Local blog

Hi Everyone,

Not a lot to write about at the minute, except it is exceptionally hot and all gardening time is taken up with target watering.

But I thought a few of my overseas readers might like to have a look at Duncan's blog - he lives about ten minutes from me, and we share the same view of the mountain at the top of his blog.

He writes mainly about birdlife, and always has wonderful photos.

And it looks like Spike has been visiting there too.

Happy Birthday to Me

Oooh - just quickly I am one. :)

One year ago, today, I started off my garden blog. This is going to be fun from now on, as I really can see if I was ahead or behind last year.

The Galtonias are definitely slower this year, even though the tomatoes are ahead.

But I have got a lot of beds cleared in that year.

And met a lot of other lovely gardeners - thank you to all my Readers - love you all.

(Even if we didn't celebrate the Summer Solstice by singing together. It got right by me. So I never harvested my onions on the longest day. But they are up now.)

Gotta Run!

It's Official - it's early

It is official - this season is much earlier than last year. I thought I wouldn't have a record, as I didn't begin this blog until later in the month - but I have just checked my Stillroom Journal (ie cheap exercise book I have kept for a few years).

Today was my first day of having enough tomatoes to boil up for the freezer - both Romas and a few Grosse Lisse. Last year the first freeze-up was 10 February - and it was only Romas, as there were no Grosee Lisse ready.

So that is a whole month early, which really is significant.

The only reason I can come up with is that we didn't have late frosts, so I got the tommies in early, and they didn't get a check on their growth.

I wonder if that is it.

The other date to note - three days ago the first juvenile Harlequin Bugs were sighted.

Bugger!

Cherry Tomatoes

Oh Dear, I do feel for Calidore, who doesn't have ripe tomatoes yet. While I probably couldn't feed a family your size, but we are several salads ahead now, and one of the "mainstream" (ie in the garden, not the cheating ones along the corrugated iron shed) has been fruiting for a while.

To such an extent that we are going to have a lot, soon, and I need ideas. We don't use them a lot for freezing (too much skin to flesh ratio).

I would have thought, in the warmer climate, you would be going fine by now. Except I have just been looking at my blog, and I started on 15th January last year, and even then I was talking about "only a few tomatoes fruiting" then. It seems to be about a week earlier this year.

So - can anyone come up with some good ways to use Cherry Tomatoes??? Apart from Greek Salad (toms, fetta, iceberg lettuce and olives, with dressing), and halving them about an hour before and tossing in very finely cut fresh basil???

I do have one salad, which is cherry toms, blue vein cheese, cos lettuce and fresh croutons, with a home-made dressing, that is to die for.

But anyone else got any good ways to use up excess Cherry Tomatoes????

Hot and Windy

It is hot and windy - summer is here. But despite that, the kitchen garden is not looking bad.

The large size is HERE.

First Grosse Lisse tomatoes picked yesterday, and very nice they were, too. And plenty of climbing beans - you can see them on the archway.