Well I found a mystery partially crushed olive on the window sill in the kitchen - now me and Al have puzzeled over this - surely it is the one from the 'sink disastor' but how did it get there? It was undernieth stuff from before mum and dad came to visit! - roll on music from Fortean TV.
There there was the watering can - Babara kept asking me if it was difficult for me to fill the watering can up - I kept saying I always refilled it after use - this carried on with her getting annoyed that she had even given me a hose and I still hadnt bothered to refill and me getting really annoyed that she had obviouslly forgotten to refill it and then kept blaming me! However, it turns out that the watering can happened to have a slow leak! So it was fine if used shortly after being filled but not if left for any amount of time!
I have just come after 3 hrs of removing goose3grass, willow herb, thistles, ground elder and stinging nettles from the headge along the drive with Al and Babara. They are still out there even though it is getting dark!
We have shifted about 10 barrow loads of the stuff and we dont have a small wheel barrow!
I hurt! I fell in the ditch but then I was supposed to be in the ditch anyway! My wellys made a bid for freedom everytime I tried to move my feet 🙁
Worryingly there appears to be lots of bell bind - Babara has another name for it but its a creeper thats a real menace - really pretty bell shaped flower and green heart shaped leaves. Once you've got it its murder to get rid of and has a nasty tendancy to choke all the plants you do want!
Anyway time for a well earned dinner now!
Due to having to ration the wormery we have to take most of our kitchen waste to the compost heap - well heap sounds small - we have an industrial type compost area!
There are three piles - this yrs, last yr and the one before (thats the one being used). We have to berry any kitchen wast as the deer and badgers (well mainly the badgers) dig it up - sorry now have a mental image of a deer with a spade in their mouth! Before we even got there you could see the steam rising from the now 2m cube pile of grass cuttings, the smell is gross and Al had to dig (makes gagging sounds). The steam was thick and white and looked more like smoke from the inner depths of the heap - shudders.
Well we have a garden causulty of the lovely wildlife - the tops of all our peas appear to have been eaten by the deer - oh well. We may still be able to get a crop still - maybe 🙁
Still we have been doing extensive weeding of the veggi patch! I'm afriad we had to cull most of the fat hen and transplant the potatoes which were attacking the veg we actually planted! Still ther is some fat hen left which I'm thinking of freezing and using from frozen. This will only work for curries and the like - it being a spinache substitute!
Talking of spinache - it too is growing out of control - sigh - I wish I liked the stuff - still it goes nice in curries and the salads (as long as it has a salad dressing - dont get me wrong its nice spinache its just I dont like it or brussels for that matter - oh well its good for me and Al loves the stuff!).
Also we have loads of cherry tomartoe plants as Babara gave us her spare ones - all of which have survived - we've given some to mum and dad and some to Babaras friend Maureen. I've planted some out in grow bags out the front of the house in the 'gully' bit infront of the window. There is a grow bag either side of the morning glory the Babara is training up our drainpipe - Al keeps making hungry eyes at it and muttering about Ti cooking - Babara said she'd notice if he eats it whilst she's away!
Still I need to put some more tomatoes in pots out the front here and some in the veg patch - I have a feeling if they dont all get eaten by deer, rabbits, slugs and catapillars that we are definatly going to have surplus! Still theres always relish and chutney to be made 🙂
We also planted a second parsley plant out yesturday as a complimentary planbt to the curley parsley that was in the veg plot when we moved here! - As it was just a Tesco's one we bought to cook with which has continued to grow - I doubt it will survive but its worth a shot!
Babara (Al's aunt) gave us some of her asperagus which grows in abundence in the garden - I was about enough to serve steamed as a starter for one and a half people so i decided to soup it!
I boiled it up then poured it and and the boiling water into the blender, adding a veggi stock cube and a paint of milk (goats milk becuase thats what I had in the fridge at the time). I then cheated and use dried chopped garlic - about a tea spoon fall and crushed fennel seeeds, again about 1 teaspoon fall to flavour it with. It was however a thin insubstantial soup so out came the corn flour and a a rapid thickening of the soup.
It was lovely and filling and as always I had accidently made enough for four people - oh well Jean loves it to which is good as shes getting it again tomorrow!
Building Maintenance, Gardening | sarah | 
Thu 15th Jun 2006 9:44 am | 
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