2024 - What I did today

Outing with a pal most of the day then helped P cut the remaining grass and he helped me put the courgette pots inside the gh as we're forecast colder nights. I'm not convinced that courgettes in a pot in the gh will extend the season but it's worth a try.

Picked lots of apples some were juiced and some are dehydrating.

Took various cuttings of borderline tender plants to overwinter indoors for next year:

Lemon verbena
Blackcurrant sage
Pineapple sage
Fuchsia la campanella

Pulled up all the chilli & sweet pepper plants. Some of them I’ve pulled all the leaves off and hung upside down in the tunnel. With the hope that some might ripen. Leaving them in the bed wasn’t going to achieve anything. The minute any started to ripe something would just bore a whole into it. Also pulled up my courgette. It still had a couple of potentials coming but what’s the point when there is only me eating at the moment. Removed a few more finished tomato branches. Dug over and covered one empty bed. Dug over and plant my pomegranate , lemon, blood orange and 2 avocados in the other.

In the Lidl YS tray was clotted cream at 40p. Who could resist. In fact my pal took 3. I was a bit restrained and only bought the one. Now P is not a dairy freak like me, so clotted cream doesn't hold much fascination, I on the other hand could just eat it by the spoonful. So my new thing this week was to make some scones. They're not something I've baked for absolutely ages, it must be 10 years at least, so l consider it to be a 'new' thing. There's nothing much to scones, flour sugar, butter and milk but a great deal of waffle about how to get a good, light rise. I refreshed my memory and googled recipes, all had lovely pictures of tall, risen, golden topped scones. I did as advised, rubbed in the flour, didn't knead or handle the dough too much, all the things mother told me as a kid when learning to cook. I only made half batch of 6 scones and watched them in the oven as they developed a lovely golden top. Shame they didn't grow much. After all this care and attention why did they end up looking like rock cakes! I'm ashamed of myself.
Nevertheless they were very nice rock cakes, split, buttered topped with homemade blackberry jam and lashings of clotted cream.