Roots

   

♥ The first of the Long Red Surrey and Yellowstone carrots. ♥

Jars of Joy

We are trying our hand at refrigerator pickles. We mixed up a white wine vinegar pickling brine in which we've steeped lemon zest, garlic, peppercorns, coriander seed and a fresh bay leaf (this may prove to be too savoury; time will tell). We left the beans raw.

* 26/07/14: We taste tested these today: the beans are crunchy, the fresh bay leaf melds with the green taste of the beans; the garlic, coriander and peppercorns temper the fragrance of the bay and the zesty lemon the sourness of the vinegar. This recipe is a keeper.

We made a batch of gooseberry curd to Pam Corbin's recipe and a pot of goosberry & elderflower jam from some fruit we purchased in Ware.

The Generous Gardener

Red Admiral

A Red Admiral (♂), Vanessa atalanta, came to rest in our garden, possibly attracted to the spoiled apples that are being dropped by the starvelings and parakeets. We're wondering whether its weathered wings are signs that it has travelled from the continent.

Ware Boat Festival

We took a canal-side walk today and had a gander at the Ware Boat Festival on the Lee and Stort Navigation. We met another canalware artist, Beverly Clarke who had set up stall for the day.

The swans ogled us in the hope of sandwich crumbs.

Fine weather for fine courgettes :)

Abundance

You Learn Something New Everyday

We attended our local gardening club meet this evening and the talk was on the glass flower collection of Harvard Museum of Natural History, a vast collection of exquisite, intricate glass botanical models crafted by father and son, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka from 1887 to 1936. If you've not heard of the collection, it is worth doing an image search to find out what we're on about.

Peas and Beans

First of the 'Kelvedon Wonder' and the 'Magpie' dwarf beans.

The Medlars are swelling. The crawlie is possibly a fairy-ring longhorn beetle, leptura livida, we thinks.

First of the 'Old Fashioned'. We're having to spray these with water regularly to keep the aphids at bay; the spiders are looking too well-fed and languid.

A Small Magpie moth, Eurrhypara hortula taking refuge under the leaves of the Magpie dwarf beans; of all places.

The first blossoms on the cukes.

      

     

The green and pleasant corner.