garden | with knife and fork

Beautiful brassicas

You might remember that I used to write a monthly blog for Francoise Murat Design about season British food. Well, Francoise has had the blog redesigned and its now called Rendez-vous Deco & Jardin, it looks lovely and I’m please to say I’m back doing my monthly feature.

My first piece was on how versatile brassicas are in the kitchen are and how useful they can be in in the lean vegetable months before the UK growing season gets into swing.

You can read the article here, its packed with ideas on how to use brassicas from spicy to mild, british to asian cooking, there is sure to be something to suit you.

Pyracantha berries

Wonderful bright autumn berries in the garden

Tomato harvest

I’ve finally harvested the tomatoes as the plants were looking rather sad.

Collected a real mix of green and red.

So what to do with them…not sure there is enough for chutney.

Suggestions welcome.

Two colours of sedum

I love the tiny flower detail on sedum heads.

Almost like lace in some ways.

I also love the different hues they come in from near white.

To deep pink.

They’ll be finished soon for this year though

Pink Pelargonioum

The recent sunny weather has brought the pelargoniums into a second round of flowering.

And today was a pleasantly sunny day with good light for taking pictures in the garden.

So here’s shocking pink pelargoniums in all their glory.

If only I could get them to grow in my window boxes but I don’t think they get enough sun to do well on our north east facing windowsills.

Nubbly green tomato

This year the tomatoes have been very slow to flower, set and ripen. We have had some red ones (like about 5) but most are still green.

They aren’t all nubbly like this one though (seeds courtesy of @josordoni)

Nubbly or not they are destined for green tomato chutney or pickles. Which are at least as delicious as having ripe tomatoes.

WIn-Win

What’s the apple ID?

Yesterday we noticed some apples hanging over the fence from the neighbours tree.

So we picked them.

Now I know you are supposed to hand them back but well the owner of the house rents it out so we kind of figured there were as much ours as the tenants

Anyway we only got a few there are tons for them to collect if they want them.

I’ve tried to work out what they are but all my guesses wouldn’t be ripe yet and these are definitely ready. They are crisp very white flesh and a good balance of sweet and sharp.

Suggestions welcome as to their identity