Last pickings

I’m off to the UK this week to visit Dad and Brian’s mum, Hilda. I wanted to get a few gardening jobs done before I left. It was such a beautiful day I could have spent hours out there, pottering away my afternoon. However, I want to make some green tomato chutney with the last of the pickings before I go, as the tomato plants are very straggly, and the tomatoes that are left on them are not ripening. Before that though the lavender needed the flower heads cutting back, as they have now seeded and dried. To stop the plants getting too leggy you have to trim them back to the last leaves on each branch. That job always takes way longer than I think it will, but it never really feels like a chore, as the lavender gives us beautiful colour and scent all summer through. I just love it.