Bounty

It's fabulous when all the hard work in the garden pays off with some delicious, delectable home-grown produce.  

Technically we're not entirely responsible for the peaches. We didn't plant the tree but we have tended it carefully for the last year.  Our reward, luscious juicy peaches. 

The goodies from the veg patch and orchard on the other hand, are entirely our doing.   This year we put in two types of cucumber. One is called a space save, because the vine doesn't spread too far. I think that's the small yellow cucumber.  I'm not sure what the other is.  Because we had way too many cucumbers to eat (particularly as R is not a huge fan) and to give away, we turned a bunch into bread and butter pickles. Yum. 

The raspberries have not been as bountiful this year.  We don't have M's secret recipe for feeding raspberries and, once again, we've had problems with our water supply.  Which will hopefully be sorted once and for all in the very near future.  But we've had enough to enjoy a small bowl full. With ice-cream. Of course with ice-cream.  Desserts don't happen in this house without ice-cream. 

The tomatoes have been really plentiful.  We've got small round red, organs and yellow tomatoes and pear shaped ones. They've almost taken over the entire veg patch.  I keep thinking it's time to pull them out but they keep on producing.  And a good quantity of whole cherry tomatoes with a bit of garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper slow cooked for twenty mins makes a fabulous pasta sauce. Yum.

We also picked some nectarines this year. I know, it is the trees first year fruiting and we should have taken all of the fruit off. But we couldn't resist.  And the nectarines were delightful.  They tasted completely different from the ones we can buy at the grocery store. I'm not if that's because they're a different variety or because we pick them when they're ripe. Either way, they were delicious. 

 

Hopefully we'll continue to improve in the garden and have more and more fruit and veg to share.  Although, not more avocados. We have way too many avocados. Crazy amounts of avocados. 

Gardens and Toes

This

 Post operative toe

Plus This

Medication for infected toe

Equals This

Hedge in desperate need of a good pruning

It's probably toetally unfair of me to lay the blame for the untrimmed hedge entirely at the feet of my toe surgery and post-operative infection (the getting of which bugged me no end).  The ferocious marauding March flies also share the blame for keeping me away from the hedge. Turns out I'm allergic to those AND my efforts not to get bitten by wearing long sleeves and blue jeans were entirely futile. For starters, they're attracted to dark fabrics (note to self, buy white jeans for the garden) and for seconds, they just bite through the fabric anyway (note to self, buy extra thick white jeans or two pairs).  The end result of the combined efforts of toe infections and bitey flying things is a messy looking hedge.  Luckily we've got holidays coming up and I can now spend a few hours on my feet without any pain.  Just enough time to get that hedge tamed.  Of course, I'll have to squeeze that in around doing other more enjoyable holiday activities like sleeping in, bush walks, sitting in the sun. And it doesn't look that bad ......