seems to have taken ages for the plums to ripen but now that they have I just know a jam making session is forthcoming.

As well as the heavily laden plum tree we have brambles intertwined with the holly hedge at the top of the garden and they have given us our first blackberries of this year.

Now, do we eat all the crisp apples or do we keep a couple back to make an apple and blackberry pie. Decisions, decisions!

I am also eagerly anticipating the ripening of the crab apples so that we can make some crab apple jelly. Another week or two and they should be perfect.