https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67602627

I'm pleased to say that I don't have anything like this in the garden. 

What would you like to find behind the doors/windows of your Advent Calendar 2023? 

Starting tomorrow, December 1st, you are invited to tell us what you hope for, with the caveat that, on the 1st Day, your wished for item should begin with A. We'll work our way through the alphabet until we reach the 26th, Boxing Day and the letter Z. 
Hope that's clear?

I've just bought "Incredible Edibles" by Matthew Biggs. "Grow something different in your fruit and veg plot".
Some of the plants he mentions I've grown, some I've considered growing and others are new to me. I'm going to ask you all what you think about his suggestions and whether you would grow them. 

1. Snake Gourd. Trichosanthes cucumerina var. anguina.  
(Looks a bit like a trombone squash.) "The fruits, if left to their own devices, will coil up like a bedspring or like a snake wrapped around a tree branch". 
"Young fruit can be eaten like courgettes while the red pulp of the mature fruit makes a good substitute for tomatoes.
Young shoots and leaves are also edible and, although all parts of the plant taste bitter when raw, this disappears after cooking. 
Leave a few mature specimens to paint up and turn into colourful snakes. "

Amongst all the dead and dying stuff in the garden I have just spotted this. 
All the rest are common matricaria (Feverfew).
This one is double and green petalled. 
Interesting - and I like it!
Do you think it's a sport - and therefore worth saving seed?
Or just a poor suffering little thing that has lost its white petals and is preparing to keel over for winter?

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What do you call the bits of batter that fall off the fish when its deep fried? We call them Scrumps and, as kids, we'd get them free from the chip shop if we took them some newspapers for wrapping the food. 

M&S/Ocado call them Scraps and sell them for £1.60!

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-chip-...-544973011

I keep seeing FB posts about Canning (US) - what I would call bottling or preserving. There are racks and racks of jars containing items that I would never think of preserving like bread, potatoes, milk. They have 100s of jars of the same item. It would take me years to get through all the jars of food they store, if my consumption of homemade jam and pickles is anything to go by. 

 My Mum used to bottle a few jars of fruit a year but that was in the days before freezers. I hate wasting food but I can't help thinking that, if they need to bottle so much they are growing or buying too much in the first place.

What am I missing?

November is not my favourite month (cold, bleak, dark nights etc) so I'm looking for the positive things that November offers. 

Today, the sun is shining on the autumn leaves. Some are glowing as if they're on fire.  It seems late but most of the trees are still in leaf. 
I can still dry washing outdoors even though it catches falling leaves on their way earthwards. Pillowcases, in particular, are good leaf catchers!

Inspired by Veggies flowers named after food   .

If you had the opportunity to name a new variety of flower or vegetable. What flower or veg would you name? What name would you give it and why? 

If I had the chance to name a flower it would either be a pink lily or rose. I’d name it 
“raise your glass “
Named after one of my favourite songs by Pink . 

I’d also like to name a chilli and a squash or pumpkin. Still working on what I’d name them.

Cornish Cabbage Plants is a family business that grows plants from seed for sale as young plants. They are different to most because the plants are field grown and sold at a much larger size than the commercial module grown ones. https://www.cornishcabbageplants.com/
You may remember that I visited a local organic veg grower earlier this year and I've just seen a video of him planting out a delivery of Curly kale plants from this company. The plants were much larger than anything I would replant. Apparently they have been pulled from the ground, not dug up, and are replanted by being dropped into dibbered holes in the ground, as one would do with leeks. 
Not sure if this link to Pip's video will work https://www.facebook.com/watch/garthview/
Having seen the size of these kale plants I would have no qualms about moving brassicas around the garden or of growing them to a decent size in a seed bed before moving them to their final positions. No more  puny little seedlings for me!

I don't mean edible flowers but flowers that have something edible in their name like Rudbeckia "Marmalade" and Foxglove "Milk Chocolate".
What can you add??