Monday 24 September 2012

Garden 2012 no 20.

Garden 2012, no 20

A brief update, the seasons are changing, the temperature has dropped and the nights are longer. When I wake up there is a chill in the air, we still have nice days, in fact we have some extraordinarily nice days for this time of year, we have had a true Indian Sumner. But however warm and sunny the day, by late afternoon its over, the shadows are long, the temperature drops, the sun lowers, the light begins to fade and the sky turns red.
I spent a couple of hours in the garden yesterday, which as it turns out was exactly the right thing to do because today it’s too cold, wet and windy to even think about gardening. The wind has been getting higher all evening and now I can hear it howling around the houses, slamming gates shut and bouncing bins down the street. When the weather is like this I’m so grateful to be warm and dry indoors. 
Yesterday was different; it was a perfect gardening day. The little strip of grass around the vegetable plot was overgrown and took forever to trim back with my hand mower. Most of the veg is finished now, I still have a few onions to dig and the strawberry runners need to be sorted, but virtually every thing else is gone except the pest deterrent geraniums.

 I’ve hardly been out since surgery and things are quite neglected out there. Something I will have to do soon is empty out one of the compost bins, sift and store the compost and make the bin ready for the next lot. 
I have so much garden waste lying in heaps around the garden I do need to get it sorted before the temperature plummets too far and it all freezes.  I even tidied up the shed, and while emptying every thing out, came across my old bike right at the back. 


I’ve not ridden a bike in years, as a young person I used to cycle every where. I should get this old bike serviced and start using it again, cycling is supposed to be excellent exercise and I’m sure a couple of new tires and some brake cables wouldn’t cost too much. Maybe cycling should be something else to plan for my retirement.This is the amount of shallots and beetroot I have bottled so far, the shallots have finished bow but there is more beetroot still in the ground.  

My next kitchen project will be to make herb oil. I’m still drying the bag full of rosemary and yesterday I lifted the garlic from the ground. I think garlic and rosemary oil sounds like an excellent idea. Oh…………..and yesterday I saw my first robin of the year, he sat in the apple tree and watched while I worked.

6 comments:

  1. Your bike looks to be in mint condition. Garlic and rosemary oil sounds good to me. This means you add garlic and rosemary to oil, right?

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    1. Hi BrendaMy bike isn't in mint condition ( unfortunately) it needs a complete overhaul but I think its only the tires that need renewing and maybe the brake cables. Anyway...............I'm not intending using it until next summer so I have a while to get it fixed up.

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  2. mmmm garlic and rosemary oil sounds good and despite your op and the poor Summer you have harvested so many delicious things from your garden, it's a joy to behold - you've done really well!!!

    You must have achieved complete self-sufficiency in beetroot and shallots Loretta, but I suspect in a number of other fruits and vegetables as well.

    Its good that you have dug out your old bike and are planning to do do it up to use again. Despite the turn in the weather and the Autumn now gearing up it is something to look forward to even if it has to wait until Spring before tou start training for the Tour de France I guess.

    I'll keep up with developments :-)

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    1. I thought so too, I couldn't think what to do with all that rosemary until someone suggested herb oil. Once I dug the garlic up as well I thought they would make a good combination. The challenge now is to find enough cheap, empty, suitable bottles. I think I'll have to use little juice bottles, they are plastic but the only sort of glass bottles I use are either salad dressing or sauce bottles, and I don't use enough of those to save them up. The olive oil should be cheap enough, you can get a big can of Italian virgin olive oil quite cheap in discount stores.

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    2. You could always possibly get the bottles/jars you need here I think
      Loretta?

      http://direct.ilovefreegle.org/main.php?action=look&groupid=176

      Worth a try?

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  3. My word, you've been busy with all that bottling. I love pickled shallots.

    I've visited a few gardens recently and was surprised to see how much is still in bloom given the combination of very wet summer and the onset of autumn.

    The bike looks serviceable. Looks like it wouldn't be a big job to get it roadworthy.

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