Well, September has started in a glorious blaze of sunshine and clear blue skies - how different from the majority of August - and, finally, my tomatoes are starting to ripen. I only had two small 'patio' tomato plants this year as I kept hoping we'd be moving house before it would be time to harvest them. Sadly, that hasn't happened. If I'd known we'd still have been here in September I'd have planted half a dozen full-size tomato plants too.
The apple tree is groaning with fruit even though I've already used a heck of a lot in apple crumble, apple pie and good old stewed apple. I'll bag some up and give them to the next-door neighbours and I think I'll have a go at the apple chutney recipe Caroline let me have a few weeks ago. I'd also like to go blackberrying sometime this weekend (if this glorious weather holds) and then I could make some blackberry and apple crumble (my favourite) and, perhaps, some blackberry jam.
The plum harvest has been very sparse this year but I did spot a cluster of really nice plums on Sunday when I was picking in some apples. P had to do the honours of getting them off the tree as they were really high up and needed a step ladder to reach them. They've been stewed up and turned into a plum fool this morning.
I'm still cutting salad leaves at a very steady rate although the dank August weather means they're definitely of the 'micro' variety at the moment. Nihil desperandum though, I'll sew a few more seeds of these in the hope that they'll keep on growing up until the first frosts. I have to say I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to start buying salad again - the last bag of salad leaves I bought tasted positively rank compared to my home-grown ones.
My tomatoes are finally starting to ripen as well, although very slowly. You are lucky you are still getting salad leaves, mine really suffered with the horrible August weather we had.
I've been making your dishcloths like crazy and have a good supply of them for myself now and have given three away as gifts. I linked to you when I first blogged about them, and have linked to you again today. Thanks again for writing the pattern up.
Posted by: L | 09/02/2010 at 06:33 AM