Allotment!

I finally got down there for another nose this evening. I'm so thrilled. OK, so it's a lot of work, and getting the weeds and bolted things up isn't going to be much fun. But all that growing space will be brilliant. Also it has an existing fruit cage and a big rhubarb plant, and a little strawberry patch. I'm a little paranoid that the old (still just about existing) owner will come and remove everything, but I think the chances are pretty low.

The fruit cage is home to a load of raspberry canes with lots of lovely ripe untouched fruit on them, and what appears to be 2 gooseberry bushes and 2 blackcurrant bushes! I'm SO HAPPY about this!!!










I'm also considering investing in a food dehydrator. My current top choice is the Stockli model, as it's not extortionately expensive but seems a decent one. I'll be buying some of the fruit leather inserts because fruit leathers are amazing and we all love them. I must admit that my primary reason for considering getting one was the leather aspect, but it seems you can also dehydrate things like onions and courgettes, and then rehydrate them for use in cooking throughout the year. It seems an ideal way of coping with gluts of things (ha, fat chance of that this year!) and takes way less space than trying to store things in a 'cool dry place' or the freezer. It might end up gathering dust like so many of my other gadgets, but so far I'm hopeful :)  Especially now I'm going to have lots of different kinds of berries to experiment with!