Miskin Manor and gardens

Today I went with Mum and Dad and Steve to Miskin Manor for afternoon tea. It's only round the corner from our house, but I've never been before. 

We enjoyed the tea and sandwiches and cakes, and then went for a stroll in the lovely gardens. Here are  some pictures, and the many types of dalias. 

 

More harvesting

I harvested all the Estima potatoes a couple of days ago. Here they are. Not a massive crop, but they were nice to eat and there were some big ones in there. 

We also ate a couple more cobs of corn. So sweet!

This cuce got eaten for dinner:

And we made a lovely salad from Dad's tommys:

...some basil and onions from my garden. Lovely.

St Fagans Food Festival and Cardiff Craftivism

On Saturday Steve & I went along to St Fagans Food Festival, and met up with my friend Marie.  It was a glorious day, sun shining, we had some nice food from one of the stalls and enjoyed the atmosphere, it was so busy!

many types of apples

a trip to St Fagans is never complete without a cheesy bun from Popty’r Dderwen

At the festival I went along to an event organised by the lovely Sian. It was part of the new Cardiff Craftivists movement, you should join us! Here's the Facebook page so you can 'like' it.  It's craft and activism at the same time, the idea is that by using the gentle comforting art of craft you can still get important political messages out to people. We sewed messages onto jam jar lids. Here are some photos.

my message 'If we don't change, we don't grow'

Sian's amazing tomato jam

Burt's lid

More info about Craftivism and jam jar lids here. 

Oh and the lovely French onion seller was at St Fagans again this year, but I didn't need to buy any, cos I've grown my own! 

Garlic as a piece of art

I harvested all my garlic yesterday, and plated it all together, to display in the kitchen. Looks just like a piece of art, don't you think?

The red tomatoes are pretty beautiful too. 

The corn is as high as an elephants eye...

...An' it looks like it's climbin' clear up to the sky.


I ate my first sweetcorn! And boy, was it sweet. Best sweetcorn, EVER!

My 'The Vegetable and Herb Expert' book says you need to test for ripeness when the silks have turned a chocolate brown colour. 

Pinch a few kernels, if the liquid that comes out is creamy, they're ready for eatin'. Wait a bit longer if the liquid is watery. You've waited too long if the liquid is thick and doughy. 

Those lines are from 'Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'', a wonderful song from the musical 'Oklahoma!' A friend at work suggested it when I mentioned I'd been picking my corn. 

Happy Anniversary Seren cat

Seren has been living with us for a year today. We love her. 

Lately she likes to sleep on top of the wardrobe, on lots of quilts and blankets. Here she is this morning, sleepy-head.

We got her from Bridgend Cats Protection. They are wonderful. 

Hello Sunshine

Sunflower in the greenhouse! A lovely afternoon of glorious sunshine, hopefully enough to ripen all my tomatoes. Hard to think this afternoon that this summer's been the wettest in 100 years! 

I picked my first cucumber today, it tastes so different from the ones in cellophane wrappers at the supermarket. It was very spiky, and the skin was quite tough, but the flesh tastes so fresh. 

The foliage on my potatoes has all died off now, so it's probably time to get them all out of the ground, especially as it's so wet at the moment. I harvested some Pentland Javelin, there are some really big ones!

The Estima potatoes have done less well, I can't find many in the ground, and the ones I did find are pretty small. 

I ran out of garlic today for a recipe, then I remembered I'd still got some in the ground! So I picked it and cooked it straight away, it was very tasty.

Tomatoes harvested & eaten so far: 
3 x Gardener's Delight

Here's the first, it tasted so sweet!