On The Menu Tonight

Forewarned is forearmed. The 24-hour plus expected rain has started. According to metcheck 40mm today and another 10mm tomorrow.

But yesterday was lovely, and we both sprang in to garden action.

Paul cut the lawns and the verges. Then took advantage of the continued warmth and sunshine to give both the dogs a bath. They are both moulting like crazy, so a good going over with the grooming gloves once they had dried off has given the lawn a fur coat.

I got rhubarb picking. 5 pounds cleaned, chopped, bagged and now in the freezer.

And then I could get to the nettles growing at the back of them. Piled them on to the stairs to nowhere rather than struggling to get them into the rubbish sacks in situ. And then I had to clear all the nettles growing in the stairs to nowhere to get to them. And cleared all the other weeds and crud that had accumulated on the stairs. They now look better than they have ever looked before, and will get a good wash down now. Finished off with weeding the middle raised planter.

This morning, after the dog walk, out to pick yet more alpine strawberries. As long as I keep picking them they keep producing more... I have given up weighing them, but I must be getting a couple of pounds every week. And that doesn't include the ones I pick and eat as I walk down the garden. Even Jen has her own small patch that she sticks her head in and delicately pulls the ripe ones off!

And then out the back to pick the veggies for tonight's stir fry. A mix of curly kale, pak choi, onions, mangetout, peas, mangetout that are now peas, and the first of the purple dwarf beans.

And a few more sticks of rhubarb to stew up. That is probably the last of the year.

And then I spotted these...

I thought I had a rogue tomato plant amongst my potatoes.

But no, they are potato fruits!

Careful examination showed a few more. Just on the Maris Piper's.

Investigation shows that
1) They are highly poisonous - potatoes (and therefore tomatoes) are members of the deadly nightshade family.
2) They are the only way new varieties of potatoes are created as they do not come true to seed.

I do also have a few baby tomatoes coming...

Just need to make sure I don't muddle the two up.

And then on to the fruit tree bed. Now that I have cleared a large number of the rogue potatoes growing there I can get to the cordon fruit trees again. Armed with scissors and garden string I started tying in the new growth of the leaders to their canes. I finished off in the rain...