Summer Fest - Tomatoes!

I'm so thrilled - although it's the last of this year's Summer Fest posts, this is actually the first of the Summer Fest posts where I've had my OWN VEGGIES to show off!!! Yes, that's right, our tomatoes have ripened. I really didn't think that we were going to have much success with the tomatoes - I've never grown them before and they weren't something that my parents grew when I was growing up so I guess I just figured that without a greenhouse, we wouldn't have much luck. But look at them all!! The ones above are a currant tomato and boy, they're so sweet. Little intense explosions of tomatoeyness (yep, that's a word). The ones below are a hanging basket cherry tomato. They hang just next to our patio furniture so great for sitting out on a sunny evening with a glass of wine and nibbling on home grown tomatoes... That's what growing your own is all about!
We really didn't think they were going to make it as they've been transplanted about a million times and then were knocked over about another hundred times. It was only a month ago that they were planted into hanging baskets (or hanging pots really). But wow, they've certainly come up trumps. They're all weighed down like this one with lots of beautiful fruits. YUM!!!

Alas, there aren't quite enough ripe ones for cooking with yet. But I grabbed these lovelies and whipped up a light, summery tomato sauce to go with home grown beans and home grown courgettes and baked salmon. Just perfect - can you tell I'm proud of our growing achievements??!

There's not really a recipe - all I did was chop up a red onion, fry in a little oil until nice and jammy, throw in a chopped red pepper (only because I had a questionable looking one in the bottom of the fridge). Then add a couple of cloves of garlic, sliced, and deglaze with a slosh of balsamic vinegar. I then added a teaspoon of brown sugar (I always add a tsp of sugar to tomatoes - really helps the depth of flavour). The tomatoes were peeled and chopped (you can use a can if you don't want to bother with peeling tomatoes) and added with a tablespoon of tomato puree and a good season before letting it bubble away gently. Simply boil for longer for a richer sauce but I was after a fresh, light sauce to go with the salmon.

We're having the left over sauce with pasta for a super quick supper dish tonight!

Rosy x

A Relaxing Weekend and Garden Envy

This weekend, JJ and I spent a relaxing weekend with his parents and Granny for his Granny's 85th birthday! They have a gorgeous house in the countryside about an hour outside of London and it's always such a pleasure visiting (thank you very much for having us if you're reading, Mrs J!). Eating afternoon tea in their garden is just the best way to spend a sunny sunday afternoon - the victoria sponge was filled with bramble jelly which I managed to snaffle a jar of as we were leaving. Thinking it'll be the perfect accompaniment to macaroons that I'll be whipping up later in the week!

The weather really was stunning which always helps when enjoying a weekend in the country! We did lots of terribly English things, such as picking wild blackberries...

(shortly after this was taken I had to be rescued by JJ's Dad after becoming thoroughly entangled in the brambles. Why are the juciest looking berries always just out of reach? It's true of blackberries and it's true of life) ... barbequeing....A very serious business, as you can see!
... and developing MAJOR garden envy.

I'm always so jealous of their beautiful garden filled with fresh, homegrown produce, especially as I returned to our little plot to find that our lovingly grown butternut squash that were just starting to develop had been eaten by something (rats or foxes are the top of the list of suspects). So disappointed! They were doing so well!! Here's their pumpkin patch and a pumpkin which is apparently supposed to be a bluey colour. Very unusual.

Here are a few more snaps of the garden - just a sample of how much incredible produce they have growing! We walked away with a bag brimming with lovely fruit and veg and now thinking up all kinds of exciting things to do with it all!These are damsons, in case you haven't come across them before. They're lovely made into jams and chutneys.

I have no idea what these pods are but I thought they were interesting. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend - I'd love to know what exciting things everyone got up to! Pop something in the comments box - will help to cheer up Monday morning!

Rosy x

Project Garden

I thought I’d break from blogging about the tea party for a while and show you some of our garden. Now, JJ and I have never gardened before so our knowledge and ability were pretty much as low as humanly possible. So the fact that we’ve managed to grow anything is an absolute miracle! So you can imagine how proud we are of our little babies. Just look at them!! Aren’t they beautiful?

To be totally honest, I’ve found gardening a tad depressing. It sounded so easy! Just like cooking – follow a recipe and not a whole lot can go wrong. Sure, sometimes things don’t quite go to plan, but the end result is always edible. And it’s not like we entered into the enterprise without doing our research. We read the books, we researched which vegetables would be most likely to grow and which of those we would actually want to eat. After clearing the garden (with a LOT of help from my Dad! Such a great daddy) and tending carefully to the tiny seedlings, the first of the major blows came in the form of a slug infestation. I swear those things can abseil! There was not one plant within a reasonable radius and still, within 1 night of them being planted out, they were comprehensively munched. To the ground! Humph.

After some hurried re-planting and adding a few more pots, plus a generous covering of slug pellets (organic gardening can wait until we’ve cracked the regular version) we were confident. Then came a pest that decided it would dig up and eat all the seedlings. Not slugs this time, something much larger – thinking either a fox or rat. London rats are about the same size as small foxes anyway; sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

So the construction of the nets began. We toiled away, carefully protecting all the precious seedlings with layers of nets suspended over canes. Not quite the beautiful English rustic garden I had envisaged, but I figured after they’d got going a bit, things would be more resilient to being dug up. And it worked! Things grew! The first things that looked good were the radishes. That was until they were pulled up, only to reveal that they hadn’t actually produced a radish. We’d very successfully grown copious amounts of radish leaves, but not even a hint of peppery, crisp, pink radishy goodness. Given they were supposed to be super easy to grow, our spirits were slightly dampened.

But the sweet peas are a success! And oh how I love sweet peas. Such a heavenly scent and so frilly! They remind me so much of my childhood. My parents always grow great panels of sweet peas under their pergola. Whenever I go home in the summer, my favourite thing to do is to stroll under the pergola, breathing in that heady, perfumed air, only magnified by the bed of roses alongside. I can’t wait to take some pics to show you when we go home in August! Until then, we shall have to keep our fingers super crossed that the tomatoes ripen and the courgettes get a jiffy on with growing!