DOGS, GARDENING, FRIENDS AND FOOD....WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR?

Wednesdays and Fridays seem to provide me with quite a nice mix of gardening and foraging. This week gardening was at Glenys' again and although the day was sunny, the air was freezing. The whippets still had their jackets on and even after a couple of hours of work, we still had ours on too.

Glenys' rustic style vegetable garden is productive all year round .	Below is Lou, above is Sally and most importantly, above left is Mako...
Glenys is the queen of red cabbages.... above right. The echium below is about to burst into flower and is totally drought hardy.	By the time the morning tea was being served by Glenys, the day had warmed up and we sat in the sun there and enjoyed her magnificent apple pie and coffee.

 

Today, Friday, I went to the market and when I first arrived I did a rare thing and decided to have breakfast before I started shopping. I chose Lucia's Cafe for a change and sat there, in the midst of the crowds, looking at the comings and goings and just thinking about stuff; in a kind of dream really.....next time I will go back to Zuma's. People tell me they like Lucia's but the coffee wasn't nearly as good and the croissant was ordinary. Later,at Cappo's the fishmonger, I came across the Veggie Gnome and the Flower Gnome on a rare trip so far from home, to the market.

As usual when I am a bit late, I saw Tony Scarfo arriving in his ute as I was crossing the road to Wilson's. This time the boxes in the back were piled up with broccoli, red cauli-brocs the size of  basketballs, loads of fennel and silver beet as well as beetroot and 3 romanesco broccoli, like the ones Deb and I tried to grow. No wonder we didn't have a lot of success because Tony planted 50 and of these, only 3 or 4 were outstanding, most of the rest being open and messy and unsalable, after waiting for so long to get them to maturity. He is like me in that he likened it to an addiction .....you never give up wanting to grow beautiful things but, like beautiful women, he said, they are unattainable! I was, never the less, admiring one of the good romanescos on his cart and feeling its shape and saying I would buy it and put a photo here on the blog, when he said I could have it for nothing. You never argue when Tony offers you something, it seems rude, so I took it and have tried to photograph it but it doesn't show its spirals well enough so I will try again tomorrow in a different light.