Peas Peas Peas

It has been a bumper harvest of peas this year...I think because of the wet weather in late spring. Predictably, all of the plants cropped simultaniously (I don't have the patience for succession sowing)  so I have had a manic picking session and cleared out the spent plants. I chopped the plants at the base, leaving the roots in the ground - they are full of nitrogen fixing good stuff which will be great for the brassicas next year.

A rather nice head of broc in there, too!

Then ensued a few nights of shucking in front of the t.v, to produce lots of bowls like this:

Which were blanched for one minute in boiling water, cooled rapidly under the cold tap, and frozen flat (ish) to stop them sticking:

We now have a freezer full to have with lazy dinners of chips (which we will be freezing this weekend) and a fried egg for a selfsufficient lazy dinner during the working week.

Soul Food

Things have been growing at amazing speed in the vegetable garden and I will do a proper update shortly.

Meanwhile, here are some gratuitous pictures of the flower garden, which is in full bloom. It is no Chelsea contender, and given that most of it has only been planted this year, it is still a little bare and lacks structure in the planting. The lawn is also a bit shameful. But it is coming on and I work to the theory that, if you have enough flowers packed into a fairly small space, you can't go wrong!

Lonely Chick Saga

We bought six hatching eggs on the internet at the beginning of June. It always amazes me that they survive the post - they are packed very securely in polystyrene moulded trays and we have never found a broken one.

We have, however, had dissappointing hatching rates both times we have used purchased eggs. The first time we tried this before we bought an incubator, our bantam light sussex sat on them. It was very hot and dry that summer, and only one hatched.

This wasn't a huge problem, as the chick had it's surrogate 'mother' to keep it company. However, when only one of the six eggs we bought hatched, with no surrogate, we were in trouble. Being flocking creatures, chickens go a bit loopy left on their own and it is deemed cruel by hen experts.

So, the rush was on to try and find some companions for it. After three days and numerous frantic phone calls, we found a breeder who was going to kill off his male chicks (they breed layers). The fact that they were male was not a problem, as we were after chickens to raise for the table, so we took six.

For a little while, the lone chick (the black one) stood on the sidelines feeling a little awkward...

But after a couple of hours it was huddled together with the rest of the flock, and the lonely chick was lonely no more. Aww...

Have you ever seen anything so gorgeous?

Wow. Sweet peas from the garden are surely the best thing about summer? The smell makes me go a little bit wierd and the colours make my cells tingle. Gorgeous.

Midsummer Musings

I just love this time of year, especially as we approach the solstace. I come over all 'Midsummer Nights Dream' and go for losts of walks at dusk - which last night, was 9-10pm, down our quiet country roads with meadows either side. There is an almost electric feel to the cool and moist evening air and it feels like there is something special going on in the hedgerows and waving long grass that I dont quite understand. There isn't much point taking photos as with my camera they would only come out as a grey grainy mess. But the other day I took a solitary walk up the steep hills of the Cherill white horse and watched the sun set - beautiful.

The view to the left

The view to the front

I am also spellbound by the beauty in the cottage garden (pictures once I have mowed the grass, promise!). I do love exuberant floral displays and every year promise myself a cutting garden with exotic lovelies growing in neat rows. I always fail as veg takes up all of my time, but sometimes there is nothing nicer than a scruffy little collection of totally clashing, scruffy cottage garden blooms.

Bread

What with the recent wet weather and the village Scarecrow Festival (more on that another post) we haven't been very productive on our patch lately - the wet weather has sent the grass and the weeds rocketing skywards, although I am grateful that as yet (touch wood) slugs don't seem to be too much of a problem.

But wet weather is perfect baking weather...and Oli (who is the head baker in our house) has been busy whipping up these beauties:



We generally make all of our own bread - once you have mastered it (which took us a good two years to get to the point of making reliably nice bread every time) I don't think you ever look back. But lately, since I have been on a massive tiny-bridesmaid-dress-induced-diet we have had a few bread free weeks. So it was nice, if a little guilty pleasure, to saw the end off the long loaf and scoff it with butter while it was still warm. Mmmm.

We use the River Cottage basic loaf recipe - although we vary the ingredients depending on what we have - this time a handful of linseeds went in and Oli used 50% wholemeal. Delish.

Fast Food

Finally we have reached that time in the season when we are eating entire meals which have been grown on site.

The first pickings of spinach, dill, parsley and some eggs from the hens made a lovely spinach omlette (OK, I admit, the feta cheese was bought).

Oh yes, we even rusticaly gather the bounty in a rustic old trug.

And then last night, a salad using some leftover BBQ meat from the weekend with some tiny new 'Pink Fir' spuds, radish 'French Breakfast', leuttice, baby spinach leaves and some gorgeous carrot thinnings just eaten raw in the salad.



Oh and for afters and to be sliced over cereal in the mornings this week.....


They don't call it the good life for nothing!