Living a contented creative life.

The frost has finally hit home! The garden is frozen and the nights cold and long. Time for cosy fires and hot meals.

The frost always looks beautiful so I can forgive its savage effect on the garden. Here are some frosty moments I caught with the camera.

The robin is a very round ball of fluff and the birdfeeders are constantly busy. Even the jackdaws have clung clumsily to the suet feeder and squirrels are hanging by their back feet to nibble any scrap.

Downy feathers are dropped here and there as the birds do their winter preening.

These frost-frozen days often have clear blue skies and welcome sunshine.

I’m not fond of cold weather though so I’ve kept warm by baking. I made little cakes and froze them. Very simple to do but a lovely sweet treat to eat. I just mix together 200g caster sugar, 4 eggs, 200g self-raising flour, two rounded teaspoons of baking powder and 200g sunflower oil, and spoon into paper cases, then bake for 15 minutes at 180C/160C fan oven.

Some had to be sampled of course! I shall make more and ice them for our Christmas family get-together.

I will need to make more mince pies as well because our December treat is a warm mince pie, dusted with icing sugar, and a glass of sherry on a wintry afternoon. They’re disappearing quickly. So delicious and so Christmassy.

The tree is up and decorated. I don’t go for style with our Christmas ornaments, although I have a particular liking for symmetry and glistening objects. I bought most of the baubles over 50 years ago. I love them for the way they look and the memories they evoke. I made a few things when the children were small and although they don’t look very professional they are always included. Tinsel and fairy lights are compulsory for that festive shine.

I need to be ready a bit earlier than most. We have our family with us a week before Christmas. It began when our son had to work during Christmas and became a tradition. We spend time together over the previous weekend and exchange gifts. These days it’s a little briefer but just as enjoyable. We all feel it starts the season off and extends the festivities.

I hope you’re keeping warm and having some pre-Christmas treats of your own. With you again next week.

ps. Some readers have had trouble using my link on Facebook over the last couple of weeks. I hope it’s now working. The best way to catch my blog is to “follow” me, then you will receive an email telling you that I have posted. Thank you so much to everyone who reads my blog. It’s such a pleasure to write it and it’s lovely when readers say they enjoy it too.

Christmas planning going full steam ahead! But still time to wander around the garden searching for hidden treasure. Amazingly, I found a snowdrop in flower. Never known that in November. Mine usually flower in late January.

Still a few leaves in lovely colours hanging on and the evergreens are pleasing at this time of year.

In Winter other features of the garden take over, like the light behind a statue, the ivy trailing around a garden pot, the bark of the trees or the fading wood of the fence.

My broad bean seeds have germinated and are now peeping through the soil. When they make sturdy little plants, I’ll put them into the garden border to grow on until Spring.

The celeriac are lovely to eat now. Mine never grow very big but they are adequate and very tasty. They have a long growing season but worth the wait. I usually sow the seeds in early April, and they are harvested in late Autumn and Winter. Their mild, celery flavour is good cooked or grated raw in salads. They are messy looking, knobbly things when they come out of the ground but once washed and prepared, they are a welcome winter veg. I love to nibble bits while I’m chopping them for my one-pan meals.

I’m continuing to enjoy my air fryer. Mine has several settings and I’m finding the bake one very useful. I experimented with bananas. If you like them, try this, it’s delicious. Slice the peeled bananas lengthways, place the bottom halves in a silicone dish which fits the air fryer basket, and sprinkle the surface of the bananas with caster sugar and cocoa powder. Place the top banana halves over them. Set on bake at 160C and cook for 13 – 15 minutes. The sugar and cocoa make a chocolate sauce. Serve warm with vanilla ice-cream.

Another good banana idea was passed on by my sister. Slice bananas and fry in heated butter with a sprinkling of brown sugar, for a few minutes. Delicious and a really good way to use up over-ripe fruit.

I made a pecan pie. This is a Christmas treat which I have made every year for some time. I was so pleased with the way it turned out. Sometimes they can bubble in the oven and the surface cracks but this one was perfect. It’s not difficult to make and always goes down well with guests. Looks special and is a wickedly rich treat. Freezes well too.

I had a compliment from an American friend who tried my recipe. She said it was even better than her Mom’s. Loved that! If you’d like to try it, you’ll find the recipe in my Earthy Homemaker’s Cookbook, with this link

https://geni.us/eANQu

You might remember my little teddy from last week. Well, the needles have been clicking again and he now has a companion.

Been great fun making them, although my fingers are a bit sore by now. I thought the little skirt required a dainty pair of pants to go underneath. I can imagine some small child looking for them! So, I got my thinking head on and worked out how to make them. Here they are.

That’s all for this week. I hope you’re coping with Christmas planning and enjoying the pleasures of the season. Bye for now. With you again next week.

Wet and windy. Not tempting me into the garden except to fetch vegetables for cooking. Although it’s a long, wet trek to fetch them, the carrots, parsnips and celeriac are snug in the polytunnels, and I have an abundant supply of fresh parsley. It’s always worth the effort. I have a couple of nice winter squashes stored in the house.

These carrots are “Autumn King”, an old variety with plenty of flavour. I hope I have enough for the next few weeks. They’re a bit overcrowded so I probably won’t be pulling up huge ones. I should have sown them thinly, but I’m carried away with a packet of seeds in my hand.

The onions I grow over winter are doing well. They are surprisingly hardy and will tick along until February when they will put on a spurt and gradually begin to swell. I’m growing “Toughball”. They must have that name because of their ability to withstand bad weather. The onions are actually very tender and sweet to eat.

The “Spring Hero” cabbages are holding their own after a few nibbles from slugs. Once plants are a bit bigger, they recover well and continue to grow. Best to work with nature wherever possible. These are lovely cabbages. As far as I know they are the only Spring cabbages which form a ball head. When they’re ready, we love these shredded thinly with a sprinkling of salt and pepper and a dribble of ginger syrup stirred in. Or if I cook them, they’re good steamed. Really delicious.

Very few flowers to brighten the garden now. Evergreens come into their own though and provide some structure to a fading scene.

One of the compensations for this weather is the opportunity to bake delicious Christmas treats. I’ve made some mince pies, using my own mincemeat . A little extra brandy stirred in, before filling the pastry cases, adds flavour and moisture. A warm mince pie with a glass of sherry is always welcome in December. I shall make some more because we love them. A little dusting of icing sugar makes them extra tempting.

For an easy but special dessert to enjoy at some point over Christmas, I always make a swiss roll filled with cream. I give it the posh name of “roulade”. It can be filled with so many tasty ingredients, such as chocolate, nuts or fruit. This time I filled it with stem ginger pieces and cream flavoured with ginger syrup. This recipe, and one for walnut and coffee roulade, is in my cookbook. If you’d like to take a look, click this link to find it. https://geni.us/eANQu

You will need a swiss roll tin and greaseproof paper.

It’s easy to make, delicious to eat and freezes perfectly if you need to make it ahead. I always make these before Christmas so that when the time comes, I can relax and enjoy the treats without too much work. If you’re good with an icing kit you can make it look a lot fancier than I do. When it’s sliced the inside looks really nice.

There are other ideas in my cookbook for easy but delicious desserts. Good food doesn’t need to be complicated. Christmas should be enjoyed, not endured. Planning ahead and a few simple ideas make for more festive fun.

For those relaxing moments I’ve been knitting again. It’s surprisingly soothing when I have a lot on my mind. Another little teddy, dressed for the cold weather. So pleasing when it comes to life and his little bits of clothing are added.

Fun to do with easy patterns and oddments of yarn. I hope he’ll find a home with some little person who will treasure him.

I hope your Christmas plans are going well and you’re enjoying the preparations. With you again next week. Bye for now.

The weather has cooled at last and more like the usual November. Cosy nights by the fire and crisper days. Happy times in a warm kitchen, baking, cooking, and filling up the freezer with Christmas goodies.

My lovely daughter, Sam, helped me to make the Christmas cake. We always do this on my birthday. It’s stashed away now in a cake tin to mature, and I will sprinkle it with sherry a couple of times to boost that wonderful festive flavour.

We needed a quick lunch, so I made delicious chicken soup the day before. I always find soup is even better the day after I make it. The flavours develop and it thickens slightly. We enjoyed some chocolate brownies I’d made and frozen on another baking day.

It was a lovely way to spend my birthday. The kitchen was full of Christmas aromas. Spices, brandy and sweet ingredients. Plus, a tasty lunch and chocolate cakes. Wonderful!

One birthday treat was a visit to our favourite local nursery to buy plants. Always a pleasure for me. I have popped the plants into a bed which was created when we had the landscaping done. Meanwhile, I look around the garden and find pleasure in the leaves. Some still clinging on and others glistening wet on the paths.

I spotted a tiny snail clinging on to a brown and shrivelled leaf.

The winter clematis has lots of buds and a few opening flowers. In a week or two it will be a picture.

You don’t often see the white flowers on holly but there is a little cluster of buds just behind a trellis fence which I managed to catch with my camera.

A few small roses keep surprising me. Their beautiful petals look so fragile and yet they withstand the wind and rain and still manage to look lovely. The hydrangea we planted a few weeks ago is still blooming and full of colour.

Winter days call for satisfying and warming food. The cost of groceries is worryingly high right now but here are two suggestions for cheap, tasty and nutritious meals.

Boil and mash potatoes. Drain a can of salmon, sardines or mackerel and mash into the potatoes. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and spread the mash in the pan. Brown on both sides and then serve with vegetables and your favourite sauce or chutney. If you have a steamer, you can cook frozen peas above the potatoes as they boil. That will save a bit of fuel.

For a vegetarian alternative, one which I love, cook red lentils to a mush and then add to the mashed potatoes. The lentils need to be just covered in water so that it’s absorbed and not too sloppy. Cook in the microwave for ten minutes, uncovered, or cook on the hob for about fifteen minutes until the water has been absorbed. Brown in a little heated oil, as before, and again serve with vegetables and sauce or chutney.

Cheap and enjoyable, full of protein and easy to do.

With you again next week. Meanwhile, enjoy your Christmas preparations. Bye for now.

Almost mid-November, yet the weather has been so mild that the plants are confused. Some of them think it’s Spring. The rhododendron has opened a few flower buds and the primulas are flowering.

A few little potted roses are pretty and brightening the garden with their delicate beauty.

The tomatoes have been removed from the greenhouse and I’ve used the border to plant a few winter lettuces. I started the seeds in plugs of homemade compost and transplanted them once they had a few leaves. They will grow slowly over the next few months, providing a few leaves, and begin to bulk up in February when the days are longer.

The Spring cabbages in the polytunnel are tiny yet but by late April I will have delicious fresh cabbage to enjoy. They don’t look much at this stage, but gardeners learn to be patient people.

The garlic I planted last month has fresh green leaves. I’m hoping for a nice crop of juicy bulbs in May. Still using this year’s crop of sweet, flavoursome cloves.

My “Red Winter” kale is producing some useable leaves now. I grow this outside because it’s very hardy and suffers from powdery mildew if I grow it under cover. It was a battle to keep the Cabbage White butterflies off earlier but now they’ve gone it can grow undisturbed. It’s a delicious kale. Really good steamed or stir-fried.

Not so much colour in the garden at this time of year but still things to enjoy. I love the undergrowth of the two huge cypress trees we have and our melancholy maiden standing beneath.

There are lovely leaves and berries around the garden. The holly hedge has some scarlet gems and the skimmia is always a show. The leaf bin is pleasingly full and will make leaf mould for next year and the following year.

It’s a good thing that the gardening has eased because Christmas shopping and baking take a lot of time and thought. Lots of work but something I enjoy.

I’m trying to reduce plastic in my gifts, so I usually make some presents. This year I’ve knitted someone a scarf. I thought it would be simple, but it seemed to take a long time to reach the right length! I hope it will be snug and comfortable to wear.

I’m not making Christmas puddings this year but if you’re looking for a nice recipe that doesn’t take multiple hours of steaming, try mine. I make individual puddings which keep for a short time or can be frozen for a year. They take just one minute to thaw to eating temperature in the microwave. A fruity and spicy treat to be had with my rum sauce. Both recipes are in my Earthy Homemaker’s Cookbook, available with Amazon. You can find it with this link.

https://geni.us/eANQu

Thank you to everyone who has bought my book. Many of you know that I produced this in response to requests from regular readers of my blog. Thinking up simple recipes is one of my pleasures and I’m happy to pass them on, along with tips to make things easier. Cooking and baking, and of course eating, should be something to enjoy. Cooking makes work but there is no need for complicated methods. My cakes are all easy to mix and I have recipes for easy, nutritious and economical meals. The simplest meals are often the most delicious and satisfying.

When I want to relax, I like to paint. You might remember I had something in progress. Not very big, drawn from one of my photos of the garden and painted with gouache. Here’s the end product.

That’s all for this week. I hope you’re finding lots of pleasant ways to fill your time. With you again soon. Bye for now.

It’s been an exciting week. The landscaping was finished and looks lovely. What a transformation. This area of the garden was covered in old crazy paving. It had sunk and was uneven and covered in moss and weeds. Now, it’s sleek, sophisticated and easy maintenance. Here’s how it looked before.

Here’s how it looks now. Photos taken in the rain. The wet stone looks really good.

I’m thrilled to bits! Can’t wait for Spring to come with fresh planting and seasonal treats.

Meanwhile, there are still pleasures to be had from this season. The leaves have been colourful. The acers were lovely for about a week and now their leaves decorate the ground in profusion.

The wind and rain have brought down the fruit tree and beech leaves. They lie in a pleasing jumble.

The sky has been wonderfully blue some days and reflected in the refurbished pond.

A few odd flowers are scattered here and there and Clematis cirrhosa has dainty buds appearing.

November already. Time to be thinking of Christmas. I’ll be baking the cake in a week or so. If you’re thinking of doing the same and need a recipe, here’s mine.

Christmas Cake
I have listed the ingredients in the order that you use them to make it as simple as possible. The brandy or rum can be mixed or one or the other used.
Line a deep cake tin with a removable base with a double layer of greaseproof paper. Line the sides first, then cover the base and push it down inside the tin to hold the side lining in place. This helps to prevent the outside of the cake from over-cooking while it's baking. Grease it lightly with a little oil.

50g Pecan Nuts
1 Orange
1 Lemon
100g Glace Cherries
2 lumps Stem Ginger
50g Candied Peel

Grind the nuts or chop very finely.
Grate the orange and lemon peel.
Finely chop the glace cherries, stem ginger and candied peel.

Heat the oven to 150C/130C fan oven.

4 large Eggs
225g Muscovado sugar
240g Self-raising Flour
225g Sultanas
225g Raisins
230g Sunflower Oil
1 rounded teaspoon ground Cinnamon
1 rounded teaspoon ground Ginger
1 level teaspoon ground Cloves
half teaspoon Mixed Spice
2 tablespoons Brandy or Rum

Put all ingredients, except the brandy or rum, into a large bowl and mix thoroughly.
Add the spirits and mix again. Smells wonderful!
Put the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for one and three-quarter hours.
Test with a skewer to see if the centre is cooked. Should come out cleanly if it's ready.
Allow to cool a little then remove from the tin but leave the paper on.
When it's completely cold, unwrap and rewrap in fresh greaseproof paper and store in an airtight tin.

Cream Sherry

After a couple of weeks, pull back the top wrapping, prick the cake with a fork and gently spoon sherry over the cake. Don't over-soak it but be sure to reach the outside of the cake which will be the driest part. 
Repeat in another two or three weeks.
The sherry makes the cake moist and rich and full of Christmas flavours.
I no longer ice my cake. Too many calories and a husband who hates marzipan. It does make the cake extra-special though so you may want to do it.
Brush the top of the cake with warmed jam. Apricot jam is traditional, but any smooth jam will do. Roll out marzipan to fit the top of the cake and place it on the jammy surface.
Cover with royal icing. If you're not good at smoothing the icing, try roughing it up with a fork to resemble snowdrifts. Or use a ready-made icing.
Some festive decorations on top and a ribbon or paper band around the cake complete the picture.

My lovely daughter will be helping me to make this. She enjoys chopping the various ingredients while I organise the lining of the cake tin and find everything else. We listen to Christmas music while we do it.

I hope you enjoy making your own Christmas cake. Many of us have a favourite recipe, but if you need one, you could try mine. Let me know how it turns out if you do. I love to hear from you.

Bye for now. With you again next week.

The garden is winding down. Not much colour now except for a few tiny stray roses and the last of the asters and marigolds.

Meanwhile, the evergreens are doing their job of providing year-round colour and form. The blue-green grasses and the conifers give some structure to the fading garden and still please my eye when most things are a sorry sight.

In the veg garden, the carrots, parsnips and celeriac are providing tasty meals. These are tucked away in the polytunnels, protected from the weather. Such a pleasure to pull up some nice fat carrots or a long parsnip. I do a lot of nibbling while I’m chopping them in the kitchen. The flavour is wonderful.

Kale and sprouts are coming on outside. The kale is looking good. I grow “Red Winter”, sometimes called “Red Russian”. It’s a very good one with tender leaves which can even be eaten in a salad. I especially like them steamed over boiling potatoes. Saves fuel and then I can add the cooked leaves to my cheesey potato bake. This is simply mashed potato with added cheese, over onion and kale, and browned in the oven. I shall be doing less of these though now that electricity is so expensive. I shall be using my air fryer more. I’m thinking of dishes I can cook in it.

I tried baked apples. Wonderful. Took only about twelve minutes. I did it for fifteen but that was slightly too long so next time I shall try ten and check to see if that’s enough. I think it will be.

I cored two cooking apples and stuffed them with a tablespoon of soft brown sugar and half a teaspoon of cinnamon for each with a few sultanas. I put them in a silicone liner and cooked them on the bake setting at 180C. I allowed them to cool before eating with oat cream. Fabulous!

I didn’t take a photo because I had slightly overcooked them. The sugar had burnt a bit on the outside. Not an attractive picture but I can assure you they tasted divine.

I’m trying to use some of my frozen food because my Christmas baking will be underway next month, and I shall need the freezer space. Swiss rolls filled with cream, mince pies and cranberry sauce. I like to do these ahead of time. They all freeze well and save me from feeling frazzled at Christmas.

Fortunately, Christmas cake doesn’t need freezing. It needs to mature with a few splashes of booze to make it extra special. I prefer it reasonably fresh though, so I make it on or around my birthday in November. My daughter helps me. It’s a tradition which began when she was a teenager. We love doing it together.

For some reason I forgot to put my Christmas cake recipe in my cookbook. I’ll put it on my blog instead. I might have done it in a previous post. I’ll check. My Christmas puddings, cranberry sauce and two cream-filled roulade (Swiss roll) recipes are in my cookbook. If you’d like to pick up a copy before Christmas, you can find it on Amazon with the link below.

https://geni.us/eANQu

It’s hard to believe Christmas is only weeks away with this unseasonal weather. Sunlight is flooding the living room and highlighting my glass and pottery in the cabinet. The houseplants are thriving with the extra warmth and rays of the sun.

The light is also good for painting. I’m working on one at the moment. It’s a view of the garden, out of the window. I took a photo, then drew the image and now I’m painting it with gouache. Here’s a glimpse of the work in progress.

That’s all for this week. I hope you have your own Christmas pleasures planned out. Bye for now. With you again soon.

Another week has flown by. The weather has been mixed but a few nice days allowed a bit of gardening. So many leaves everywhere. The garden looks very untidy and a bit sad as everything fades away. So, lots of sweeping and cutting back to do.

A few lovely marigolds and pansies to enjoy now. The rosemary is flowering with its delicate blue flowers and the leaves are fragrant as we brush past on the path.

The beans have finished producing and are looking bedraggled. I removed the French bean plants, but the runner beans are still to be done.

When the bean plants have been composted, I will prepare the bed and sow broad beans to enjoy next year. I haven’t much room for these, so I grow a dwarf variety called “The Sutton”. Not very big plants but plenty of tender beans. Always best to eat any beans while they’re small. The skins on broad beans toughen as they grow so I harvest these as soon as they reach a reasonable size. Delicious with new potatoes and mint sauce. One of spring’s great pleasures.

The last few French and runner beans were very much appreciated. There is nothing quite like homegrown vegetables. A meal that you’ve grown has all the freshness, taste and healthy nutrition you could possibly want. The carrots and celeriac are delicious, and parsley grows in abundance in the polytunnel.

My husband, Allan, has relined and refilled the pond. It had been leaking for a while and after we had some hard surfacing renewed the water had become contaminated. In Spring I’ll put in a water lily and a few other plants to give some shelter for the creatures who will live in it. It’s surprising how quickly a pond becomes inhabited. Frogs, insects and water beetles find their way to it without any interference from us and the birds drink from the edges. For wildlife in the garden, a pond is the best feature.

I collected some lovely leaves from the garden to appreciate the beauty of their shapes and colours.

Fungi are still appearing here and there. They often look a bit nibbled. Perhaps mice enjoy them. I don’t know. Never caught them in the act!

The strawberries are flowering and producing little fruits. I don’t think they will ripen but the flowers are really beautiful. Far too late for these but plants are becoming confused by the changes in the climate.

We may have to wait until next Summer for strawberries, but our apples are plentiful. I made more apple and cinnamon squares. These are probably my best recipe, or at least our favourite. The sweetness of the cinnamon and sugar topping is delicious with the tang of the apple, and the crumby texture of the cake is so satisfying. They freeze perfectly so I make full use of the oven by baking plenty at each session.

There has been a lot of talk about air fryers. I was intrigued and did a little research. Apparently, they use half the electricity of a conventional oven. That matters to me as we don’t have gas and our electricity charges are terribly high. My daughter has one and is pleased with it so I thought I would buy one. The one I chose is very small but versatile. It can air fry, bake, roast or reheat. I’m really pleased with the results.

It takes just two minutes to come to temperature, then the food is added, and the timer set. It tells you when to turn the food halfway through. Salmon fillets were really good. Frozen french fries take seven minutes in mine, cooked to perfection. Pork sausages take ten minutes with a turnover half-way through cooking. Superb. It’s not just the speed, of course. It’s the fact that it uses half the electricity. Something worth considering with the cost of fuel.

But in case you think it can only do junk food, I whipped two eggs with milk and sugar, poured it over apple slices and sultanas and baked it in the airfryer for twenty-five minutes on the bake setting. It was lovely. I intend to experiment more. I’m excited by it and will probably buy a larger one later on so that I can bake cakes and larger quantities.

Autumn always seems a bit melancholy to me because I’m not fond of Winter. However, I love the changes of the season. The colours, the mists and so on inspired me to write another poem. I hope you recognise the feelings I express.

Autumn Thoughts

Silver threads hang on the hedges,
Revealing a secret spiders' world
On mornings when the mist dredges
All the land with moisture pearled.
Apples lie beneath the trees,
A blackbirds' generous feast,
And heady scents our noses tease
Of leaves and earth and fruity yeast.
Mushrooms add a mystic mood
To a time of pleasurable decay,
When the body has ample food
And the soul is satisfied in every way.
Despite regret that Summer's ended,
Our senses give us every reason
To never be offended
By the gentle melancholy of the season.

I hope you enjoy autumn and find pleasure in the ending of the year.

With you again soon. Bye for now.

Halfway through October with misty mornings and sunlit days. Leaves drop and drift around the garden and collect here and there in damp, scenty, heaps.

The acers are changing colour in a lovely way but usually hang on to the leaves until next month, when they shed them suddenly. The fruit trees are losing theirs much more rapidly and covering the ground beneath.

Still some pleasing green leaves, here and there, especially the silver-leaved brunnera and the patterns on the cyclamen hederifolium are a pleasure to see. Hederifolium means “ivy-leaved”. This is because the shape resembles those of ivy. The patterns on them are really lovely.

Asters, known as michaelmas daisies, are a beautiful feature of the Autumn garden. They are one of my favourite plants with their lovely shades of mauve. Sadly, this year, they suffered in the drought and their leaves are not at their best. The flowers are still a pleasing sight though. I brought some in for an arrangement in a pretty pottery basket given to me by my lovely daughter.

They make me smile each time I look at them.

When I went into the garden a few days ago I was delighted to spot a beautiful pansy. I hadn’t planted it. It had sprung up from a stray seed dropped by the birds or blown there by the breeze. Absolutely lovely, with its combination of colours and perfect shape. Like a pretty little watercolour painting.

Not many flowers now. Summer perennials are fading fast and no longer producing flowers. Just a few strays pop up now and then, like this lovely campanula.

I bought more pansies. Planted most. Still a few to put in.

The robin joined me while I was planting some in pots. Hopping from pot to pot, he investigated thoroughly.

What a pleasure it is to see these beautiful little creatures so close. I even hear a little song as he perches and watches my movements. Such fearless and delightful garden companions. One of life’s simple, yet satisfying , experiences.

I’ve planted my onions to grow outdoors over Winter. Last year I bought plants and had a nice small crop, so this time I intend to increase my yield. I bought seeds and started them in my own compost in the greenhouse. The onions are called “Toughball”, but this name refers to their hardiness while growing in the coldest months not their eating qualities. They’re deliciously sweet and tender when cooked.

I’ve sown “Arctic King” lettuces to grow in the greenhouse bed when the tomatoes come out. I still have a few tomatoes on the plants so I shall leave them until heavy frost sets in. The seedlings will be ready to transplant by then. The lettuces will grow slowly until the days lengthen in February, then they’ll put on a spurt. Meanwhile, I can take a few little leaves now and then to have with a sandwich.

I make my seed compost from mature home-made compost and well-rotted leafmould. Roughly equal quantities mixed together. I keep a supply in a bin in the greenhouse ready for sowing. Works well, although I do find a few weeds pop up. Not a problem once you’re experienced enough to identify the different seedlings. I just pull out the weeds.

Time to be thinking about indoor jobs like Christmas gifts and baking. I usually make some gifts and I always bake a Christmas cake. Need to put my thinking head on and summon up some creativity.

Last year I knitted novelty cat cushions for my daughter and daughter-in-law. They were fun to do and were received with pleasure.

I hope I can rise to the task this year. I would like to reduce the amount of plastic in my gifts. There is so much useless and polluting packaging. That’s another reason why I try to make some. I usually bake my daughter’s favourite fruit cake and my daughter-in-law’s favourite pecan pie, along with preserves, in a food hamper for them. These things don’t take any more time than Christmas shopping and for me that’s a bonus. Knitting and sewing are pleasures for the long dark nights and it’s fun to see the items coming to life.

Haven’t done much painting recently but the urge is building. Here’s a very old one I drew and outlined with pen before filling in the colour with gouache paint.

I hope you have plenty to keep you pleasantly occupied. With you again soon. Bye for now.

I missed writing my blog last week and yet the time has flashed by. So here I am again with all the latest.

Lovely autumn days, which are sometimes wet and windy, fresh mornings and early nights, are upon us. The garden is full of changing leaves, seedheads and berries. The asters are just beginning their show of purple shades while the rudbeckias are still a blaze of golden glory.

A few hangers-on are giving me a glimpse of pretty colours.

The fungi have been fascinating. First, smooth white forms, later flaring out to give a canopy over the stems. Fading now to dullness among the scattered leaves.

The glowing colours of autumn are developing by the day. Some leaves enhance the plants and others fall on the ground in a pleasing bundle. Here are some which caught my eye.

We have a very friendly robin this year. He’s following us everywhere. He even goes inside the shed to see what’s going on. I managed to capture his beauty as he posed obligingly on a post next to where I was working.

We even had a heron visiting. Sadly, for the heron, our pond is just an empty hole right now. It’s a project waiting to be tackled. At least we could rest assured that our frogs were safely tucked away under stones around the garden. The bird was a magnificent sight, standing on top of our woodstore as we ate breakfast and watched through the kitchen window. I couldn’t take a photo through the wet glass but here’s one I caught a few years ago from an upstairs window. I was lucky that day.

The plums are ripe and falling from the tree. Allan gathered as many as he could reach. I froze some and made a plum pie with the rest.

They are sweet and delicious raw. I also like them cooked but they do become piquant and need an awful lot of sugar. Not really healthy but a tasty treat even so. I put breadcrumbs underneath the fruit in the pastry case to soak up the juice. A nice idea passed on from my lovely sister.

I’m making some parsnip wine. A warming winter drink and easy to do. Although I have parsnips in the garden, mine need a lot of cleaning up which is very tiring when you need two kilos of them. I prefer to buy the supermarket ones for this because they’ve had a preliminary wash. I only need to give them a light scrub and top and tail them before chopping and cooking.

It’s been fermenting in the wine tub for just over a week. Now it needs a further period of time in a demijohn with an airlock to release the gas. A very pleasing process watching it bubble away. It looks very cloudy at this stage, but it will clear beautifully as it matures. No chemicals used. If you do it properly, they’re unnecessary.

The cooked parsnips don’t go to waste. When I’ve strained off the juice for the wine, I cool them and freeze in small tubs. Great for adding to winter soups or casseroles.

The recipe for my parsnip wine, with step-by-step instructions, is in my Earthy Homemaker’s Cookbook. Find it with this link. https://geni.us/eANQu

Looking ahead, I’ve planted next year’s garlic in the polytunnel. Best put in around now because it needs a cold spell to stimulate it into growth. Fingers crossed that the dreaded allium leaf miner won’t find it in a few month’s time and wipe it out like my leeks. Gardening is always a bit of a gamble, but the rewards outweigh the problems.

Still some jobs to do in the garden before Winter. I hope you’re finding your own way of keeping busy and enjoying what the season has to offer.

Bye for now. With you again soon.