Preserving My Sanity

In amongst all the angst and worry about my father, garden and greenhouse remind me of that important fact; that life carries on, the world turns and my tomatoes need to be harvested.

 As well as over 8lbs of ripe tomatoes (41/2 lbs already frozen as pasta sauce and turned into tomato and roasted pepper chutney), we have over 6lbs of green tomatoes to make into chutney; one load of green grape chutney - all those small tomatoes - and one of ordinary green tomato chutney.

Tomato and roasted pepper chutney

 We also had a small choggia and golden beetroot harvest which were delicious roasted; sadly there weren't enough to make into relish but our local farm shop came to the rescue with some lovely produce.

 I also 'forced' Jean-Luc to go foraging and we picked enough elderberries to mix with some damsons (a gift from a friend last year which we'd frozen) and made into jam - it is delicious and tastes remarkably like blackberry jam.

And last but not least, our chilli harvest - although I'm not sure why the picture seems to have cropped itself.

 All this harvesting and preserving activity has really helped me to ground myself, one of the unexpected benefits of trying to pursue a more simple life.