What's growing?

Just started harvesting our Broccoli this week. I expect it is a different variety from yours in Oz, Joan.

Last night I made some pork stir fry with our own courgettes, yellow beans, broccoli, a handful of peas and a friend's cabbage. Totally delicious with HM plum sauce. Made blackcurrant jam on Friday and may do the last batch of raspberry later today. Raspberries have finished as have gooseberries, but next doors apples (which hang over into our garden) are ripening nicely and our own plums just starting to colour up - another bumper crop methinks! . Tomatoes not doing so well - only a few and showing no signs of turning red. Looks like green tomato chutney again.

The Gypsophillia sounds really pretty Joan, I have a soft spot for that and marigolds as well. The paw paw, which I guess in Europe is a papaia sounds similar to our avocado trees in that they need a male and female plant, although I think I'm right in saying that one tree can change sex in the middle of the day.
What sort of temperature is it there now? I'm only watering a few annuals for visitors, because our temperatures are in the high thirties and we conserve as much water possible.

It will be spring in a month, my broccoli is just about ready, and we're eating Golden Acre cabbage, as well as silverbeet. I've just given my neighbour two mango tree saplings (mango grows true to seed, so you can grow from the huge seed in a fruit from your tree), and she's given me two white mulberry cuttings, which I've planted today.

I also planted some gypsophilia around the base of my biggest mango tree, and a few herbs in pots. My marigold seeds, which I saved from last year's crop, are germinating nicely and I've got them in a few places. Oh, and I planted cucumber yesterday, in my main vegetable garden.

On the failure side of things, my male paw paw died, so my paw paws won't set fruit now. They weren't doing well anyway, so I've dug them out.

I'm making crime de cassis for the first time this year, but have also got some of last year's sloe gin and damson brandy maturing nicely.

You're obviously not making enough Merlot! Have you tried blackberry brandy?

The only way I'd be able to hang on to a bottle of sloe gin for five years would be to bury it in an unmarked grave!

Merlot. I did mean FIVE YEAR OLD sloe gin! About seven years ago there was a bumper crop of sloes and Best Beloved went bezerk and laid down rather a lot. We've managed not to drink it all and maintain a reserve. And it's worth it! Three year old is good, but the five year vintage is superb!

GALEN , or anyone else for that matter what springs to mind ??

I luurve my garden !!

There are more things in heaven and earth than gardens!

GRANJURA , like it !!

Galen you are lucky to have a 'gardener' - my OH does not know a dandelion from an orchid ... and just can't be bothered with any project around the garden... or the house for that matter. So, I am like the little red hen ... and just have to do it all myself, or it won't happen. But bless him, he has lots of other qualities, so I'll keep him a bit longer (43 years so far).

Lucky, lucky you I just adore cauliflower , and pick it freshly grown must be even better .

We had the first cauliflower for lunch today - lovely with cheese sauce, cavolo nero, broad beans and new potatoes. The last two pork chops from our small-holding friend were delicious and home-made raspberry ice cream for pud.

Hoping to stock up with more delicious pork once DH has finished fixing friend's landrover.

Bartering is great

My raspberries are a disaster. I'm going to start a fresh bed in a different place in the autumn (well Gary is!)

The garden table, the paddling pool, the washing line ... all covered in shallots, drying. A bumper crop. Just keeping an eye of the weather in case I have to rush out and rescue them.
Normally I'd dry them on the grass but like Merlot we have an extra dog holidaying with us and I can't trust him not to cock his leg over them
They'll have to overnight in the conservatory (the shallots not the dogs) so we'll wake up to a lovely aroma of onions.
PS if I have to top and tail another gooseberry I'll scream

Cotinus coggygria Royal Purple. We have a young one and it's growing like crazy so I'll have to keep an eye on it but it's lovely to look at while I'm doing the washing up.

Just about to turn the gooseberry sludge into wine but not until DH has cleared up the mess in the kitchen. Nice of him to offer to prepare the veg for lunch but home grown stuff leaves twice as much to be taken down to the chickens.

DD2 is arriving on Wednesday with the DGDs and their dog which I'm going to be looking after while they go on holiday. I must be mad. We already have the mother and his sister so three Jack Russells???

Why can't I ever say NO?

RASPBERRIES galore - my favourites

If that's also called 'Smoke Bush' then it is indeed lovely. Your post has made me realise how it got its name as those tiny flowers do look like mist or smoke. Mine was overcrowding its space last year and with some trepidation I cut it back in early spring. But it's recovered well and is all the better for its haircut. Mine is a deep, dark velvety red and it gows beside a lemon leafed Ceanothus, the contrast is striking.

The best thing in our garden this year has been the cotinus. It's the purple one and is an enormous shrub. I remember its name because it sound like a character from Julius Caesar ( Whither goest thou, Cotinus?) When the bunches of teeny flowers on their multitude of very thin stems are out it really does look as if the shrub is covered in mist.

Yes, let us know how that goes Nfk my blackcurrants are fermenting anyway nicely in a darkened space for a month, then I have to do something else to them. The raspberry gin looks promising too. And the raspberry vinegar is wonderful and so simple. We dribbled some on a melted goats cheese salad yesterday, very tasty.
I've got about 6lbs of pink gooseberries that I have to top and tail and make into chutney and jam today. Glad it's raining here so I'm not lured into the garden and the allotment has been rained upon so it doesn't need me today.

That should have been five weeks.

Five year old sloe gin???? It wouldn't last five months in our house.

I'm trying white currant vodka with a pound of currants - will report back in a month.

We've some excellent five year old sloe gin, and I've been doing the same with blackberries and brandy with good results. The advantage is that the sozzled blackberries make lovely jam. Anyone tried sloe jam?

By Chinese lanterns do you mean cape gooseberries? I have some: the little yellow fruit is encased in a flimsy beige 'lantern'.

I wish I could grow chinese lanterns buy them and lose them .I like Alchemilia as I also love the droplets after rain . We say the fairies drink them .It is good filler if you have a new garden The florist charges a lot just for one piece Only today I hve been garden visitng and Iam givng some to a lady who has a new garden who left hers behind. Broad beans hardly any flowers and lost my sweet peas But Dad always said "there is always next year to start again and enjoy"