Summer finally here

[MikA]

Picked the first Tomato - Gardeners Delight - in the greenhouse.

Made a lovely lunch with freshly picked mini cucumbers, 2 sorts of lettuce, carrot and baby beetroot topped with a sprinkle of Petits Pois peas and raspberry vinegar all with cold lamb from yesterdays dinner.

[peter]

Raspberry Vinegar, home made?
If so how?

I have a surfeit of raspberries and really should avoid cream, ice cream & cakes so my clothes continue to permit me entry.

[MikA]

Hi Peter,

dead easy.

Fill a bottle with raspberries. Marinade in white wine vinegar for a couple of months. Decant the vinegar for your dressing.

Mix 1 part vinegar to 2 parts olive oil and shake well.
MikA

edited as missed a bit.

[peter]

Ok, I'll give that a go.
Is it prone to going off due to dilution of the acetic acid?

Would plain pickling vinegar be a better base at 18% rather than 8% acetic acid content?

New field for me so question torrent.

[Nature's Babe]

We had a similar salad with some salmon on saturday, red and green lettuce, land cress, baby cues, beetroot, tomatoes, and new potato salad with chopped spring onion, all home grown, and baked jostaberries with a sponge topping for afters. I love summer too but am trying hard to have as much produce autumn and winter.

[MikA]

Ok, I'll give that a go.
Is it prone to going off due to dilution of the acetic acid?

Would plain pickling vinegar be a better base at 18% rather than 8% acetic acid content?

New field for me so question torrent.

I'm pretty sure pickling vinegar would overpower the flavour of the raspberries but I will check with my wife and then edit this post with her complete method and rationale.

MikA

[MikA]

.......... . I love summer too but am trying hard to have as much produce autumn and winter.

Hi NB,

Tomatoes are the main reason for our greenhouse, hence the celebration of the first one picked. We had a 12 by 8 one which was nearly half our garden at our old house and my wife produced loads of tomatoes . We never could eat them all but she makes wonderful chutneys. One year she made "Traffic light" chutney from Red, Green and Yellow tomatoes for the children.

If we don't get anything else, this is what I'm looking forward to the most.

LOL

MikA

[Nature's Babe]

Me too, at 93, my old mum will eat them at breakfast dinner and tea, i tend to ring the changes with variety, every shape under the sun, and I think the only colour we haven't tried is white! We have a lean-to greenhouse which gains some warmth from the house as it's south facing, and another in the garden, both unheated, some ripe in both now.Your wife sounds a treasure and a sense of fun too

[MikA]

Peter

I have put the wife's recipe for raspberry vinegar in the Recipes section.

Enjoy

[Monika]

We are harvesting peas, mangetout peas, broad beans and potatoes at the moment as well as a few salad stuffs but the tomatoes in the greenhouse are only just starting to set.

Still lacking the rain. Today was supposed to be wet but we spent all morning on the allotment in the sunshine and watering everything with cans.

[Johnboy]

Hi Monika,
Managed to pick some of my Yellow Raspberries this morning just after 9am and it has been raining ever since.
My friends are going to the Shakespeare performance at Ludlow Castle this evening. They had a spare ticket and wanted me to go but it is an open air performance and more rain is forecast so I used this as an excuse for not going but the truth is I cannot abide Shakespeare under any circumstances.
BTW my Yellow Raspberries have come through the family and were bred by a member of the family around 1860. They are about two weeks late this year and are normally ready just before the last week in June.
Plenty of new plants this year so will probably start another row for next year.
JB.

[Monika]

Rain, glorious rain! It finally arrived and today we had great growing weather, downpours, interspersed with steamy sunshine, just what we needed. I was seriously worried about the peas getting powdery mildew, but this rain (and more to come, they say) should prevent it.

Isn't it a lovely feeling when you lie in bed in a summer's night and hear it bucketing down outside!?

[oldherbaceous]

Evening Johnboy, very interesting about your yellow Raspberry.
I was just wondering if it had a family name, or any name, for that.

Glad to hear you have had some rain, Monika.

[Johnboy]

Hi OH,
Very dramatically I have only ever heard it referred to as "The Yellow Raspberry" and I do know that the member of the family responsible for it came to untimely death in a farm accident in 1862.
What I will say is that it has a fine flavour and is very sweet.
JB.