The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

we still have an abundance of courgettes, french beans and potatoes, but joined with an abundance of tomatoes, red peppers and aubergines. this is leading us to have a very mediteranean diet currently, with lasagne, pasta bake, stirfries, frittata, and aubergine moussaka. we are vegetarian so this is a good healthy diet for many meals we are nearly self sufficient, tho obv bought in pasta and eggs! [we must keep chickens next year i think] . To supplement this we have a sensible amount of swiss chard and salad leaves, a sprinkling of carrots.

The runner beans that i was moaning about seem to be starting show an extremely heavy crop. must look back at the packet to see what they were as i would highly recommend them. also setting them off so late seems perfect as they will be taking over as the french beans come to an end. Although there are still armfuls of french beans, some of the leaves are yellowing - particularly on cobra - i think the crazy weather pattern has ade them thinkit is autumn. Usually they go on for a bit longer. I have frozen loads after cutting and blanching, so our glut will last into the winter. I have also frozen quite a number of lasagna and moussaka and pasta bake with our glut crops so that we have ready made meals for the winter as well. I have also made a big vat of pasta sauce to dip into over the winter too [frozen in 4 person family portions]

Harvesting apples have made crumble out of the ones where cut some wasp damage out of - still yummy! harvesting some raspberries as well - though the daughters tend to harvest tem on sight, so i have to be quick!

As i type there is a thrush hopping around on the patio. one got trapped in the greenhouse earlier in the week, and going to close the windows and vents i had to get it to hop towards the door. luckilly out without a problem.