Tag Archives: strawberries
Balcony Larder: Salad success, a fruiting triffid & strawberries from Wimbledon to the Olympics
I’ve had only one resounding success in this summer of dire weather. And that’s in the production of salad leaves. Lots of ’em, several kinds including the very tasty, impossible-to-buy chervil. I reckon I’ve had over 25 platefuls of the it.
I went away for a couple of days, though, and the stuff bolted. No, don’t eat the flowers, I stupidly learnt the hard way they don’t do you any good at all — though, as you can see in the picture, nasturtiums can be part of a salad, they have a peppery taste.
On the advice of the GreedyGardener I brutally tore the bolting salads all up. And my infant granddaughters and I got delightfully dirty in sowing some more.
Discovering the fruit smoothie
Are you too successful at growing your own fruit? Have you got a surplus of strawberries, raspberries or currants?
A great way of make your fruit mountain more digestable is the smoothie.
Making a smoothie from supermarket fruit will cost you an arm and a leg. They are virtually free when you use your own produce.
The recipies couldn’t be simpler. Take the fruit of your choice surplus from the garden or frozen from last year. Blend with mineral water, creme fraiche, yogurt, ice cream or sorbets.
I’m just beginning to learn the joys of the fruit smoothie. And it’s cooler than making jam!
Balcony Larder: A stonking great aubergine plant
I’m told that aubergines can grow like weeds in hot, dry places, though Wikipedia describes them as a “delicate perennial“. There’s one of their kind doing pretty well in my kitchen, as you can see. Decidedly indelicate, robust even.
Given to me as a titchy little thing by @policyworks at the end of April, I plonked it in front of the window that catches the morning sunshine, and gave it a desultory water from time to time. Then these surprisingly enormous leaves started to happen.
The excitement of new liff
I hadn’t quite bargained for the shiver of excitement when I saw the seedlings first stick their noses up over the compost.
And, like seeing my very newborn son many moons ago, I mistook my thrill response for aesthetic appreciation.
Just as I mistook a purple wizened ET-like babe as an utterly beautiful Meaning of Life, so I mistook the sight of spindly kale as a Meaning of Life too.