You can make wine, gin or jam with Damsons in this house - all good. If you want to do gin for Christmas, it is 300g sugar, 300+g damsons and a 75cl bottle of (supermarket) gin in a bit glass jar (kilner-type) all in together after slitting or pricking the fruits (no need to stone) - then simply turn the jar upside-down then right way up each time you pass it. The sugar dissolves and the fruit leaches its colour and flavour. I bottle it in early December and often give it as gifts for Christmas. Works just as well with vodka.

By the way, we cut down plastic bottles (4pt milk or water) and cloche the bean seedlings to protect them from bunnies here. Bit more of a faff but works and is cheap

I hope you folks are getting some of the lovely rain I'm reading about

We are not

Short bursts of it. Not really enough to do much on the parched soil. In the vegetable plots I've been watering it'll help for sure. But not enough to soak down. We're due more tomorrow, and if it's cool enough I might pre-water some things. But much too hot - anything over 25 degrees make my head hurt, add a thunderstorm and I'm picking up Radio 4 via the titanium plate in my skull...

Erm in other news - picked our jostaberries last night and popped them into the freezer this morning

Its thundering and lightening here in Lincs. Went to the allotment before it started and put my peppers and chillis back in the greenhouse in case of heavy winds.

Think we have got rain all day tomorrow. We shall see.

Making cherry tomato pizza topping tomorrow and will look out a recipe for courgette fritters. Oh and red onion marmalade with the onions I lifted. Love making things with home grown produce.

I'm hoping to manage a couple of courgette farcies - I have three hopefuls ripening

https://www.cuisineaz.com/recettes/courgettes-farcies-aux-lardons-jambon-et-fromage-76270.aspx

I prefer the cheesy ones (sorry it's in French but you get the idea) but I believe it's a farcie whatever the filling

Lovely rain this morning. Periodic showers - not too heavy, not too light. Nice and cloudy, so a perfect start to rehabilitation of the garden


Edited to add - then it started bouncing down with rain, so I decided to put some tubs out to see (more out of interest) how much water I could capture. Of course it's sunny now...

We've just been away for the last 4 days, needless to say the rain came tumbling down plus the winds.
Got back last night but couldn't get the horsebox up the drive as a tree was down, so DH was chain sawing at 10pm last night.

Had a look at the plot this AM,
The barrier around my newly planted leeks was down and the rabbits had demolished them.

Courgettes, cucumbers, beans, gherkins and weeds a plenty. I need inspiration on how best to use the surplus (not the weeds )
Sweetcorn looks promising and a found the first melon developing on one of the plants.

Does anyone have hazels and if so how do you keep the squirrels off?
I need to go and have a look at the blackberries but I have seen a load of rose hips and I'm wondering what to do with them. I've found a recipe for rosehip marmalade - sounds interesting.

I'm going to spend the next few days weeding and sorting out what to sow to take us to the end of the year and into next year.
I got to this stage last year and then failed to sow anything in the late Summer for this this year. I really resented having to buy so much from the supermarkets this Spring. After listening to the news today it looks like fruit and veg prices will horrendous over the winter but fortunately its not too late to do some sowing.

Hope everyone is okay. Too hot for me, so I guess some of you are the same. In recent news, got some honey from a neighbour (whose bees forage in my garden, which is nice). The last lot I had with some slightly tart blackcurrants & rhubarb - you could measure the food miles in inches. Brambles are producing daily, peas and beans starting to crop heavily. And I think I have a carrot or two. Water butts were full again after the recent rain, but things in the ground are drying out again already. Saw a slug this evening. I greeted it with the traditional 'eyup slug' then let it continue on its way...

I've been harvesting cherry tomatoes for DH, although one of the tomato plants got blown over multiple times during the wet and windy weather last weekend and it's lost a few arms as a result The other one has grown wide rather than tall so it was fine. The corn plants also got knocked over repeatedly and in the end I had to leave them lying down for two days until the winds had died down. They still look okay though.

Cucumbers are still growing and are getting quite large. I'm worried I might have left them a bit too long though so I'm going to harvest one tonight for DH to try. Peppers are still growing and are still green. Strawberry plant is growing a second lot of strawberries, and I need to plant some more radish seeds for a second cropping.

One thing I have learned is that next year tomatoes and corn are going to be grown in grow bags rather than pots. Our garden is a bit uneven, including the concrete path and patio, and they're just not stable enough for pots once plants get a few feet high! At some point me and DH will do a little remodel of the garden, which will include space for a veg bed, but we don't have the money for that at the moment. Too many things to sort out indoors.

Tomatoes are going very well I am picking about 1lb a day and I look to have enough to see me through for quite a few weeks. I am roasting most and freezing them, even I can't eat as many as I grow. I have made 5 litres of tomato soup and 5 litres of tomato pasta sauce. I am now completely out of freezer space. So my next effort will be dried tomatoes stored in olive oil. Not much else has grown, plenty of flowers but v few runner beans. The rest of the garden is a desert, some shrubs are really struggling - I cannot water non-food stuff it feels the wrong thing to do.

I'm impressed with the tomato sauce and soup. My tomatoes have not started to turn red yet but I was very late in starting them.
Something has attacked the climbing beans, I suspect rabbits as the stems have been bitten through. I'm left with about 6 climbing french and 4 runner beans. Hopefully there will be enough for the two of us but none to freeze.

I'm just about holding my own with what is ready to harvest. I can pick enough for tea but the only things I've managed to freeze are cucumbers, gherkins and cucumbers. They'll all get turned into soup later. I've managed to store away enough onions, garlic and shallots to last until next year, plus I'm working my way through early potatoes and waiting for the main crop to start.

Waiting in the sideline but not yet ready to pick are sweetcorn, leeks, carrots, aubergines, cannelloni beans, baby turnips, squash, melons, peppers, mangetout, sugarsnap, basil and various salad leaves but I must now concentrate on the winter stuff otherwise I'll be visiting the supermarkets over the winter and I expect prices will go up a great deal after this drought.

Birthday next month and I'm going to ask my DH for fruit bushes/trees as I'm spending an awful lot at the moment on fruit in this hot weather. We have the space to grow enough to be self sufficient in fruit so it seems stupid not to try. I've already got a few bits and pieces but not enough of any one sort except blackcurrants (20+ bushes) My fault as I got carried away with propagating my single bush one year - and I don't care much for blackcurrants they're too tart.

We have a smoothie fan in this house, so a lot of small berries get frozen. I must remember to put a generous portion of peas & beans in the freezer for xmas dinner. On the tomato front, I've not yet reached the glut stage, but it's too hot to leave them out in a basket in the kitchen (like I've done in previous years). Curry tonight with fresh tomatoes. Might consider some little portions of tomato sauce if a glut develops.

Gardening fail today

I've composted a huge amount of bananas and I think the wasps have got drunk on them. While I was trying to turn the pile, one flew in my T-Shirt and tried to sting his way out.

It smells quite sweet and boozy and not like compost should.

Any thoughts?

How many plants and which variety are giving you these yields?

Jealous!

Bananas are banned from 'my' compost bin - they're not pleasant (not that a compost bin is meant to be pleasant). My excuse is they attract rats (which could be something I just made up). In other news, the runner bean glut has started, so tomorrow I'll blanch a load and freeze them for xmas dinner, along with a batch of peas which I'll shell and freeze on a tray without blanching. Assuming any survive the podding tax. It was surprisingly cool this evening so myself and Dearly Beloved watered various bits of the garden. I've some Red Duke Of York potatoes to harvest, but it's too hot for that kind of milarky. They can stay in there for a while longer. Aubergines are looking really good (I hate aubergine) anyone know how to tell when they're ripe ?

20 outdoors and 14 in the greenhouse but I am quite a chaotic gardener so that is just 2 plants planted in 17 big tubs with canes to tie them up. I use new slow release nutrient compost but I don't feed or anything except water every two days. All of the pots are in drip trays and I water them from the bottom.

This year I am growing Tigerella, Marmande, Black Russian, Floridity, Balcony Yellow, Chocolate, Tomato berry, and some unidentified red mini tom. Together with four neighbours we all grow different types and then swap. I like Floridity the best so I have grown a lot of those. Most of what I grow are the small types so they ripen quickly - although this year everything is ready at pretty much the same time.

The ones outdoors are doing the best, they are against a south facing wall so they do get a lot of heat.

me too! That's given me hope now

Thanks, I've noted this for next year.

Whilst I'm on:

seed purchases Where do you all buy from? Do you rate Wilko? Ebay?

Often Wilko, but my Floridity came from Suttons.

I am picking 200 cherry tomatoes from tumblers now, also some gardeners delight starting and I haven't even considered the allotment where there are about 10 plants assorted.

Wonderful rain today, so I blanched a batch of runner beans for xmas. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get out in the garden again.