distractedbyathing.net

Currently harvesting:

- carrots of various shapes and colours – kids like the ‘golfballs’ best, I like the purple ones with orange middles.

- parsnips, which we have had roasted and in stews and are very nice

- mini-cukes which The Boy eats whole as a snack

- rasps, a mix of summer (Glen Prosen) and autumn (Polka), both in their first year so just a handful of each a day, I have had maybe 3 in total so far as Charlie loves them

- alpine strawbs, still lots of these. So tiny, but what an intense flavour.

- red and white onions, mostly going in salads or onion marmalade

- salad leaves, half a dozen types of lettuce and rainbow chard

- runner beans and yellow waxy french beans – just ready, havent tried either yet, maybe Sunday lunch.

- potatoes, the Anya are finished but still a few Charlottes and Juliettes left

- one or two peppers, they didnt do very well outside this year, need to be under glass

- plums are just starting and our one surviving apple looks about ready for granny Pam to pick it

Only put in a couple of dwarf peas, in the childrens patch, they picked a few pods today and the peas taste really sweet and nutty, totally different flavour and texture from a shop or frozen pea

- herbs: mint is looking a bit rusty, rosemary is okay, coriander is now going to seed, lots of oregano and thyme, basil still hanging in there, made pesto with most of it for Charlies pasta tonight.

Its the first time we have had enough things ready together for a whole meal and its brilliant !

As discovered by Booyaa:

tres tres coolifique! – Alternative Music Distribution: Moldover’s CD Case as Circuit Board Noisemaker http://bit.ly/UHN1j

Fun, Funny, Geeky and Innovative… http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/08/19/alternative-music-distribution-moldovers-cd-case-as-circuit-board-noisemaker/

Hamada

I was playing some old Nils Petter Molvaer (lastfm, wikipedia, fan-site, official) this morning (can it really be 12 years since Khmer came out?!?!?) and wondered what he had been up to recently.

Turns out he released a new album/cd in April this year – Hamada (review at AllAboutJazz) – though it has had hardly any coverage/press. Based on the review, love for his previous music and a feeling that I ought to buy a copy and support the artist (he’s gone “own label”)  I checked out Amazon.co.uk and Play.com – neither of which stock it (CD or download).

Oh! how odd.

So I double checked his own site (and the horrible/unusable MySpace page – I won’t link to it) and he neither offers CDs or downloads for sale directly – nor links to suggested stores/merchants. Digging further I could probably get an (expensive) CD import – or possibly sign up to a German online store and download mp3s (means creating a new account, possible restrictions on my right to buy via a UK IP address).

Interestingly… this fan site forum page gave links to a fileshare site where (it appears) the whole album is available for free.

What would you do?

A few pictures from our recent family picnic in Surrey.

Family Picnic 2009

Did you catch this on BBCR4 Today this morning…? I thought it was very moving… lyrics inspiredby Harry Patch’s own words from an interview in 2005.

You can hear the original interview and the full song at the Today Page here and you can pay a pound to download an mp3 from Radiohead’s store site (Proceeds to the Royal British Legion) and Thom Yorke blogged about it here.

BBC – Today – Radiohead: Harry Patch In memory of.

The recent combination of hot sun and steady rain has had everything growing like mad – especially the weeds
We have a roll of weed mat fabric for the footpaths and need to get that down asap – Steve is doing the hard work clearing the surfaces, should make some progress this week.
We are eating our produce quite often now – potatoes (Anyas are The Best), salad, rasps, red onions, multi-coloured carrots. Not much of anything, but still lovely.
The parsnips are about there, Id like to leave some for Xmas if they will keep okay in the ground.
The shallots which went in very late (gift from a neighbour) are doing fine, will leave them as long as possible before pulling.
The salad onions and chard are up, not ready yet but might try the chard leaves next week in a salad.
Another neighbour donated a few spare leeks yesterday, they are already in a gap in the onion bed.
Cucumber plants have their first teensy cucumbers on, about 1″ long. They only get to 5-6″ anyway, but still a long way to go. Some of the leaves dont look good – they have gone lacey and holey in the middle – not from being eaten, maybe sun scorch damage ?
The asparagus is going great guns. No sign of anything dying back yet, fat spears still coming up on the Backlim and Anjlim, the purple one is still tiny and skinny but a little better than earlier in the year. Quite excited about prospects for next year when we can pick just one spear per crown.
Rhubarb is troubling me a bit. A few of the newer leaves have gone a dark red/brown and are quite crunchy. Also poss caused by sun on wet leaves but not sure what to do – probably pull the damaged stems off. The volunteer rhubarb is thriving and the first one that seemed to be failing (too close to the hedge ?) has recovered a bit. I will move them both in the autumn.
Oh, we have had a blueberry ! Just the one that the birds left us A couple more berries on the way – the plant needs to go back into a pot, it doesnt like being in the ground. I think I might put a red goosegog (’Pax’) in the gap.
Runner beans are flowering well, no sign of any pods yet.
Squashes (Butternut, table Queen) are both stopped at about 6″. Not sure why, maybe putting down roots before they take off ? If nothing happens soon they may be too late…
Flower beds are pretty raggedy looking. The Hollyhocks are just flowering but have quite bad rust on their lower halves. Need to pick the lupin pods to dry and plant the seeds – not sure how that works, will have to read up. Otherwise, grass is encroaching and needs riping out/edging and lots of dead-heading to do.
The large pepper in a pot still has lots of fruit, but they are going from green to brown without the red in between ! Not sure what is going wrong, but not a success.
Last thing for now – looking forward to making curry with home grown coriander leaves ! Lots of it coming up now, just a tiny bit longer to wait….