My little currant bushes have produced!

Result. It was mostly blackcurrants this year, but as you can see there were a few white currants in for good measure. The redcurrant seems to have been struggling, but it does have leaves and has grown, so I'll try and feed it lots and give it a bit of soil improvement and hope for better things next year.

This morning I took Nigel Slater's advice and boiled them up with a desert spoon of sugar, a desert spoon of water and a handful of my alpine strawberries too. Then I put a generous spoonful of the mixture over my breakfast toast, along with a splurge of honey and a banana.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking as soon as I try and eat that it'll all fall off. That is why the Earl of Sandwich put the top slice on the sandwich and I followed suit. But it wouldn't have made as pretty a picture.

That is a breakfast. Oh yes. But I think what's left of that purple sauce would be even better with a generous scoop of vanilla icecream. I may even have to buy some on my way home tomorrow.

Days like today have me tearing my hair out. It's July, and we've got some pretty serious winds going on with heavy rain showers.

My apparently over-engineered bean support system is creaking. The canes seem to have bent with the wind - there's now a distinct lean, even though none of the individual supports seem to have shifted. And the strings that the beans are climbing up? At least one of them has snapped. 7 foot of bean came free and is now thrashing around in the wind. Something tells me that isn't going to be healthy. 

Still, I guess it's another lesson. Even a strong frame is only as good as its weakest parts, which this year I guess is the string. Maybe next year I'll put vertical canes up for each bean as well as the frame. It's survived better than last year. Eventually I'll get it right. Maybe next year too I catch the black fly infestation before it reaches horrific proportions - anyone got any organic advice other than squishing them?! I've put marigolds in under the beans, but for some reason this year I've hardly seen any ladybirds at all.

My poor little apple trees have put on a nice amount of growth, lots of lovely leaves, and now of course they are getting pummled. The supports we put in are keeping them upright, but it's a worry. My iceberg rose out back is thrashing around all over the place, and it was looking lovely this year. 

I know. It'll all survive. I'll learn a bit more, and next year will be better. Deep down, I just don't like the wind I think. 

Not all taken recently, but all taken with my phone.

We have Brighton Pier.

I go past that bit every working day. In the morning it's lovely, in the evening a bit crowded around there.

The one that's still standing, as opposed to the West Pier.

And this is just at the back of the marina. All of these boats are well out of the water and waiting to be cleaned or mended or something. I might try and get a better shot with my camera rather than my phone... Or it's nearly time to get a new phone, so maybe I'll get one with a better camera!

And this morning we had our first daylily or hemerocallis flowering! Woohoo! But I still haven't charged my camera batteries, so it's a really rubbish photo that focussed on the leaves rather than the flower. I wanted to make a note of it though...

The first couple of days of new job have gone well. Fingers crossed that will continue.

I had to post this because the weather has been so cold and damp and nasty for the last couple of days. I ate these probably last weekend. The second and third strawberries of the year. The first one I was over-eager and it was a little tart. These were lovely.

There are more ripening too. Yum!

After a recent computer meltdown (yeah, lost stuff, it's taken hours to restore everything, yeah, should back things up) I found a photo of the garden taken ages ago.

At least, I thought it was ages ago. It looks like not long after we dug it all out, which was aeons ago clearly.

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