Saturday, October 07, 2006

Beautiful sunny day!

Spent most of the day in the garden and forgot the camera!! Cleaned out the chickens who had a great wander round the garden. Mark started to sort out the shed... well straighten it up cos he doesn't throw stuff away!!!! I decided to clear out the greenhouse and give it a 'jetwash' ready to bubble wrap it and pop the heaters in ready for my tropical plants. I have 20 tropical plants to put to bed this winter and to be honest I'm not sure they are going to fit!!! We are still talking about where to put another greenhouse, it would have to be a small one 6 X 4 and where we had planned to put it is where we are moving the chickens too as we are not happy where we have them, too soggy!!
So wandering round the garden with cup of coffee in hand , and currently the only place for it to go is................... up in the veg patch and it would mean losing half a raised bed mmmmm not sure I'm happy with this but not sure what else to do. If you take a look at 'My garden 04/09/06' on the second pic the veg patch on the right would be the one I lose.... well half of it anyway, but if I lost the bench at the end of that bed maybe it could fit there!!! Mark said I could put another bed under the apple tree, but this is very exposed and recieves very little sun because of the leaf canopy, apart from the fact it would be bombed by apples!

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Not alot happening at the Mo!

I have sweetcorn to harvest, I have at least 4 large marrows which I need to decide what to do with.... more chutney or ?????????? but its chucking it down and I'm pooped!
To be honest I have been driving round the county getting Mark to hospital and also visiting him, collecting or taking Tori to school, getting the other car to the garageetc etc. Anyway he is fine and home now but very tired, the next step is ... he needs a lung scan and has to wear a heart moniter for 24 hours. I think the scary thing is Mark gave up smoking in 1976 just after his father died of lung cancer and the specialist who put the camera said to him ' you used to smoke' now that is 30 years ago and he did not smoke for long yet it has obviously left it's mark!

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Cooking fun!!

So what am I to do with all those 'Green Tomatoes and Red.......Tomatoes' well you go looking for recipes and my friend Mrs Nesbitt had very kindly put a green tomato chutney recipe on'Its not Easy Being Green' forum so I followed it



Gathered all the ingredients and got chopping!

put it all in the pan and started cooking


no offence Mrs N but this doesn't look very appetising but we will continue because the recipe does say 'leave for 4 -6 weeks to allow to mature! Now it is in jars it looks quite tasty!!

Now what do you do with loads of Red Tomatoes, well I remember my other friend Lottie(cos of course I only have 2) had a Spicy Tomato Cooking Sauce on her blog so here is the onion, garlic and chopped tomatoes..............


then I added the spices

mmmmmmmmmmmm this looks very scrummy, its just cooling at the moment, ready for freezing.

and I still have this lot left



ps: can you see the little chicken in some of these pics??????

Monday, October 02, 2006

Lovely Sunny Day!

Considering the weather forecast said rain, rain and more rain, I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this afternoons sunshine, and even managed to get 2 loads of washing dry! Just the ironing to do now!!!


I thought I ought to go and tidy up the outdoor tomato plants as they had been rather battered by the rain over the weekend. I had grown one each of Gardeners Delight, Sungold and Roma (a plum tom). Planted late 2 Alicanti. Plus an outdoor pepper. In the green house was also a Sungold, Gardeners delight and a plum, plus aubergine, chillies and peppers!
So look what I got....................







The chilli's I deseed and freeze. I suppose I could make Green Tomato chutney, but having never made it or eaten it I'm really not sure if I even like it!!!!! I must admit I do like my chutneys spicy, think I will troll round my favourite forums amd see if I can pick up amy ideas!!!