Stinky

The kitchen is pongy at the moment and the reason for this?  I harvested the garlic and some of the overwintering onions.    Quite a reasonable harvest and will definately last us a while.   I was hoping to leave the garlic a little longer,  however the tops were telling me they were ready and I have since learnt that if left in the ground too long the cloves will start to split ready to loosen the bulbs for growing again.

I didn't know that about garlic and having harvested one last week and saw exactly this I decided they really did have to come up.  As with everything that comes from the Lottie they are a mixed bag of big and little ones,  but all are perfectly usable and having cleaned them up ready for storing I can confirm they are very very strong smelling!

A couple more potato plants were dug to keep up topped up for the next week or so,  some more lovely peas are now ready for podding, blanching and freezing and just to cheer me up - a lovely very sweet smelling bunch of sweet peas came home with me today too.

And lastly my lovely hubby is on his way home  - he has been to the Isle of Wight for a couple of days to spend time with his Dad and I have missed him  ......  A LOT!  I am very much looking forward to seeing him and I now really appreciate how rotten it is for Mr Milly when I am away for a couple of days EVERY week,  unfortunately in the short term that is something which is not going to change.  :(

Onions

A little while ago I started a new bed at the lottie,  it started as just the next bit to be cleared and dug over I then covered it in landscape fabric to stop the weeds growing, from yesterday it has now become an onion and garlic bed.    I ordered the onion sets  and garlic bulbs online,  this is a really good way to purchase them as its cheaper and also the online shops don't send out the items until it is the right time of the year for them to be planted.  I've ordered raspberry and gooseberry bushes,  both of these will be sent out from late October.  I like this - it helps to plan what needs to be planted when and also I know I am planting at the right time.

The onion bed has lovely straight lines,  2 lines of red onions,  2 lines of white onions and 2 lines of garlic.  Fingers crossed everything comes up nicely!

A lovely little harvest from the lottie today and a gift left by one of my allotment neighbours - cucumbers!  They are supposed to be difficult to grow, but Clive seems to have done really well with his and 7 of them came home with me.  Now I knew they were cucumbers, but Mr Milly wasn't convinced - they look so different from shop bought ones - the taste is much better too!

I tried the pears in red wine again today - took a deep breath and was much more gentle and patient with the cooking.  The result is 5 lovely little jars of fruit and wine  - each jar the perfect size for 2 people.  The kitchen smelt lovely all afternoon - mulled wine!  I realised with the first batch that I ended up jam as I boiled too hard and too long - Mr Milly wasn't impressed with pears in jam for dessert!