Feasting off natures abundence.

Tonight's veg.

This year despite the weather has been a good year for most of the vegetables, and they keep on coming. All the brassicas have done very well,

Lots of Purple Sprouting Broccoli, with plenty more to come. 

even if the purple spouting broccoli has produced rather earlier than we had hoped, maybe we planted it out too early or maybe it is an autumn variety, it's a shame that it has began producing so early when there is still so much else to eat, however it hasn't gone to waste.

Our new toy, should keep the veg nice and fresh.

A few weeks back we bought a vacuum sealer specifically for freezing fruit and veg in airtight bags, unfortunately we didn't have it in time for all the soft fruit,

Beans and tomatoes keep on coming.

but it is coming in very handy for the P.S.B, the glut of French beans

                                                     and a lot of cauliflowers.
 It seems to make no difference how well you stagger your plantings, they all are ready for harvesting at the same time.

Last of the rhubarb, it's done very well.

We have now had the last picking of rhubarb until March, but it has done very well this year. We should have a few more strawberries in a couple of weeks

Physalis (cape gooseberry) are now ripening.

and now the Physalis plants are giving a good supply of fruits, these plants are now in their fourth year and have produced each year. I was surprised when friends came over in the week to find they had never tasted Cape Gooseberries before and had never grown them. They are now on a promise of plants for their tunnels as they both found that they loved them. Cape gooseberries are easy to grow from seed and the plants can be cut back in early spring to start all over again, the fruits are higher in vitamin C than oranges, they also can be stored for a few weeks providing the paper husks are intact.
Our apples harvest was zilch, just one small apple and one crab apple but we have been given a large box of apples from a friend 'down country,' they didn't suffer the late frosts that we had.

One of our favourite's, spiced Dorset apple cake.

So it's back to making spiced Dorset Apple cake, apple crumbles and pies. I won't bottle or freeze any as we are almost out of space in the freezer and out of storage for bottled stuff, but they will all get used one way or another.
The garden peas are now over, we have saved some pods for next years seed, and the curly kale has been planted in the bed that the peas have vacated.
 We don't normally grow spring onions, instead we use young shallots, however for the coming year we are giving the spring onions a shot, now is the time to get them started so we will hopefully pick up some seed tomorrow, we both like spring onions and lots of recipes call for them, I think we just got so used to growing the shallots which are so much quicker to crop.

Better late than never.

The seasons seem to be well muddled this year, we have seen Elderflower still in bloom,

Love the colour of this one.

                                     and our Dahlias have only just started to flower,

Soapwort, two months late.

likewise the soapwort which would normally be in flower in July.
We are supposed to be in for a mild winter according to Ken Ring the New Zealand weather forecaster, he was certainly right about May being very wet, it was the wettest one in five years, only time will tell if his prediction is right for the winter, here's hoping.

This weeks flowers, the sweet peas keep on coming.