Now Wearing Purple

Beautiful blooms gifted to me by Roger. We had popped into the garden centre  last week to buy plants, not realising they had a little show going on. These were marked First Prize and as I enthused over their beauty, a gentleman with a beaming smile, asked if I wanted to take them home. I was gobsmacked and of course said yes please!  What a generous guy! I think  they're called dinner plate dahlias, but correct me if I'm wrong. Huuuge blooms! For an absolute age now I've wanted a hydrangea for the front garden, but could never find the exact one I wanted. The choice seemed to be either pink or blue and very bright at that, where I wanted something more muted.  Well, I was blessed again, not only bagging Rogers gorgeous blooms, but bagging just the hydrangea I wanted. I love the colours so much and can't wait to be able to cut and dry blooms for the house. Yes, it will be quite a while and there will be much work to maintain this lovely shade, but ...

GAINS  LOSSES On the crafting front, I've just finished crocheting this cotton shopping bag.  This pattern results in a cute, not overlarge bag that's ideal for small amounts fruit and veg, which is what I was after.  The great thing with this pattern is that you can enlarge your bag by adding extra rows and reinforce the handles with extra rows of double crochet. It's very versatile and an easy make -  I will be making more! We've been eating out of the greenhouse at last, but crops have been very slow to materialise.  I wasn't sure whether to grow cucumbers this year after the bitter offerings of the last two years, but went ahead as I already had the seeds.  Bitterness occurs when there are extremes of temperature apparently, so didn't hold out much hope for anything edible. Surprisingly, this years are crisp and sweet and I'm a happy bunny, as you can't beat home grown cukes. We had a cute little dud - he tasted good too. ...

COOKING UP A STORM Well actually cooking in a storm. We had a mini glut of courgettes that had to be dealt with.  This relish is my go to recipe every year, it's well liked and you can add little extras to make each batch slightly different, extra garlic or chillies, various spices. I couldn't do my usual half green half yellow courgette mix, as the yellows are a bit behind, so just went with what I had. You just put the following ingredients into a large pan, bring to the boil slowly to dissolve the sugar, then simmer, until drawing a wooden spoon across the pan base leaves a trail, about 1.5 hours. Keep checking it though, in case it starts to catch and when it's done, pop into sterilised jars. One thing though,  make sure all the veg are diced small as above and when dicing up the courgettes, take out the soft central part. This is quite a dry relish, not a lot of sauce just lots of little jewels of spicy veg that goes with all things savoury. ...