A Scribbler All My Life

Not as much colour in the garden this summer. Some plants need replacing and some are not yet ready to put on a show. The phlox, asters and rudbeckias will flower later.

I grew cosmos from seed and they’re lovely plants but not giving me the mass of pretty pink blooms I pictured. Some haven’t turned out to be exactly the colour described on the packet and they’re flowering in dribs and drabs so far. I’m hopeful they will be glorious though by the end of Summer.

I’ve had a lovely plant in one of the borders for a couple of years but I’ve forgotten the name. It has pretty spikes of tiny flowers which are always covered in bees.

The rain has been welcome although I must admit I’m wishing the blue skies would return. Lovely to see raindrops on flowers though.

Indoors I have a cactus. When I bought it , three years ago, it was covered in lovely flowers. I thought it needed plenty of sunlight so I kept it on a south-facing windowsill. No flowers! Just spiky green growths. Then, a few months ago I read that cacti need a cold spell before bringing them into the warmth for them to flower. So I put it somewhere cold for the Spring, and later brought it back into the sun. Now it’s flowering! Beautiful! I’m so pleased that I know what to do in future.

The vegetables have been very good this year. I think they liked the heat as long as they had sufficient water. The yellow French beans have been delicious and generous. I popped some twiggy sticks around the plants while they were small and they’ve supported them very well. Growing happily in the polytunnel they continue to yield their golden treasure.

The tomatoes are swelling nicely. The “Roma” ones are producing more fruit than the “St. Marzano” ones but time will tell whether one tastes better than the other. Both are plum types. I prefer them for their tasty flesh, few seeds and thin skins and also because they preserve well for winter in canning jars. Still green but coming along nicely.

The garden has been buzzing with little creatures. Grasshoppers are jumping, bees are zipping about and I think the dreaded Cabbage White butterflies are beginning to find mates and look for my sprouts.

I used to grow lots of gooseberries but I was tired of their vicious thorns and the tedious task of topping and tailing them. I got rid of most of the bushes but retained one because I enjoy the fruit.

They’re not quite ready. I tasted one and it was still horribly sour and crunchy. Many people think that’s how gooseberries taste but actually if they’re allowed to ripen on the bush they are sweet and delicious. They need to be left until they’re almost transparent and give to a little squeeze. I can enjoy them raw when they’re ripe.

Gooseberry tarts are delicious and so are the jam or jelly. The green fruit turns to a tawny red when it’s boiled with sugar into jam.

Jelly is easier because the fruit only needs to be washed and stewed, without topping and tailing. The juice is dripped through a jelly bag then combined with sugar and boiled until it sets. This also means no seeds go into the jelly.

Jam is trickier because the stalks and blossom end of each gooseberry need to be nipped off before stewing and boiling with sugar. This is called topping and tailing. Tiring if you have a lot of berries.

During Summer I freeze any surplus bits of fruit like strawberries, plums, apples and blueberries and later I make mixed fruit jam. Next to strawberry, it’s my favourite jam. I usually do this on a wintry day. A pleasure to be in a warm kitchen cooking up wonderful things.

It’s very easy to make jam. You need a large pan like a stockpot but not a vintage brass one because they react with the acid in the fruit. Equal quantities of fruit and sugar will make a good flavourful jam. Some fruits like strawberries have hardly any pectin to make the fruit set but pectin can be bought from the supermarket in bottles or as jam sugar. I use cooking apples which are rich in pectin and add them to give a good set. Lemons are often recommended but I can’t see the sense of it because they don’t seem to have any pectin.

If you’d like to make jam, some useful tips are in my Earthy Homemaker’s Cookbook. This link will take you to it if you’d like to find out more. The book is available in a paperback or kindle edition.

https://geni.us/eANQu

My daughter pointed out to me that I’ve been scribbling down tips, recipes, stories and poems for most of my life. In my twenties when the children were young I noted any tips I’d picked up or worked out while I was cooking and economising. Having little money made me very resourceful and the habit has stayed with me to old age. I always wanted to share good ideas and I was probably an intended blogger long before blogs were invented.

Like my daughter, I wanted to be an author when I was young. She has successfully carried out her intentions and now has several books in print. My notes hardly ever became completed stories, although I published several local history articles while I was working. Now I have my blog and I hope to continue sharing ideas and photographs for a while.

That’s all for this week. With you again soon. I hope you’ll join me. Bye for now.