Produce

I have to admit that I am not the world's best gardener.  I cut the lawn when I think it needs it, usually when it is getting a bit long, I cut the front hedge when I become ashamed of it and at this time of the year I begin to lose interest as the days gets cooler.  My hanging baskets could definitely do with some TLC and the tomatoes in the greenhouse struggle on BUT I must be doing something right when I get produce like this.

The cucumbers were a mistake!!  They are the sort that you pickle so I have to find a recipe. The tomatoes are all different varieties this year, hence the mixed bowl.

I have a small and very unruly fig tree but it is a very heavy cropper and this is a small selection. I pick them slightly under ripe because if they are too ripe the slugs get to them first.  The three at the front were picked yesterday.  When I first bought the tree I heard on a gardening programme that you should contain their roots and that is what I did. We had an old washing machine so I cut out the stainless steel drum, buried it in the garden and put the fig tree in and I have been repaid with good crops from a reasonably small but untidy tree.

On Tuesday (my Cambridge day) Ellie and I had our last outing to the city centre before she starts school.  We catch the bus from the end of the road because I can use my free bus pass but it does gall me that I have to pay £1.50 for Ellie even though she is under 5.  I hadn't been paying for her, but one day a driver called me over when we arrived at our terminus and said that she only went free "with a fare paying passenger" and I wasn't a fare paying passenger. When I queried why I hadn't been asked to pay he said that they got too much verbal abuse and hassle enforcing it.   So now she costs me £3 for a return fare!!

Anyway, my son, M, had asked me to make a very large casserole with all the vegetables from the garden and meat he provided.  It would save him having to cook for the children the next day as there would be some left over and this is what I picked:-

Two types of carrots - orange and purple - courgettes, slightly large, and a whole heap of runner and French beans.  Not all the beans went in!!  I also used potatoes from the garden and onions which were drying in the greenhouse.

I did not add these, I couldn't do it as they look so delicious!!

The result!!  Yum, yum

The children ate this 'pot au feu' up pretty quickly and loved it.

There are two pumpkins this size getting ready for Halloween, though they still have room to grow.

I love growing vegetables, because there is something very satisfying in being able to eat what you grow.  Oh and by the way I am lucky that my next door neighbours have an apple tree that overhangs my garden and I get a constant supply of windfalls in my pond!!!  Not good apples as they are usually full of bugs of some sort or another ....

but there are some lovely large ones still on the tree, ripening.  At least when they fall in the pond they don't bruise.