REAPING REWARDS

As you are probably all finding, it is worth it to grow your own vegies. Despite the heat and the water problems vegetables soldier on and, at this time of the summer, are producing at their best. With both our sons away until next week we have been overloaded with some things and, on the whole, are self-sufficient in summer vegies. We only ever eat what is in season anyway (I will write on this one day) and only buy what I choose not to grow. For example, I don't bother any more with potatoes or onions (except spring onions) or carrots although some free purple carrot seeds I received from Diggers and grew has made me rethink this (another topic for another day).

I now have a cupboard full of bottled fruit and jams, plum sauce, red capsicums in olive oil as well as peach and date chutney. I feel I can begin to relax a little but my mother's pears are still bearing down on me - 2 types of nashi, packams and duchess and nearly all are completely free of coddling moth (another tale to be told here!). I have tried cooking the nashi but they never seem to soften which is fine if you like your fruit hot and crisp. What else can you do with nashi ?? By the way, 'nashi' is Japanese for 'pear' so don't call them nashi pears ! Nashi is also singular and plural, like fish, so don't say 'nashis'. (The only other thing I know about, besides gardening, is Japanese - I spent some years studying it, at uni and in Japan !)

This is a very boring piece of writing - funny how the words come sometimes and other times I struggle to put a sentence together. It would be exceedingly difficult to write articles for a living.
Please put an entry on the blog. I am sick of reading my own stuff ! Thanks go to Andrew for keeping up the side, it is great to read his snippets and see the photos. I crave input from other gardeners as I miss my weekly garden chat with my father who knew so much he thought he knew nothing.