It’s that time of year again.  You know when it rains constantly and you never see a butterfly    .
In case anyone wants to take part. Here’s a link. 

https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/

I’ve downloaded the app in anticipation of a nice 15 minutes when I can sit and watch for butterflies     .

I had some problems with a cucumber this week and then today I noticed that some spiders have made use of the sharp edges on the cucumber leaves and capture some food.

   
   

So are you the veg grower and the veg cook in your house?
If not, does the cook have to make do with whatever the grower produces or do they have a say over what is grown for the kitchen?

I have 2 cucumber plants, and up to yesterday they were both doing great, yesterday I noticed a lot of small fruit dying off, however this morning I noticed some green flies on one of the plants so I got out my trusty Bug Off spray and sprayed both plants and some chilli and tomatoe plants close by asa precaution. Oh I also clipped off some lower leaves that were gone yellow and the dying/dead fruit, By lunchtime when I went in to check and after one of the plants major branch had started to wilt and die off. I will try put up some photos

          

Latest experiment!!

 These gutters (originally from Freecycle) were planted with strawberries outdoors but the plants were past their best so I decided to turn them into something different - a Greenhouse Gutter Garden (GGG). 
Took the tops off the staging and rested the guttering on them - filled with compost.

5 rows of guttering, though not all full length.
Back row planted with beetroot seedlings.
Next row - spring onions
Next - radish
Next - Salad bowl lettuce seedlings
Last row - nothing - so far.

I'm sowing in small sections - when one lot germinates, I sow another lot of seeds alongside and move the seed label to the end of the sown part.

So far, so good and it looks like a good way to keep small quantities of veg growing, hopefully over winter. Also, easy to pick.

Show us your strange and unusual plant containers please.  

Inspire me to think even further outside the box!!
Speaking of which - who'd have thought that you could grow dahlia tubers in a cardboard box with no soil whatsoever!!

   

As the title says, I have collected about 2 kilo of gooseberries today with about another 3 kilo's to collect! So what do I do with 5 kilo's of goosegogs?

I thought about using gooseberry jelly as a base for different coloured chilli jams as one option?  My strawberries are about finished but I have still to harvest blackcurrants, redcurrants and whitecurrants so maybe an amalgamation of these?

I'm not making jam this year - I don't eat it and even though we have used up jars of the stuff while in Lockdown I don't want it using up my cupboard space....so recipes please! I have dozen some after cutting in half and taking the stone out.

I made this pudding yesterday. The recipe said Apricots but I subbed with plums - and OMG! It was delicious. There wasn't any left this morning!

Plum and Almond Upside Down Cake. 

8-9inch cake tin. Buttered.
Slice the plums in half.
For the sauce:

50g butter, plus more for the tin
fresh apricots - I used plums - halved        and stoned. Enough to line the tin
125g caster sugar
1 tbsp runny honey

For the cake
150g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
100g plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
100g ground almonds
1 tsp vanilla extract
125ml full-fat milk


Butter a 20-23cm cake tin and prepare the apricots.
Put the sugar and 75ml water into a small saucepan. Heat slowly until the sugar has dissolved. When the sugar has melted bring to the boil and watch until the syrup starts to turn to caramel (it will turn golden first). Swish the pan a bit. Once it becomes caramel (you will know by the smell and colour) take off the heat and add the butter. Stir once the butter has melted. Pour into the tin and place the apricots, close together and cut-side down, on top.

Preheat the oven to 180C/170C fan*/gas mark 4.

To make the cake, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition (add a couple of spoonfuls of flour if it starts to curdle). Sift together the flour and baking powder and stir in the almonds. Add the vanilla, then the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk.

Spoon this over the apricots and bake for 50 minutes. When the cake is cooked, a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. Run a knife between the cake and the tin and invert on to a plate. If some apricots have stuck to the tin, replace them on the cake.

Gently heat the honey. Using a pastry brush, glaze the top of the cake. The honey will run down the sides to give a lush, home-made look. Leave to cool. The cake is lovely with crème fraîche or a mixture of sweetened Greek yogurt and double cream.

It was delicious! I didn't use the honey as I forgot!

https://www.gardeningexpress.co.uk/garde...85f351c0c2

I've bought these offers several times - if you want gladioli, lilies and dahlias, they're a bargain. Quality was good but I bought far more than I needed and gave away most of the gladioli. Half my dahlias are still growing in a cardboard box.

Size is everything when identifying the plum family, they all start off green and go a near purple black colour. It’s the first to develop a derrière, ie the v groove cup associated with a British plum. The bullace is a little larger than the sloes and smaller than a damson. It’s still round like a sloe whereas a damson is more oval. For size it’s between the top section of your middle finger and thumb, 1.5-2.5cm. Grows on bushy often thorny stems and makes a pleasant slightly sweeter alternative to sloe gin. It can also be made into jams and added to other fruit in a jam. You want pretty much equal quantities of sugar and fruit to make a jam.

I like to freeze mine for a few days minimum to improve the sweetness, this also softens the fruit giving you more juice. You can freeze for longer with little deterioration. The fruit contains a stone so will make a better seived jelly, and a really tasty leather.

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