Friday, July 31, 2015

Accounting for My Time

I've been away for a while. I reassured myself that no one would really miss my dispatches from the garden, and so I stopped sending them for a while. If you have missed them, please do let me know.

In all honesty, I've simply been wallowing in summer. Mornings are spent walking the dogs, meditating, doing yoga, and tending to the veg patch. That last bit often determines what will happen for the rest of each morning, but in the last month it mostly has demanded that I spend time in the kitchen preserving the harvests. My skin should be magnificent by now after all of the inadvertent facials I've received from the hot water bath canner. I worried a few times that I may end up pickled myself. It's been an amazing time of poring over home preservation cookbooks and mixing up all sorts of aromatic elixirs to pour over the fruits of my labor. I think I have quite a lot to show for it.

So without further delay, let me attempt to account for my time away. Hopefully you can forgive me when you've seen what I have been doing.

A nicely mixed harvest


My first successfully grown watermelon (this is Sugar Baby)


Tomato chutney and Honeyed Bread & Butter
cucumber pickles


One of many treats now in the pantry


Tomato sauce to see us through winter


How's that for a panorama?