Saturday - Almost the End of June

Mid Suffolk weather report - There's been all sorts of weather here this week including some windy weather Monday and  unexpected rain on Tuesday morning, - although not enough to do any good, predicted rain that didn't happen and then un-forecasted rain over Thursday night that I didn't hear but filled a water butt  plus some sticky humid with sunshine thrown in too and getter hotter - In other words a Very English Summer!

Bits of gardening were done, pastry cases made ready for quiches or maybe a Lemon Meringue pie - that would be good, 12 people at Keep Moving Group and my 3rd week of Arthritis exercise and management course - not sure it's helping as yet. Plus a very quick shopping trip to get cider vinegar for making pickles - more about that next week.

 I've enjoyed watching some of the Wimbledon qualifying on TV and found a series on the free Pluto channel called 'Flashpoint' which dates back to 2008 - 2012  and is a police drama from Canada. Really odd to see one of the main character actors (Enrico Colantoni) was also in 'Person of Interest' - a US thriller series from 2012 - 2016 which I was watching a few weeks ago. He must have gone straight from one series to the other - a busy actor. ( I looked him up and he's never out of work).

Had the first two small courgettes this week and the  first of the French Climbing Beans- so delicious.

Sorry I didn't reply to comments yesterday and apologies for my mop-heads being boring rather than beautiful!

It's supposed to be a hot (for England) weekend here with temperatures in the 30's C  [ I looked it up for US readers! (30°C × 9/5) + 32 = 86°F ] - so not a lot of galivanting will be done!

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday with the end of the month frugal/spending round up. 

This Weeks Happenings

 Not so warm this week, and Thursday was positively chilly, although still fine and dry all week except for a few minutes rain but it might be all change - just in time for the Spring Bank Holiday weekend and school  half term week- Typical!

(That shower of rain was full of sand or dust, either from the Sahara or the nearby fields and my car looks like it's been on a beach!)

After sowing twice and no sign of growth I gave up and bought some French Climbing Bean plants from last weekend's car boot = 12 modules, about 16 plants for £4. My bean seeds germinated OK last year but I also had no growth with cucumber and courgette seeds this year - might be the difference in temps in the greenhouse between day - unusually warm - and night - down to 4 or 5 degrees C some nights? Don't usually have this many fails in a season. I was talking to the man, from a local nursery that isn't open to the public, who was selling them and saying how nasty some compost is now and apparently trade can still buy compost with peat - no longer available to home growers to try and retain the important peat bog habitats. He said compost without peat either doesn't hold water which runs straight through leaching out goodness or holds water too well so that seeds stay too wet.

I've decided there is something wrong with me (actually everyone who knows me has known that for a long time!) but this time my reason is that I just can't watch some you-tube videos without shouting "just get on with it". especially when vloggers just sit there thinking what to say! aaaagh  - I have to turn off and why are some people so 'glass half empty?' Must be depressing to find something miserable to say everyday.

Five year old grandson - the dinosaur expert- has now turned into a bird watcher and history buff! I had him and his sister here last Sunday and he spotted and recognised two Goldfinches on the sunflower heart feeder and told me all about The Wright Brothers and their plane. He's taking after his Daddy who has always been interested in all sort of different things. 

Now here's an odd thing. On Monday afternoon, just out of view somewhere to the west, there was a fast plane circling quite low and loud. After hearing it for several minutes I decided to look on the Globe Airplanes live website - and although it was tracked as circling - dozens of times-  at 9,000ft, the details of it were..........Nothing. No registration or description - very strange, as usually there is info as to what the plane is and what country it's registered in - so no information is very mysterious. Spies?! Although if so they were a bit too obvious! 

The same noise on Wednesday so another look at Globe and this time it did have a name - A McDonnell Douglas F15E Strike Eagle from USAF Lakenheath. Nice to get the 'just out of sight mystery' solved. The people living near Lakenheath and Mildenhall get this all the time, but not  for much longer - The US is withdrawing them from here back to there. - I thought they were having a Golden Dome for protection!....there's more to this story I'm sure.

 

That just about sums up the week -  nothing much happened. I didn't even go to Keep Moving group as I woke up with no energy, I've discovered that a couple of bad nights and busy days then take another three days to recover! Oh the joys of getting older but thank goodness it's easy to have a quiet week nowadays....plenty to read.....always.

Have  a good weekend - lots of Bank Holiday things on everywhere although Mid Suffolk car-boot sales might be rained off - whatever- I shall be back Monday.

Oh, one thing to add............ look at this - I'm on Wiki  (3) .Thank you to Hadassah for the comment on the getting away from it all book post.

The Beans That Nearly Got Away + S.O.S. 2024

 The climbing French Beans didn't do much climbing for weeks. I'd surrounded the tripod with fences to keep out next door neighbours cat and didn't notice that right at the bottom, only just a little way up the canes some beans had formed. 

Luckily I moved the fences away to do some weeding and discovered all these...........

Very good they were too.

I'm watering regularly now after no rain for a week and the plants are climbing well at last. Hopeful for more to come soon.

S.O.S. 2024 isn't a cry for help! But Summer of Sport. The last one was 2021, when all the things cancelled the year before because of Covid, were held. That year, like this year I loved all the tennis and Olympics and wrote about them on the blog starting with the French Open. I looked back at those old posts and saw that Jack Draper - a young unknown Brit had a wild card entry into Queens Club and had a win against Jannik Sinner. 3 Years on and Jack did really well at Queens Club is now seeded 28 at Wimbledon and Jannik is seeded number 1 this year, above moany Djocovic and last years winner Alcaraz. 

This year so far  the French Open was followed by the first grass court tournament of the season from Nottingham then Queens Club tournament , Wimbledon Qualifiers and now Wimbledon. And at the weekend the British Athletic Championships were on TV to watch, with many up and coming athletes trying to qualify for the Olympics.

 I've just labelled some of my posts mentioning tennis with 'Summer of Sport 2024',  so that in 2028 - the next Olympic Year  - if I'm still about! - I'll be able to look back and see what was going on.

A memory.............

At 2pm on a Monday afternoon in late June or early July 1980 I settled the 2 month old baby down and settled myself down, excited for my first ever time at home to watch the start of Wimbledon live.......it Rained! - there was no play - nothing to watch!

Now it no longer matters, with two courts having roofs there is always something to see and a huge choice of what to watch via BBC Red Button.

Just proves that not everything has got worse in the intervening 44 years! 

Back Soon

Sue

PS for Euros Football and Tour De France commentary see Rachel in Norfolk's Blog! 

And another PS Thanks to Aril for reminding me about the Paul Heaton set from Glastonbury - so good.

Leek Plants Found At Last But...........

 Last year I got a small tray of leek plants from the pet and garden shop in Diss at the end of March and they gave me some nice autumn leeks. I looked both times I was in town at the end of March and early April but they hadn't got any this year. None at boot sales either or out the front of Asda or QD. Finally found some on Stowmarket market flower stall. £3.50 and there were more than 30 plants.

Got them planted out on Saturday and covered to keep next door neighbours cat and the pigeons off them. 

But on Tuesday morning I found that Bl***y cat from next door had somehow pushed it's way under the net hoop cover, trampled many of the seedlings and left a pile of poo in one corner. - Yuck. Hate that cat! The net cover is now pegged down everywhere along all edges, hopefully the remaining leeks will grow on without anymore disturbance.

Also put the Climbing French Bean plants out. They are much earlier than I usually get them going so needed extra protection They are surrounded by the wire cage that I got to put leaves in for rotting down, (the leaves never did rot down, I put them in a dustbin now). Then I wrapped a piece of fleece around the outside - well pegged. Hopefully that will be enough to protect from cats, birds, any late frosts  or high wind. 

Thank heavens I did protect from the wind as on Monday morning we had strong gusts of wind in amongst the pouring rain - really nasty weather for mid April.

My home raised leek plants for winter got lost under the courgettes last year which was a bad mistake. I've sown some this year but no sign of them yet - they are one of those things that have never done well for me and when Colin was going round the County bridge inspecting all those years ago he found a house where an old boy always sold huge bundles of well grown leek plants every spring and he'd  come home with dozens to plant out.

I've been covering the greenhouse plants with a double layer of fleece every night but thought I'd  lost the aubergine plants yesterday morning - I took the fleece off early morning and I reckon it was still too cold and they all collapsed. Thankfully they perked up later - I brought them inside last night as temps were due to be down to 1℃.

Growing food is a constant battle against everything!

But look at the Raspberry canes - with luck there will be more fruit than last year. They are looking so well for their second fruiting year.

Back Tomorrow - when I've stopped crying over lost plants!

Sue

There Was Some Sun

 A much better week weather-wise - at last. The sun shone on more than one day - which is an achievement for this year so far.

I went swimming this week for the first time since October but it was crazy busy. The only other public swimming pool in the North Suffolk/Norfolk border area is in Diss and is closed for a year for complete rebuilding so more people are using Stradbroke and it's not very big!

The internet dropped out for several hours on Tuesday - a problem for several villages around I discovered and  I'm still without a heating boiler. The family business (Ian who does repairs, his wife who does the paperwork and their son who does servicing of boilers) - who usually sort out my boiler have a had a 'few' problems that rather put things into perspective - death of Ian's father, whose empty farmhouse was then ransacked and trashed on the day of the funeral, at the same time as their son needed some help moving house which all happened at the same time as the wife was injured by a horse - when I heard all that my boiler didn't seem a priority! I'm planning on having a new boiler as I'm fed up with all the repairs that have been needed since I moved in, although Ian and son only do new boilers in summer so I might go elsewhere.

It's been easy to keep warm enough in the living room and I bought a cheap oil-filled radiator to have on low in the hallway ready for this weekend when the temps are set to drop. It will keep the rest of the bungalow just a little warmer. I'm thankful that washing machines and dishwashers work from cold water inlet but going back to old fashioned ways of keeping myself clean isn't much fun! So although my electric bill will be bigger, the heating oil will be lasting longer - looking on the positive side - and a new boiler will be more energy efficient and will put off having to have a ground source heat pump for longer.

More garden tidying has been done this week and my seedlings in the propagator (aubergine, 2 types of tomatoes, and peppers)  were big enough to prick out into modules. I sowed 3 cucumber seeds, which I discovered were all I had. If all three come up that will be plenty but one failure and they'll be a shortage, plus I wanted to sow a seed later for late cucumbers so I'll need to buy some more seeds. Also sowed some Climbing French Bean seeds, they are on the windowsill beside the propagator.

 The flowers on one of the young pear trees are about to open so I hope we don't get frosts. The big Magnolia flowers are open but the petals are falling like confetti from the flowering cherry.

Flowers on the table (bookshelf) this week are my own tulips -lovely to have enough to bring in. 

Indoors, much reading has been done including a very poorly written book - 'Murder in Paradise' by Ann Cleeves. 

Published in 1988 -  ten years before starting her Vera and Shetland series - The George and Mollie Palmer-Jones books are a struggle to get through. They are written in an odd way with many short sentences and are quite confusing. All eight have been republished recently.

Much better was this children's book

"Set in Devon in 1941, 'Digging for Victory' tells the story of twelve-year-old Bonnie Roberts who is desperate to play a valuable part in the war effort. For her, tending the family vegetable patch just doesn't cut it; she wants to be a hero like her RAF pilot brother, Ralph. But when the mysterious Mr Fisher is billeted at her Devon farmhouse, and Ralph is reported missing in action, she starts to question what heroism actually involves. And as Bonnie attempts to find out who Mr Fisher really is, she embarks on a life-changing and emotional voyage of discovery. 'Digging for Victory' is an adventure-filled story, with beautiful verse and a very satisfying ending."

That's about it for my week

Hope you have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday. 

Sue

Now it's Low Spend September

 I'm now doing a very low spend September as there's plenty in the freezer and in the cupboards and no big expenses due this month.

I treated the family to the sunflower maze visit but after that its tight purse-strings! 

Sadly there are a chunk of expenses that can't be avoided and happen without me even leaving the house  - Council tax, charity, phone and broadband direct debits and electric at the end of the month and if I didn't leave the house I wouldn't need diesel for the car but I do have to drive so can't avoid it. There might be a couple of unavoidable small expenses and there's a birthday later in the month but otherwise I'm hoping for minimum spend.........although I'm getting back to the swimming pool now the children are back at school so that will be £3 a week and exercise group is £1.50 each week.

Some September savings so far...........

Three of the huge sweet pointy peppers on the one remaining pepper plant turned red so they've been chopped and gone into the freezer - there are 3 left . I put loads of green peppers in earlier before they were ruined by the slugs(?) plus the £1's worth of red sweet peppers from the market stall and as soon as the other three are red they'll go in the freezer and there will be enough to last almost to pepper season next year.

I'm planning to use my one and only butternut squash in a vegetable curry to portion up for the freezer and yesterday I got lots of the huge tomatoes skinned and into the freezer in case I want some for chutney later. I've frozen them first individually on a tray then if they are not needed for chutney they'll be usable one or two at a time for cooking instead.

There are a few beetroot left, runner beans are doing well and the sweetcorn cobs are just about  to be ready and there are plenty of leeks too. In the greenhouse the one remaining cucumber plant made a miraculous recovery with the cooler weather before this week and is looking hopeful. Plenty of tomatoes still coming and even one courgette plant has started producing again.

 I saved some fuel yesterday by not going to look at the last of 2023's Domestic and Rural Bygones Sale  at Campsea Ashe Auctions. After looking online and finding this sale was mainly 'leftovers' from an antique dealer and nothing very interesting it wasn't worth the journey although  I liked the description - 

To include from the estate of antiques dealers Richard & Miranda Goodbrey 'A Collection of Chattles from their Home, Workshops & Storerooms'

We don't use that word chattles very often nowadays. In Suffolk (maybe elsewhere too) we have a word for food left on the plate by children - 'chates' which surely must come from the same root.

I'm saving more diesel (and parking fees) today by not going to Ipswich to visit any of the buildings open especially for National Heritage Open Days. Not because I don't want to, as there are several I'd like to see inside, but walking round town in predicted temps of 29℃ doesn't really appeal. There's always next year - God willing!

On Thursday it was good to have a visit from Essex friends who I've not seen for 4 years. Before Colin died we visited them or they came to us several times a year and camped on the campsite in several summers. They are about to become Grandparents for the first time so I was able to pass on some of the baby toys that all my lot have grown out of. 

They kindly brought me some huge onions and a jar of A's proper home made marmalade and went home with some leeks as well as the toys.

So that was week one of Low Spend September.

Did anybody watch the Cycling Tour of Britain passing through my part of Suffolk on TV on Thursday? It was quite interesting to see the roads and  places I know so well from the air.

 I've gone to watch them speeding by twice in past years, when they've had a stage in Suffolk, once in Friston near the smallholding and more recently through Eye just up the road from here  so didn't bother this year. They are always gone by in a flash anyway!

I'm looking forward to World Cup Rugby Union matches on TV for the next few weeks. Is it really 20 years since England won? They have no hope this year!

Back Monday.

Sue

Inside and Outside

 Another Happy at Home In Suffolk week (well, mostly at home but I did have a trip out on Friday).

I've seen numerous Red Admirals but this is first Comma of the year, spotted on the dark purple Buddleia 

I ate the first and second lot of the climbing French beans this week, they don't seem to be producing many flowers so not sure how many beans I'll get. Wish I knew the reason for few flowers - I'll blame the weather.

First picking

The second picking of beans yesterday gave me enough for two meals - so that's already more than I had last year in the heat.

 And then there was one...........one single pear on the small pear tree after the other fell off in Monday's windy weather - and it wasn't even That windy.

The raspberries have finished, they've done well, with some to eat everyday from the first day of July to the 18th but the wasps have moved in now to damage the last few.

Below are my finds from last weeks Sunday boot sale. 2 birthday cards, 4 animals to add to the zoo collection, a Virago Modern Classic by Nina Bawden which sounded interesting and Hungry Hippos which is a game our children had years ago. Total spend £5.

I got the bigger gherkins all pickled and made a batch of cheese straws and outside started digging a space for the sink-pond to go into.

Had a day out and then another week had gone. The forecast for the weekend is a bit iffy so I'm not sure there will be any boot sale visiting but I must get the next batch of cucumbers pickled.

Hope your weekend plans go well.

I'll be back Monday

Sue

I Must Stop Finding Nice Greetings Cards + The Job List.

 I'm sure there are now more than enough cards in the card box for this years birthdays. But when I spot someone is selling nice greetings cards for pence it's difficult to resist looking through what they have.

These were the most recent find - all from one person who originally, when I asked "How Much", said "they might be £1 each....... depending! "  I said if they were going to be £1 each I would be putting them back! So he sold me all 5 for £1 instead - very odd.

The owl one unfolds to make a 3D card and has a £3.95 label on the back - bargain.

At the same boot sale I got a couple of things for Middle Grandson as I'm going to be looking after him on Mondays now and again during the rest of the school term.

I think he probably has something similar already as he is the most fanatical and knowledgeable 3 year old dinosaur fan I have ever known, but they will be new for here. £2.50 for these 2 things.

There were several garden jobs that needed doing this week, - at the beginning of the week I wrote a list to spur me on

Raise the net frame that's over the beetroot

Take the net frame off the early leeks

Sow more beetroot seeds

Prick out  the second lot of leek plants

Plant out squash plants

Sow the sweetcorn

Plant out the Climbing French bean plants

Cut back the perennial geranium over hanging the front path

Give a really good watering to all the new things I've planted in the last month

Weeding

Weeding the patio

and more weeding

Lots got done..........except the weeding!

I keep hearing about the lovely weather in the west of the country - here in the east we've had sun but lots of cloud rolling in from the north and bringing with it a chilly north and north east wind. It's so Not Fair!....stamps feet!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Saturday

 I've started emptying my bedroom ready for the building of the new en-suite. Work was originally due to start Monday but has been delayed waiting for the basin and toilet to be available so should now begin at the end of the month.

After I get some help to move the mattress I'm going to be like the Princess and the Pea Fairy Tale as the only place to put it is on top of the double bed in the spare bedroom - I'll be sleeping rather high up!

The plastic dust sheets I got to cover things when the wood-burner was installed will come in handy to seal up the big built in wardrobe/cupboard in the bedroom and over the doors into all the other rooms. Although the builders will cover the hall floors and the bed frame and anything else that can't be moved  and assured me there won't be much dust - I'm being prepared, as I'm sure there will be dust, it's quite a big job especially when it comes to finding out where all the pipes are and re-routeing them. They might have to knock down part of the ceiling - we shall see.

Better late than never for my first, and possibly only, handful of Runner Beans.

 As I mentioned a while ago they had no flowers for weeks and then the flowers didn't set due to the dry weather. Thanks to runner bean growers Down Under who commented, we now know what to do in another very dry summer - spray them with water. I've passed the info on to all the people I know - we've never needed to know before as there's usually enough rain during our summers to help the flowers set.

On Wednesday I used the last of the huge tomatoes, the last two red peppers and some of my onions to make the 3rd batch of Red Relish.  Definitely my favourite and now I've enough to last all through next year just in case there's a tomato failure. Just one more preserve to do before Christmas......... the Onion 'Marmalade' Chutney. I expect to put it off as long as possible as even with the food processor the amount of onions that need slicing will reduce me to tears!

During the week I've caught a few of the great events happening in London on TV but haven't sat and watched and queueing for hours and  hours to file slowly past the Queens coffin doesn't appeal at all so I'll leave that to others. I'm sure much of the country will come to a standstill on Monday for the funeral.

This week I've been grateful for...............

• BiL mending my bike
• Fine weather to get some garden clearing done
• Not having to travel to London to view the coffin
• A few runner beans

Back next week

Sue

Using Up Odd Bits of Vegetables

 A couple of weeks ago I used a Morrison's Red Thai Curry Kit (£2) to make a big pan of good looking vegetable curry to go in the freezer. The Kit has a sachet of curry paste, a sachet of coconut milk and a sachet of dried spices.

 I used up various vegetables from the garden. Starting with 2 onions and two medium sized aubergines,

then a green pepper that had a hole in it, four red tomatoes - cutting off the blossom end rot bits and the last of the green beans. I cooked the beans in water in the microwave for a few minutes first.

It looked very good (better in real life than the photo!)and divided up into several portions which are in the freezer. They will make a change from my usual batch-made curries which I make using curry powder. I'm waiting for the butternut squash to be ready to do that.

Today I'm being brave and buying a new lap top - they will transfer some things from the old one onto the new. I shall be lap top less  (hopefully not all weekend!). It will be good to have a keyboard with all the keys still there and a space bar that doesn't stick and to be able to do things that this old clogged up machine won't do because I'm "unsupported". Oh how I wish I knew more about computers.

I've got another busy week coming up so I shall be back sometime but I know not when! Apologies in advance for not commenting anywhere or replying to comments here.

(I've added the Cheese Straws recipe to the recipe page for CLM and anyone interested)

 

Sue

Food Production in Early July

 Things are coming along OK - although we need rain. I filled up the big water butt from the mains a couple of weeks ago and now it's empty again.

Had the first picking of French Climbing Beans yesterday. I discovered one of the plants absolutely covered with Black Fly - never had that on this sort of beans before. I filled a spray bottle with water and washing up liquid and tried that - hope it works as I don't want to lose the plants so soon and also don't want to use anything nasty.

 

Sweetcorn plants - too close ( a common theme) , behind them is the space where I shall put the Kale and Brussels Sprout plants when they arrive. I've got the wire netting frames BiL made for me and enviromesh to put round and over them.

 

Beetroot - too close with a couple of rows of leeks squashed in behind them and 4 courgette plants - Two too many!

 

Onions in front - which I won't bother with again ( don't know why I grew them this year as I'd decided not to grow them again a few years ago - cheap to buy and too dry is the reason). There are 3 squash plants - with room to trail - just about! and empty canes for the runner beans on the right some have been sown here and some in a small tray and the French Climbing on the left.

In the greenhouse are too many tomato plants, 3 cucumber plants at the end, one aubergine standing on the water butt and one more on the ground. I moved one tomato plant to outside a few weeks ago but could really have moved two more out before they got too big to move.

Four pepper plants, the basil and two more aubergines standing up on the staging

 

Pointy peppers beginning to get pointy

 

Some of the aubergines flowers have set but others just fell off. There will be enough to a big batch of make my favourite aubergine/tomato pasta sauce

Nice to get back to growing food again after my enforced year off last year. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Summing Up a Week in September

Thank you for all the comments and suggestions yesterday about the patio. It shouldn't need doing again until spring and then I'll borrow my pressure washer back from BiL and clean it as well as weeding.

 Now, looking back at  Sunday to Friday..............

 As well as the Bug Hotels I got from the last Sunday's car-boot sale the only other things bought were these...... 3 cards ready for the Grandchildren's birthdays at 20p each and the Bee Skep shaped honey pot for £1 - no idea why this appealed although I'd just been looking at some local honey someone was selling (or hoping to sell) for £6 for a 250g/½ lb jar and thinking Blimey.....is that expensive or is that what it costs now?.............. which must have made me buy the little pot................like subliminal advertising!

That was last Sunday so what else have I done this week as well as enjoying those three days of real heat on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday?

A bit of Nanna duty on Monday after making some jam. Shopping as usual, with Morrisons still looking well stocked although a tour of the charity shops in Diss yielded nothing.

More garden tidying has been done and a bit more soil shifted from the bag out the front around to the vegetable beds.

 

Still loads of Red Admiral butterflies on the Buddleia, more than a dozen at once sometimes. I can (almost) see why some Victorians wanted to catch butterflies and pin them in a glass case to look at all year. It seems so cruel now, but of course they didn't have photographs so it was the only way to capture a bit of summer.

 

 This week I've been grateful for

• Those days of sun and warmth after all the dull of the previous week
• A haircut
• Gift of a Sweetcorn Cob and a Cucumber from BiL
• My runner beans are producing at last. Considering how late they were sown, how cold the weather went just afterwards and how few actually grew I'm very happy to get even a few meals from them
  

 

 

 

 

 There are two things happening this weekend - apart from boot-sales. A village garage/yard sale not far from home and there's an old tractor run through the village on Sunday which I thought Youngest Grandson would like so they are coming over to watch them go by. I think he will be astonished to see so many.

Have a lovely weekend with good weather for whatever you are doing. I shall be back Monday.

Sue

 

Saturdays Come Round So Quickly

Seem to have spent the week cutting grass - it just keeps growing this year and there is so much of it......the footpath down the meadow, around the new trees, all around the back garden, all the small bits between the veg. beds, around the orchard, out the front and the area under the Turkey Oak. I'm just glad to own a ride on and a battery mower - imagine having to do all that with an old fashioned push machine.

Haven't had any flowers in for a couple of weeks and these are all there were this week. The Alstromeria which ought to be flowering well have hardly a bud between them.

I bought red onions, red peppers and red chili peppers to use with my tomatoes to make my Red Hot Relish. There were some Huge tomatoes all at once that needed using quickly.

And put a ton of climbing beans into the freezer

This week I'm grateful for

• Lots more puzzle pages from the local paper collected from Col's sister to keep the old brain working

• A socially distanced visit from my sister and BiL
• More butterfly spotting. I THINK this is a very faded Small Tortoiseshell, as it has blue spots on the edge but the white bits should be yellower.

Will it be yet another wet Sunday morning to make the car-boot sale a wash-out again?  I hope not.

Have a good weekend whatever you are doing,  I might treat myself to a Chinese takeaway.

Back Monday
Sue

Strange Times End of Week 12 Saturday Round Up

A funny ol' week in Suffolk. First the weather going from very hot to very chilly and extra windy in just 2 days and then on and off all week I've felt not quite well, sore throat and earache and tired - no cough or fever and I could still taste things so not  THE virus.

Anyway, enough of the moaning................... as the 'whatever it is' is going I'm sure.

So what's been happening here this week while I've been drinking loads of water, popping paracetamol and lazing around reading........................................

On the local  facebook page I read that work has started clearing the site in Stowmarket where they are going to build a new Aldi. I got quite used to Aldi during the year in Ipswich so it will be handy having one in Stow. It's quite ironic really that there actually was an Aldi in Stowmarket years and years ago when nobody really knew what they were. Everyone at that time was so used to shopping at Asda - which is right in the town centre, that the Aldi didn't survive.

It was good to see live  snooker on TV this week, not because I love snooker but because there are so many old repeated programmes on at the moment  it made a change to see something new and live. They've found a way to play safely - no audience and lots of testing and cleaning but it worked OK. Plus news that cricket will be on free TV for the first for over 20 years, wish Col was still around he would have been so pleased.
Sad to see the final programme in Grayson Perry's Art Club series. I really enjoyed seeing him and his wife Phillipa working at home. 
Springwatch programmes have been on for a couple of weeks and they've been interesting, good to see what's happening in the countryside in other parts of the country when all we have here are arable fields.  Although I got quite excited one day this week when I heard a Cuckoo - first time this year and just on the one day and nearly at the end of its visiting time too and I also spotted Swifts, plenty of House Martins around but that was my first sight of Swifts this year - still not seen Swallows.

My experiment of sowing runner beans quite late has begun. I soaked some and then put in trays in the shade on the floor of the greenhouse on 1st June to get them going (must make a note of how long they take to grow and when I plant them out) and plan to do the same again on the 1st July. I hope the first lot will start to produce beans about 4 - 6 weeks after the climbing French beans and the second sowing will carry on producing to the end of October..........that's the theory.
One of my big cucumber plants has keeled over and almost died this week - not the sacrificial cucumber, that's still hanging on, but one of the three in big pots, it's clinging onto life but not growing, not sure why.
A disappointing email from Thompson and Morgan - "sorry we can't supply your melon plant after all" - what a shame - it was going to be a fun extra to try, but they'll refund me and if I remember I'll try again next year.
Two weeks ago I promised to keep a running total of food from the garden, back then it looked like this

•  6 small lettuces (very small - as in about 8 leaves each!)
• 2 cucumbers
• a few asparagus spears
• lots of rhubarb

Now it's

• 9 small lettuces (I now have a gap because the next sowing took ages to get going)
• 3 Cucumbers - and 2 more given away to the neighbours
• a few asparagus spears
• lots of rhubarb
• 4 strawberries. The lack of rain (9 or 10 weeks without?) and not being able to water them means the plants in my main strawberry bed have all died so all I have is 6 new plants in 2 big pots on the patio which are close enough to water.  They were scrumptious.
  

Hope my BiL can supply some for me from his garden so I can make some jam.............. Commercial growers have new plants every year and you can see why as new plants always produce lovely big strawberries, whereas fruit from older plants tends to be smaller and more "seedy".

 Thursday night, one night away from the June full moon - The Rose Moon - and I watched it rise from the living room, too cold and windy to venture outside

This week I'm grateful for
A warm house when the weather turned cold
Lots of hobbies
The first rain for 2 months on Friday

Have a good weekend - the weather forecast is horrible - a stay at home weekend - like all the others in the last 12 weeks!

Back Monday
Sue

What's Happening in the Garden and Greenhouse

Everything in the garden is looking...............rosy? .......... well maybe not!

  The seed I bought especially to give me mini sweet-corn cobs for stir-frying produced plants that look really healthy, in fact over 6 feet tall but I was hoping for more than a half-a-dozen cobs from all the plants! maybe they are just a bit slow.

 The wind on Saturday caught the runner bean tripods, blew them over and broke some canes so I had to lean them against the French bean tripods, when I next looked they had gone over again and pulled the plants right out of the ground - so that's the end of the runner beans - Bother! This tripod is on top of what's left of the potatoes still to dig up, I cut the tops off a while ago.

(The strange heaps you can see are the soil that was in the aubergine pots. I cut off the plants and add to the compost bin and then empty  all the soil and roots out onto a bed and over winter they break down so that in the spring all I have to do is rake it over the bed.)

The Potatoes have been damaged so much by ants, I dug up 5 roots and only a handful were OK and nearly a bucket full were useless which is even worse than last year. I'm not sure about bothering with growing them next year.

My beetroot are Extremely Small. I was hoping for enough to use some to make the beetroot chutney which I made last year for the hampers as sister-in-law said she loved it . I think Col's brother might have a few spare if I ask him nicely, he is able to do lots of watering with a hose as he's not on a meter and has good water pressure..........unlike here.

The row of onions from the sets my sister gave me are all up and drying. They will last me a while. Leeks look OK, courgettes still going strong and the butternut squash are very late and slow growing, I might get half a dozen if I'm lucky.

In the greenhouse tomatoes and peppers are still doing well, but the cucumbers and aubergines are almost finished. Just one aubergine plant left. The cucumber plants all got the "whatever it is" that makes the leaves go yellow and dry, mosaic virus or a critter? so are gradually dying, one more cucumber probably.

Failures never put me off growing - I just have another go next year!

 I've now used some of the red peppers and lots of my Big Mama tomatoes to make the Red Relish, some will be for the Christmas Hampers.

This is the recipe that is on the separate Recipe page tab

RED HOT AND SWEET RELISH

4lb Large plum (Big Mama or Andine) tomatoes, skinned and rough chopped.
2 or 3   Large red peppers, finely chopped
1lb Red onions chopped small
1 - 5 red chillies (depending how hot you want it. I used two this year.) de-seeded and finely chopped ( Wear rubber gloves!)
2lb Gran sugar
1 tsp each salt,ground ginger, allspice.
1 pint Red Wine or White vinegar.
( For the best colour this really does need the red onions and red wine/white vinegar, and it doesn't work very well with normal tomatoes which have too many seeds and are more watery)

Put everything except the vinegar into a pan.

Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved

Bring to boil and cook gently for approx 1 hour until thick

Add the vinegar and cook for 30- 50 minutes until thick again.

 Put into hot sterilised jars, cover, seal and label

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Lurk...........

................that's what French Climbing Beans do each year.

Every year I  find there are beans, lurking among the leaves, even thought the plants have hardly got going in their climb up the canes.
Every year I'm surprised how many there are once I start picking.
But every summer I enjoy my first meal.

Thank you for comments yesterday, sorry for not replying. I'm having an "off" week mentally and physically so not feeling like doing much at all. I was so cold and achey yesterday that I went back to leggings and jumper!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Last Week and the Bank Holiday Weekend

After 4 years I've just about got used to being able to go out and about on Bank Holidays. 2015 was the last year we were at the smallholding with the campsite open for what was always the busiest weekend of the year.
I can remember one sunny year when tents just kept arriving - and we ended up putting some on the hay-field, there was even a yurt!

Actually I haven't yet decided what to do this weekend so not sure where my out and about will take me, it's all weather dependent. What I really should do is get the paint out to do all the bits that got damaged when the kitchen was fitted, the scratches and scrapes are beginning to annoy me.

Anyway before that there's a week to look back on..............

Monday morning started with no electric - bother. I discovered something had tripped the trip switch which is out in the garage so spent ages going round indoors, turning things off, going out to the garage and trying the trip again........all with no luck. Had a think and decided to turn off all the fuse things which are in a cupboard in the back porch and then try the trip, and it stayed on. So one by one I switched the fuses back on and found the one that made the trip flip off was the one that said 'Upstairs Sockets' .
So back upstairs and check round - Nothing switched on. Looked all round the house AGAIN - by which time I was getting a bit fed up - and found the fridge switch that I'd forgotten about because its under the kitchen worktop with just a little junction thingy with a light that shows the fridge is working on the wall above. Switched off that switch and Hey Presto! But WHY is the fridge plug on the upstairs socket circuit??  Just one more thing to sort..........was it the fridge or the plug on the wall? Answer = Sadly it's the plug on the wall. Electrician needed,  which will probably cost more than buying a new fridge and a darn sight more difficult to arrange although I was quite pleased that I'd found the cause and got everything back on and working again, even the fridge -  by using an extension lead. Another thing that in the past I would have left to Colin to sort, he would have found the problem in half the time!.

One morning this week I went to the surgery to pick up.............................2 bottles of wine! The week before I'd popped to a Friends of Mendlesham and Bacton Surgeries coffee morning. I had £1 worth of draw tickets and left my phone number and got a surprise when the phone rang later to say I'd won 2 prizes. I don't drink but there are plenty of family who do so they won't go to waste.

All the small plants that were in the greenhouse in my photos earlier this week are now planted out and protected from pheasants, ducks, pigeons, cat  and any strong winds that might come blowing across the fields.........it's a complicated business!
 The sweetcorn, chard and parsley are well protected

French climbing beans with a sacking wall around the bottom and a fleece tent pegged to the canes.
I'll take the fleece off when the plants get going.

Beetroot seedlings under wire frames, lifted on flower pots

The courgettes are under a fleece tunnel at the moment, just to stop the wind rocking them about until they get well rooted.  I think they'll be OK when I take it off, can't remember from last year  if any of the local pests eats them. I'll need to use the tunnel over the squash plants when I put them down the other half of the bed.

  I've been weeding too, mainly big stuff like cow-parsley that's around all the shrubs, I really need a strimmer but the battery ones wouldn't be man enough for cow-parsley and nettles and I'm not man enough for a great big machine. Colin's brother has been asked to come over with his big strimmer but I'm on a job waiting list!

The Chelsea Flower Show has been on TV all week, I'm not a huge fan of  TV gardening  programmes they make me feel inadequate.  But no one can expect to compete with the Chelsea show gardens, they are mostly so un-real, make it possible to watch without feeling hopeless. My sister and her husband are off to visit the show today and for a moment I was envious, then thought - no - all that walking about - all those crowds - better off watching on TV. (Like Wimbledon tennis!, which reminds me - The French Open starts on Sunday, it's on ITV 4 I'm pleased to say)

Swimming, shopping, visiting youngest and Florence, sitting in the sun and my week has gone by - alone - but still getting through.


This week I'm grateful for

• Solving a problem by myself
• Beautiful gardens on TV
• Fine days for gardening
• Juicy nectarines back in the shops for summer.......love them

Have a good weekend, hope the weather isn't too disappointing.

Back Monday
Sue

The Seed Catalogues

They've all arrived, so I went through the seed tin and wrote a list (always a list!). I don't need much but do like to pick the varieties.

D.T Brown are local to Suffolk, have some good choices and cheapest postage. I need beetroot,  tomato, cucumber, sweet red  'pointy' peppers, leeks, curly parsley, nasturtium and basil. Then maybe sweetcorn...... and here's a weird thing........... I could have sworn that sometime last year  I bought a packet of mini sweetcorn to grow to use for stir frying BUT the packet in the seed  tin are ordinary corn cobs. I even mentioned finding them at a car boot sale in a blog post. So why aren't they what I thought they were? ............No idea.

I'm ordering a big plum type Tomato that I've not tried before called Big Mama , a mini plum that I grew last year - Sungrape. and for something completely different a yellow grape variety called Ildi . I've just 2 cucumber Euphya seeds from last year so have ordered some Louisa, another variety I've grown in the past. Sweet Peppers will be Bullhorn Mix. I have a few very old leek seeds so I'll get some new and a new large pack of beetroot to add to the pack of Bolthardy left from last year. The rest  - parsley, nasturtium and basil I can get from anywhere and probably cheaper - as long as I remember to write them on a shopping list.  D.T Browns don't have a mini sweetcorn so I'll look elsewhere for them, my Essex friends love to grow lots of corncobs so I could pass the packet onto them because I don't want to grow the big cobs.

Apart from the above the other things I'm planning to grow are the same as last year...... French Climbing beans and Runner Beans - both from seed I saved from what I grew. Aubergines, chard, Mange tout peas, lettuces and courgettes.I also have  4 butternut squash seeds to hopefully grow better than last year when only 1 plant survived and produced just 1 squash!

Back Soon
Sue