Busy days & first pick of the crop

My apologies to all for the serious lack of posting, my only excuse is that I have been busy, busy, busy. I have been doing a lot of great cooking, though its all been so rushed that by the time I am half way finished eating it, I’m always thinking ‘oops, should have taken a photo of this one’. So what has been keeping me so busy? Well to start with I am back at work 3 days a week which as anyone with kids would know puts a serious dent into my free time. Next I have actually had quite a busy social life lately, weddings, hens nights, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, afternoon sitting in the beer garden at The Retreat with Chloe & some other mums & bubs on a nice sunny afternoon (sadly no alcohol was consumed!), which has all been fabulous fun.

Lastly in my spare time I have been working on our garden – in the photos you can see what a great help Chloe has been with the digging (she screams if we take her out of the dirt!) & also the mixed lettuces nearly ready to eat a couple of weeks ago. Both the veggie patch in the back & the front garden are slowly coming along & the veggie patch in particular I am most pleased with & have my fingers crossed that most things will actually grow & bear fruit. My herb garden is fantastic, it’s so much nicer being able to plant in a garden rather than trying to fit everything in pots on a shelf, a lot easier to keep alive in my opinion too. I have planted, oregano, chives, sweet basil, purple basil, Thai basil, coriander, mint, Vietnamese mint, rosemary, Italian flat leaf & curly parsley, sage & purple sage & tarragon – I think that’s all of them & most are pretty well established so are regularly being thrown into the kitchen pot.

As for the rest I have inherited with the house a very weird looking lemon tree, it has some sort of wasp disease that I have to cut away as soon as the fruit has ripened so the branches that are left look quite awkward. I have my kafir lime tree which I transplanted from my old courtyard, a miniature peach tree, some strawberries, a couple of chilli plants & have now planted some broad beans, leeks, garlic, beetroot, sugar snap & snowpeas. A couple of months & if it all holds on I will be harvesting some beautiful crops from my very own (and first) veggie garden. Oh & I cant forget the lettuces which I have just started picking as needed, much nicer than buying from those supermarket bins or even whole lettuces I find can be quite dodgy lately too.

So there you have it & hopefully so more food blogging very soon as I do have several cakes & a dinner party coming up with some potentially luscious dishes to show off.