Tuesday 16 July 2013

Guzzgoggery and other tales

Where does the expression 'playing gooseberry' come from?  Why should a spare part at a date be compared with a small, hard, hairy fruit?  Is it because they lurk in obscurity beneath the leaves and spitefully scratch as you try to detach them from their friends?  Or is it because they're rather sour and very prickly?

Whatever the reason, the guzzgogs picked today have now had their nature sweetened with three pounds of sugar and are now resting as 6 warm jars of delicious jam.

Summer pudding, made with redcurrants, strawberries, raspberries and the first ripenings of my best ever cherry crop (i.e. more than 6 fruits), is chilling in the fridge, and my vases are overflowing with sweet peas.

I had a new 'wow' today as I had my first sighting of blooms on a new dahlia 'Witteman's Best' - a lovely deep red on a long, strong stem.  Am willing them to produce lots more for cutting over the next few weeks.

a bucket of sweet peas, pots of strawberries, cherries, raspberries and gooseberries, along with the last redcurrants.


Blackcurrants are also fast a-ripening in the abundant heat, and I'm hoping to be able to pick them in the next week or so. Found a recipe for making creme de cassis, so will add this to my boozy repertoire this year, along with more litres of damson gin.


My blog silence is testament, I suppose, to the amount of gardening that needs doing at the moment (both for myself and others) - seem to have little time to write as I'm either gardening, picking flowers or fruit, or dealing with the aftermath of these various activities.

Three weeks of glorious sunshine, unbroken by rain.  When was the last time we had that?  Welcome back summer - we've missed you!


2 comments:

  1. I recognize that, it's almost impossible to keep up blogging there is so much to do in the garden by now with the extra of picking fruit and making jams. First picture looks delicious with all kinds of fruit.

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    1. All this fruit has to be dealt with straight away as it goes off so quickly in the heat. So fantastic to have some scorching summer weather after 3 dismal years. Am loving every single bit of it!

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