Swimming, 23rd September 2021

Another slightly improved session today. If I can keep this up then I make be back to where I was a month ago some time next week.

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Extreme composting?

I saw this piece on the BBC website today. The comments from 2:20 to the end amused me, particularly as it’s something I’ve joked about with my daughter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-58587691

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No dig diary, 21st September 2021

I seem to have spent the last couple of weeks madly doing stuff and not feeling as though I have a huge amount to show for it. Not sure why. On a non-gardening front I do at least have a huge amount of honey bottled and I’ve made a few batches of beer, both of which took longer than anticipated. I’ve also been picking blackberries and raspberries as often as there’s ripe fruit.

It doesn’t actually feel as though there’s been much to do in the veggie plot however. I harvested lots of aubergines, some of which have been made into pickles, some eaten and some roasted with other veg and frozen for future meals and I’ve been picking sweetcorn regularly. I think this weekend I’ll harvest the remainder and get the stalks into the compost.

There are more aubergines to come. They’ve done really well this year, both in the polytunnel and greenhouse.

The weather here has been incredibly humid over the last couple of weeks and unfortunately that seems to have allowed some blight to take hold in the polytunnel, so on Sunday I removed all the foliage and stems that weren’t already bearing fruit from the tomatoes as well as clearing out the marigolds growing around their feet, the idea being to improve the air circulation as much as possible around the plants whilst the remaining fruit ripen.

The peppers (on the right in the second photo) seem to be producing lots of flower and fruit now, but it really does seem rather late. I’ll leave them on the plants as long as possible and we’ll see how it goes. Some have also grown very tall. The tallest near the end must be about 1.5m — the tops of the stakes are around 1m high.

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Swimming, September 21st 2021

Another no-so-bad session. They’re coming a bit more regularly now, so I hope I’m going to get back to where I was a few weeks back.

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Swimming, 20th September 2021

A bit of a drop back in performance from last week’s good sessions today, but not absolutely awful at least.

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Swimming, 17th September 2021

Something of a scrappy session today because we were late getting into the pool. For the first time in almost two years I think, schools have returned for lessons and they’re not leaving the pool (which then has to be reset with all the lane ropes etc.) until the time when we’re supposed to get in, so it’s all a bit of a rush 🙁

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Swimming, 16th September 2021

Another not-so-bad session today. Perhaps I’m on the road to recovery now.

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Swimming, 14th September 2021

A slightly better session today. Not as good as I have been, but at least it’s an improvement on recent performances. I just hope I can keep it up.

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First fruit leather of the season

Since I can’t progress with extracting honey any further, we have “melted down” some of our pears and plums (separately) and put them in the dehydrator to make fruit leathers. We’ve done apple before, but I feel the need to experiment a little more this year, so we might give damsons, raspberries and blackberries a go as well.

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Swimming, 13th September 2021

Another poor show 🙁 Shall we just move on?

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