Saturday 30 July 2011

Harvest Time

We have had an amazingly bad year for our pots of vegetables this summer. The tomatoes never forgave me for putting them outside in June. It was dismal - the weather and the way the plants looked. They  never fully recovered from the trauma and all this time later only one pot is showing the signs of baby tomatoes. What are the chances of those becoming fully ripe before the summer sun is done for another year?

The beans? Well Emily's died. Helen's has produced one superb specimen of a bean - but she took it to school to show it off and I have not seen it since. There are some new flowers on it so we might as one or two more beans before the season is done. Oh yippee!

Two plants did flourish though. The girls potato plants, which we used two spare recycling bins to plant them in. Today we decided to harvest them before we headed off in the morning. It was so nice to have one of our crops actually produce. And produce very nicely they did.


Emily had planted white potatoes and Helen Red Roosters.


We'll be having potatoes with our dinner tonight and we will be packing some in a bag and taking them to my mother's too.

In other news, I got post yesterday. Of the most exciting kind. Sarah - Narcoleptic in a Cupboard - is Miss August in the Brit Bee. (If you have never read her blog than get yourself over there. She's brilliant!) And she came through with a doozy of a bee month (in a very good way I might add). Just look what emerged from the envelope she sent through.


Can you believe it!? All that black and blue fabric and we can do whatever we want with it. Well, we do have to produce two 12 1/5" blocks to send back to her but there are no other rules. There are some amazingly imaginative sewers in our bee so this month is going to produce some fantastic blocks.

To help us along our way, Sarah sent us tunes to sew by -


Chocolate, and this -


Fizzy lemonade!! Full of 'E' numbers. Sarah is looking for some seriously interesting blocks. I love it. Other than the fact that it is my month next and the only things I can think of to put in the envelope to reflect my Canadian heritage is pancakes (you know the fat fluffy kind) with maple syrup all over them. I may have to think a bit more!

Susan

8 comments:

  1. Ooh you got Lemon, I got Raspberry - taking it to my parent's tomorrow as I don't want the kids round my stuff when the Es kick in!! Thanks Sarah!

    Lovely looking spuds! I picked the one strawberry on the plant we have, and I think, safe to say, killed it!

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  2. LOVE potatoes fresh from the earth - reminds me of my allotment days when all that grew were pots, toms, green beans and the odd pea. Yummy all the same. Very cute pic of the girls.

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  3. I got Coke flavour, haven't dared try it yet! Potatoes look yum, I think they are my favourite food item, plus it's exciting when you dig them up...!

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  4. You could send bacon Susan. I hear Canadians have great bacon. And bears- although that would be a bit hard to stuff into an envelope...

    Give me a minute - I think think of some way you can manage it...

    You got quite a haul of potatoes there , and they look pretty good! There is nothing like produce straight out of the ground/off the tree. Im a black thumb so I have to rely on the farmers markets to get my just off the tree fix.

    Enjoy your holiday.

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  5. Great harvest! Your girls look like they enjoy getting their hands dirty!


    Any ideas for your black and blue bee block?

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  6. Oh well done on the bumper crop of tatties, they'll be delish I'm sure :-) Glad you like the bee! I cant wait to see what you all come up with!

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  7. Your potato crop is very impressive!
    I grew up on that fizzy stuff - I got orange flavour and can't wait to try it again :)

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  8. I got lemon and it didn't seem to have any drastic effect on the kids. Go for it!! Our rocket has lived up to its name and took off, raspberries not so much, but I did make a rhubarb crumble the other night with our first rhubarb. Satisfying innit? Jxo

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