Syssi said:
I am certain of that! I just love hearing tidbits of your family life.
Last night was hubby's b-day. Next door neighbors were actually throwing
his dinner with the exception of my doing the dinner rolls and the green
beans. We had a beautiful green salad with pine nuts and bleu cheese,
steak, potatoes, the beans, rolls and cake with ice cream. It was very
lovely.
That sounds seriously yummy. I'm doing chicken breasts, salad and new
potatoes this evening... When it's cooled off a bit! 25 degrees in the
shade in the living room, closer to 30 outside. I'm wilting! Not sure
we'll have the energy for dessert, but there are ice creams in the fridge...
Quoted message said:
We're growing red plum tomatoes this year; perhaps we'll try the yellows
next season. I have grown the little yellow pear tomatoes before - LOVED
them!
My dad was a loony gardener. We moved a LOT with the RAF (parents lived
in 22 different house in 21 years!), but every base we got to he ended
up as Officer's Mess Garden Officer. He got all the lads on jankers out
digging the flower beds, pruning roses... Turning boring square plots
with daffs in regimental rows into mini versions of Kew, and our house
garden into a tiny Risley! People used to say they could tell where we
lived from the air, as it would be the garden with mad amounts of
flowers and veg, and the lawn cut into interesting shapes!
When he left the RAF he bought a nice enough modern house with a BIG
garden: 100 feet long and 60 wide. It also had a 12 foot long hardwood
framed greenhouse... The place was a mess, but in the three years he
lived there, he turned the garden into a great vegetable plot, cut the
lawn into interesting shapes, fed it and cared for it until it looked
like the greens at St Andrews, and filled the greenhouse with exotic
fruits and multi-coloured peppers, the cold frame was filled with
squashes and ridge cucumbers, and he even grew rhubarb... He'd have
liked a few fruit trees, but felt the garden wasn't really big enough.
The old boy next door had espaliered fruit trees up one side of his, so
they got as many free apples and pears as they could eat, and he passed
bushels of plums to mum for jam-making. She got the fruit free and
supplied the sugar! He got home-made jam and knew the fruit wasn't
going to waste. 🙂 He and mum used to natter over the fence about
saving sugar rations during the war for jam and bottling...
One of the things Dad grew in mad quantities was tomatoes! He grew
about 7 different sorts, including those baby yellow plum ones, baby
yellow cherry tomatoes, big yellow tomatoes, and big and little red
ones... There were always tomatoes warm off the vine, from May almost
to Christmas! Then the last bushel or two of green ones got chutneyed -
most of which went off to village fêtes to raise money for the church
roof and things, as there's only so much green tomato chutney one man
(and the occasional son or daughter) can eat!
Sadly, he'd just got three years in and the garden was fantastic when he
died, aged 53, of a sudden and massive heart attack. I had sweet peas
he'd planted all over the church when I got married, and some of his
beloved roses on my wedding cake.
--
Kate XXXXXX R.C.T.Q Madame Chef des Trolls
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.katedicey.co.uk
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