Distractions

I have been trying to be more disciplined. It's not working all that well. There are just too many interesting things to do once the weather warms up. It took me about three weeks to get two short rows of peas in the ground, amongst all the other things that were calling for my attention. On one memorable evening, I spent an hour sitting in the shed because the rain was hammering down so hard, complete with thunder and lightning, that I couldn't even make it home never mind do anything. Luckily one of the distractions was coaxing my lawnmower back into life, otherwise I wouldn't be able to find the plot by now.

As for progress, I can report the potatoes have survived the frost and are growing on well. Carrots and parsnip seeds are sown, finally. Garlic and onions are doing OK, despite the weeds. Both raspberries and strawberries are flowering away, promising another good fruit crop.  Sadly most seedlings that I was growing at home have been a complete disaster, meaning about half the plot is still empty, so I'm going to look out for some young plants in the next week or so. Hopefully garden centres will be stocked up ready for the jubilee weekend.

Summer update: jam

It's been a while since I've had time to blog. Work continues on the plot of course, assisted, sometimes punctuated by, the tiny human. Over the summer I've been combining evening trips to the plot with dog-walking duties, so Moog has had more than his normal share of visits.

Mrs Moog Keeper has mastered the art of making jam this year, so instead of having no idea what to do with all our raspberries, we now have a steady supply of delicious jam. In fact I now can't keep up the supply of raspberries to match Mrs Moog Keeper's new-found appetite for jam-making. Thankfully the autumn bliss variety is just coming through to keep her in fruit. I may have to extend the amount of fruit I grow at this rate. Jam can be very easily made in the microwave, I recommend trying it. All you need is the fruit, some jars, plus some special jam sugar (easily found in the sugar section of the supermarket)- there's a recipe on the side of the pack.

Sadly we were not able to make such good use of the strawberries which looked so promising earlier in the year. The plants were laden with young fruit at one point, but I think mainly due to a lack of watering at the critical time (remember the really dry spring we had?), lots of them dropped off the plants, still green. We had a reasonable crop but not as good as I was expecting. Better luck next year.