It's good to be home

I let the kids loose with the paint......

Whilst I gathered some of the last bits of veg from the garden. My friend, and neighbour, Sienna, had been kind enough to water everything whilst we were away, so luckyily we had some to come back to!

One thing I've learned over the past 4 years or so of growing vegetables and the like in containers, is that there's no point in having grand delusions of self-sufficiency - even for the summer months. Things just don't grow as big and they need twice as much attention. On top of this, you never get very big yeilds. On the plus side, what we do get is still way more delicious than the store bought versions (our carrots and tomatoes were particularly yummy and sweet), and we always have fun planting and watching things grow.

tomatoes and chillies

here we have spinach, potatoes, carrots - and what you can't see is the garlic and shallots

I've also found that green tomatoes are absolutely delicious when sauteed with onions and served as a side dish, they are my new food fad. A good thing really because we are still waiting for the majority to ripen!

We also got a really nice cucmber (one of only two that grew), though it was an odd, banana-like shape, with the bottom being quite bulbous. It tasted and smelled fantastic though.