Saturday 17 October 2009

Last of the toms!

First of all:
Mum - Many Happy Returns for 16th
love from us all
xxxx


Welcome back to Reads Retreat. Sorry we've been absent for a while, but we've been a little busy. Not much has been happening in the garden, but we did venture out earlier to pick what is probably the last of the toms. The basket pictured left contains what is probably soon to be chutney! Some of these toms were given to me by a fellow allotment holder who had "no use" for the greener ones - that surprised me a tad ! Not much gets wasted here at Reads Retreat, and this mixed bag of ripe / green toms is no exception. Check out Reads Recipes in the next few days, and you might find another mouthwatering chutney recipe!
As usual at this time of year, we are hanging up bean pods to dry, and this pic shows some "drying" in progress. We never seem to save enough pods, but at least the seeds that we get this year can be mixed in with whatever we buy for next year, which does of course save us some money in the long run. Also, we can be very selective as to which plant we save seed from, and hopefully the following year we'll get bigger and better crops. This is especially important on the runner bean front, as my Grandad Read collected runner bean seeds for many years, and I'm carrying on the tradition, writing this blog in his memory. Wonder if he's reading this now ?

That's about all for now.

We hope you'll pop back soon for more updates from Reads Retreat.

Till then,

TTFN.

Sunday 11 October 2009

Hunter Hunted !

Welcome back to Reads Retreat.
Just a quick post to let you know we harvested the last Butternut Squash (.v. Hunter) yesterday, and it weighed in at a hefty 1.666Kg - what a whopper!
It's now been moved to a sunny storage place where we hope it will continue to ripen. Also, the skin should toughen up a bit, enabling us to store it a while longer. Thats all for now, cant bring any news from the plot today as my car's MOT expired yesterday and as such cant be driven. MOT is Tuesday - fingers crossed,


TTFN