Final Garden Post for This Year

I thought I had written my last post on the vegetable garden for this year as the only vegetables outdoors that I am still picking are some leeks, and the sprouts that I am hoping will get a bit bigger for Christmas.

 

But I had forgotten about these little beauties - the Jerusalem artichokes. I had noticed this year their lovely yellow flowers, which were impossible to photograph because of the long stalks. They really are the no-effort vegetable, as every year up they come, and however thoroughly I think I have dug, there are clearly enough bits of tubers for the plants to come up again the next year. So I think these are destined for a nice hearty soup.

Most of the vegetable garden has been put to bed under some dark sheeting, but I have planted one area with some green manure. I can see the seedlings coming up, and these will be dug back in the spring to add nitrogen.

The polytunnel has been tidied up, and I have just one trough left, where I have planted some sweetpeas. I never have much luck with sweetpeas, but saw the tip on Beechgrove Garden to plant in the autumn so they have a head start.

There is still quite a bit to do in the other bits of the garden, buddleia to cut back. I am hoping for a nice crisp but sunny day, which never seems to come.

Medlar Fruit Jelly

 

I have been busy making jelly again. Perhaps this is becoming more of a cookery blog than craft blog. We have a single medlar tree in the garden, and other years I have not picked the fruit. But maybe because we did not have as many apples and pears as other years, this year the medlar tree seemed full of fruit, so I decided to give them a go.

I had not heard of this fruit, but apparently they were very popular in medieval times, and because of its appearance had some quite rude names. As you can see they are rather a strange looking fruit, and really quite hard. You have to pick them, and leave them to blett, which means ripen until they look as if they are almost rotten. Some I left a bit too long, but I ended up with about a kilo of usable fruit, and used this recipe on the RHS site to make the jelly. It is a lovely colour, and tastes of apples.

 

My dog is the one who loves the medlars, and if I cannot find her she will often be under the tree snacking. 

Ryeland

Could you photograph Rylan, I thought they said! And I started dreaming. My first celebrity photoshoot. Imagining him with those purly white teeth, perhaps wearing a purly white jumper, or maybe black, he often wears black. Alas, I was mistaken! 

Here is the Ryeland that I photographed. Equally lovely, this Ryeland from one of Britain’s oldest sheep breeds, originally known for Merino-like softness. It has just been launched by Blacker Yarns in their Limited Edition and Rare Breeds. If you visit their page you can read more information, and see some lovely photos of the flock that this wool came from.