Hi, it's Friday and I'm declaring it international (well in my garden, anyway) compost and manure day! I am going to throw around some sheep manure pellets and toss around some lovely compost too, especially now that the soil is nice and damp from the rain. I need to conserve as much moisture as I can and the compost etc will help do that.
Yesterday I sorted out the rest of the damsons and put 2 more jars down for damson gin (although one of the jar lids is leaking..bah.. will have to see if John can sort it for me) and also put aside another 2kg for more jelly which I will make tomorrow. I have another kg in the freezer too for me to do something with later. All in all a fabulous harvest and yes, I thanked the tree!
Our grapes have started ripening slowly and the birds are beginning to plunder them already so it's time to make little sacks out of frost cloth to help protect them. I can't just throw frostcloth (the permeable type which is much better than bird protection which traps birds) over the whole vine as it is against our verandah and is just too tricky to do so I have to cover each gorgeous bunch instead. Needless to say it's quite a lot of work, but well worth it. I hope to have the best bunches covered by the end of the weekend at least.
Here are photos of Chester and Sabah. I took them a couple of days ago. Chester's coat is quite a lot darker than it looks in the photo. I think these shots of them are gorgeous!
I'm off to get a cup of tea and take a wander down the paddock to check out the branch of next door's poplar tree that came down in the stormy weather on Wednesday night. Smiles..
Love the pics! I made slightly runny wild blackberry jelly all the time on purpose. It makes the most delightful syrup for pancakes and waffles. I would rather have butter and sugar on mine but changed my druthers after tasting my mistake on pancakes. Even better is to but sour cream on then top with too hard jelly. Boy have I made mistakes in the past HA!
Posted by: Mary Werner | 02/25/2012 at 01:29 AM