My homegrown harvest, August 2018.

So, it's a good year for raspberries.  They started early, I've had soo many and there are sooo many still to come.  No complaints, they're my favourite.

I've had lots of firsts this month too - first home grown apples (last year the squirrels ate a share of the only one!) and first tomatoes of the year, there are loads of green ones on the plants, but they seem to be ripening one by one! 

I've got nine blueberry plants, in their 2nd or 3rd year, and I'm getting ok crops off them now.  Lots of kale too, all of just one plant, I'm giving the stuff away!

Anyway, I think I mentioned my homegrown apples then got distracted by kale, I had 8 apples off my Discovery apple tree, and 2 off my other apple tree, that I bought as a Discovery apple but definitely isn't (it was a very cheapo tree from Wilkos!).  Woohoo!  Apples!  I'm doing the thing and growing my own fruit.  One day I will be Barbara from the Good Life. 

Finally, here is a spring onion.  A caterpillar popped out of it just as I was about to cut it up, and made me jump, and then the caterpillar fell on the floor and I haven't been able to find it, so there's a caterpillar on the loose in the kitchen somewhere. I'm not sure why I had one random spring onion in my raised bed, but I did and now I've eaten it and it was yummy. 

What have you been growing and eating this month? 

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Diary of a permaculture (ish) garden, August 2018.

There's been some lovely sunshine for gardening in this month.

It's all going on this month!  Joe's digging up the driveway, to level it and then lay hardcore and gravel.  He's digging up lots of soil, which he's making into a pile at the bottom of the garden.  I've been sieving the soil and topping up my raised beds with it, and when the driveway is finished I'll sieve some more of the soil and put it in my front garden raised beds.  

Here is drive progress...

I've also been making progress with the side garden.  I think I've said before that I basically don't weed unless I have another plant to replace the weed with - to cut down on the work of constantly weeding an area and trying to keep the soil clear, when mother nature clearly has different ideas.  I focused on this area under my Discovery apple tree this year, and I think it's been pretty successful.  

If you look at the far left of the photo above you can see all those green weeds, they're next on my to weed list, but maybe next year! 

I've planted strawberries, wild strawberries, chives, garlic chives, Siberian perennial onions, red and white clover, curry plant, rosemary, sedum and yellow creeping Jenny, as well as daffodil and tulip bulbs for the spring.  

I'm pretty happy with my raised beds, I'm eagerly awaiting my first courgette of the year - I was soo late planting this year!  I've had loads of kale and some chard, but I'm still waiting to see if my other late plantings of cauliflower, sweetcorn and shallots are going to do anything.  

I'm also waiting for all these tomatoes to go red.  Putting this planter on the corner here, which is the sunniest part of the garden was the best decision - these are the healthiest tomatoes I've ever grown.  The beans and peppers I've tried to grow round the sides of the basket haven't worked so well though, I'll have to rethink it ready for next year.

All of my blueberry plants have been repotted, and I've been rewarded with lots of blueberries and loads of new growth too. 

That's about it for the garden this month.  It must be autumn, because my 'autumn joy' sedum has started flowering 

How's your garden this month?

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Review - Slab vegan artisan fudge.

Friends, I feel it's my duty to bring to your attention this amazing vegan fudge. 

This is Proper Fudge.  I've been disappointed many times by vegan fudge, it's always soft and fondant-y and a bit kind of doughy, nice enough but I can make that kind of fudge myself.  This Slab artisan fudge is still soft, but it has that crunchy, crispy, almost crystal (but not gritty), melt in the mouth texture of the dairy fudge I loved in my pre-vegan days.  Does that make sense?  I'm not sure I have the right words to describe how good Slab fudge is, suffice it to say it's satisfied my fudge-y needs in a way no other vegan fudge ever has. 

I ordered 4 flavours, classic (it's sweet and slightly vanilla-y), death by chocolate (it tastes like the chocolate fudge icing my mum used to make for my birthday cakes), maple and walnut (this is for Joe, but I've taste tested it for him and it's super sweet and maple-y with nutty bits in) and choc toffee (this is my favourite, the toffee flavour is ah-maz-ing and it's swirled with chocolate fudge).  It's all coconut based, and you can taste that slightly in all the flavours, moreso in the classic and chocolate flavours.  

I asked for my fudge to be packed with as little plastic as possible (because I'd seen this post on Instagram!).  This is how my Slab fudge order arrived.

One piece of fudge had a bit of a whoopsie and was broken, but it's going to get broken when I eat and chew it anyway, so that's not an issue for me. I've kept it wrapped in it's greaseproof paper and popped it into a Pyrex box.  Yey for plastic free fudge!  (although the box did have plastic tape and bits on it, it's so hard to do anything completely plastic free and I really appreciate the effort Slab made to reduce the plastic)

Slab vegan fudge costs £3.50 per 150g piece, and you get free shipping on orders over £10.  They also sell dairy fudge, so make sure you order from the right section!  Fudge is made to order and mine came within 6 days of ordering.  I had cause to contact their customer services with a question, and they got back to me within a couple of hours and were super friendly and knowledgeable.  

This isn't a sponsored post.  I just like fudge.  And I'm going to eat some now! 

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