What a tart

I made some of my plums into this plum tart from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook. The foggy looking bit in the middle is the steam coming off the plums. Thanks Sarah! It was really nice with some vanilla ice cream.

plumtastic

My neighbour has just popped round with a few plums! Check it out. This is a lotta lotta plums. I'm going to have to find some plum related recipes now I guess.

Change is afoot.

It has suddenly gone a little bit colder. People are putting on their central heating, but not us yet. I looked out of the window and a load of yellow leaves fluttered down from the sky. I'm quite looking forward to Autumn now.

What's this?

I didn't get any pears from my pear tree this year. We've only had it for 2 years though. It doesn't look very well though. Some of the leaves look like this.

And underneath there is this really gross alien thing. Does anyone know what it is and any recommended tips for getting rid of it?

Onion Wreath

We had a nice sunny week last week, this is the suburban sunset we got. Not bad really considering we are on a scummy street and not amongst the lakes and mountains.

Never mind the leaves changing colour. Flash is the one to watch to tell you all you need to know about the seasons. He is slowing down now, and is unwilling to come out so often anymore. Yesterday he spent the day just peeping out of his house and didn't venture into the garden at all.

Do you like my onion and chilli wreath? It is in the porch. I suspect that any of Tim Burton's characters would be proud to have this hanging up in their house. Some people might think that this looks a bit strange. Certainly some of the house proud mothers that I talk to would be horrified to have this monstrosity shedding onion skin for all to see.

However, one of the neighbours noticed it and brought me round a big bag of home grown plums because she thought that I would like them. Hurrah. She said there's more to come and apples too, so the wreath has done me proud. Everyone should hang up a couple of vegetables in their window, just to see what happens.

I've pulled out the tomatoes and got the last of them ripening up on the window sill. Thinking of making some chutney...

Rodents from the skies

Yesterday I went to the allotment to do some necessary weeding. It was a gloriously sunny day and I was happily walking down the lane without a care in the world. As a walked under an overhanging tree it started shaking and bending down towards me. I know that when trees grab at you it is not a good thing. It is classic horror film material and to be avoided at all costs. As it got nearer a squirrel went scrambling across the branch hanging on for dear life and luckily avoided landing on my head. This made me less relaxed for the rest of the walk.

I spent the rest of the time looking upwards though incase of further attack.

And realised that we don't always see what is right under our noses. So why not look upwards for a change? See things from a different perspective.

But watch out for man holes.

Manchester Blogging

You can nominate your favourite Manchester based blog now at www.manchesterblogawards.com. Kate Feld from the Manchizzle site is dealing with the nominations, her blog is a great place to see whats going on around Manchester and see what other people are blogging about around the area. If you haven't been there it is at manchizzle.blogspot.com they even gave me a mention a while ago. There are lots of local blogs to nominate there, give it a look.

Stinky onion and cabbage smells to you

Hello I'm fed up because I've waited in for the delivery man all morning. He is supposed to be coming from 8.00am till 1pm, now its ten past one and he's still not here so I'm not a happy bunny. It's been nice all morning and now it looks like its going to rain. Here is a picture of one of our cabbages, unlike the delivery man he is a beauty.

There are our onions. The weather has been so rainy I keep putting them out to dry out and then they get rained on. I've given up now and put them in the porch. If that delivery man is any later I'm going to rub his face in these onions, that will learn him. Where are you, you swine???