Experimentation

This whole 30 ft by 40 ft plot is one big, great, experiment.


One year on, I'm a little disappointed with the left border - not enough of the colour, vibrancy, life that I wanted.




Not exactly Christopher Lloyd.



It's the soil, of course, and my preparation of it wasn't nearly good enough. Lesson one.


But I can say, if you want impact one year on, you can do no wrong with herbs.



Everything planted in there was mostly from a tiny, 50 pence pot. Wow. And yum, too, since I am constantly drying them for storage and use - I seem to use them faster than I can dry them! Fresh as well, of course, and fresh or freshly dried, just a gorgeous bunch of flavourful things.



And here, ta da, are my onions and shallots.






Interesting.


Not sure about them yet, I dug them out of the ground and left them to dry, then it rained the next day, so then I moved them into the shed, and there they sit until the weekend when I can examine them. I thought the red ones should be a bit bigger. Like you can buy in shops. Still, I shall dust them off, and slice them up, and then we'll see.

Lastly if you chance to look in the guestbook, I tried a recipe recommendation for "Fried Green Tomatoes" - and that is truly yum! I think soon I can stop buying tomatoes from the supermarket, as I just picked two ripe ones (okay, only two, but still ...) tonight when I was gathering the green ones for this culinary experiment. Stop me from picking all the green ones as they hang there, deliciously, so I can fry up some more! Thanks to Christine!

Work/Life Balance

Greetings, to any readers who are still there.

I've been at my new job for over three weeks now, and am loving it tremendously. One slight problem, is that the commute is longer so I get home later. Weekends are taken up with doing as much out there as possible (if possible!). I seem to have lost time, somewhere, for writing here. So this work/life balance thing must be addressed, and time must be carved out for this blog, which is important to me!

That week of summer was nice, by the way, while it lasted ...

Actually these last couple of weekends have been sporadically productive, given that we have returned to normal proceedings as far as the weather goes - sunshine and showers. Even today, as I looked out the kitchen window first thing in the morning at the lovely sunshine and blue sky, thinking I must, must, must cut the grass today ... now by midday the showers have returned. So I guess I shall go shopping instead (nothing fun, mind, just groceries. I didn't want to "waste" the time, but with this weather ...).

I did, however, discover this little beauty while wandering around back there in the sunshine this morning, in my pyjamas, coffee in hand.

The first ripe one, of many, we hope!

I haven't tasted it yet. I'd like to admire it for a while. It smells scrumptious, though, completely unlike any store-bought ones.

Meanwhile, my beautiful Dahlia has bloomed, bringing some welcome red into the Left Border.

I've also been busy drying herbs, and infusing oils.

What I really want to accomplish this weekend, weather willing is (1) cut the grass, (2) pull out the onions and (3) plant some more lettuce, rocket and spinach. At the very least.

I'd also like to put out new barbeque together (why, I hear you ask? Doesn't sound like barbeque weather to me! Ah, but I live in hope ...)

Fingers crossed!