(1149) Almost afternoon. (1205)
In which Isilme and Beloved gather their last produce
… whilst off on the next project … possibly that might appear down the track.
Meanwhile:
… and, of course, our own food. But I mustn’t get perishables as we’re off to visit friends and I don’t want to come back to nasty bits in the fridge, so I must use up what I already have!
We just polished off another large courgette stuffed with chilli con carne. Yum. I still have some chilli left over because this was a smaller courgette than last time. So we may have it tonight over a baked potato. Something easy after a hard day’s shopping!
We’re picking off the last of the plums from the trees now. We have a reasonable array of tomatoes, but not as many as I would have liked. The bulk of them will be boiled up and bottled. Somehow home grown bottled tomatoes are much nicer than the tinned ones!
Next we have to start thinking about apples. I suspect the apples are ripe because the jackdaws are stealing them from the top of the trees. I’m not sure why they don’t go for the Victoria plums, but they seem to leave them alone. Maybe they just prefer the earlier ones….. Or maybe they prefer apples to plums at this time of year!
I nearly forgot to mention that the raspberries are still in good shape, fruiting like crazy. We’ve been busy elsewhere, so a spider has clearly taken up residence. If it hopes to stop us, then I think it will lose the battle. At least the birds leave them alone.
What my beloved does with surplus toms is combine them with bacon, onion, and garlic to make spaghetti sauce. She freezes it and we then eat it through the hot-meal months i.e. Sept/Oct – April/May.
Yesterday evening was quite cool so we had a stir-fry for dinner including our own green beans.
The dry year means that our apple crop is disappointing. Our lovage, however, has made a come-back so I can look forward to Farmer’s Wife omelettes made with our own toms and spuds.
Goodness! The spuds! I had forgotten all about our spuds. Actually, we didn’t plant them recently. They’re ones that grew from the ones we forgot last year. I must go and investigate…
Also, hurray! Contrary to expectations we are still cropping some brambles. We have promised our damson crop to younger neighbours who are capable of using a stepladder. I dare say they might give us a jar of damson jam in return.