Love, love love watching my boys helping their Daddy in the vege patch.
Harry is an old hand now but Jack is just beginning to discover the joy of using Daddy's gardening tools.
The corn, cucumber, zucchini, tomatoes and beans have finished up. Our autumn harvest is beetroot, potatoes, cos lettuce, rainbow chard, bok choy and rhubarb with broccoli, sugar peas, brussel sprouts & cauliflower on the way.
Remember this from a couple of weeks ago?
Well I managed to push past the chemo ickiness and made 16 jars of Cumquat Marmalade, Quince Jam, Beetroot & Apple relish and Green Tomato relish. Don't you just love the colours!
Preserving is a fairly labour intensive process but I really do enjoy it (when I'm not being interrupted every five minutes by Small Ones). I love hanging out in my kitchen with the Autumn sunshine streaming through the window and a doco about the Queen playing on my iPad, I love the repetition of slicing up the fruit and grating the veggies and I love the heady smell of the spices, vinegar & sugar as they bubble away on the stove. Most of all, I love the glorious colours of the preserves when they're all bottled up and the satisfaction of sharing them with friends and family. I build up a hearty stash in my larder over the course of the year and make up hampers at Christmas.
Homegrown, Homemade...get into it!!!
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