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.

Ratatouille and Roses

I wish I could say that all the vegetables in the basket above are from our garden but no such luck I'm afraid. Just the courgettes and the garlic are ours, the rest courtesy of the local market. So what are we eating this weekend? There's the makings of a ratatouille in the basket and a cauliflower cheese. Sometimes we just make cauliflower cheese; other times we make cauliflower and macaroni cheese together and add a few chopped tomatoes and sliced mushrooms all in one dish with the sauce - delicious.

When we cook the ratatouille sometimes we fry the ingredients and at other times we roast them in the oven on a tray and then put in a pan or casserole and add the tomatoes, both ways are delicious but I expect the roasted one is healthier as you use less olive oil. The mixture can be left overnight and cooked again the next day and if you add some passata, either home made or from the supermarket, it really enriches the flavour. We serve it in different ways too, sometimes with plain French bread, or with garlic bread and, favourite at the moment, on a bed of couscous. It's a very good way to get your five a day. If you follow it with a fresh fruit salad you feel very healthy and virtuous.

I was thinking about my happiness list in the last post and realized that I hadn't added many sounds to the list and I should have done because there are sounds that lift your spirits and make you happy. Sometimes the sounds are quite moving, making the hairs on the back of your neck prickle or bring a lump to your throat. For me it's things like bird song, church bells, church and Welsh choirs, the sound of a cello, bagpipes, the tinkle of a harpsichord, wind chimes and people with mellifluous voices reading poetry or prose, the voice of Scott Walker. I know some of those things people will hate, like perhaps the church bells or the bagpipes but I find them quite wonderful.

The weather is so dire again and most of our flowers have been spoiled by the wind and rain; amazingly I managed to catch these lovely pink roses before they are dashed to pieces. I don't know what variety they are, they have been here since we moved in, but they come back year after year with hardly any help from us.

As you can see we decided to have the pasta and cauliflower bake this evening so it's ratatouille tomorrow.