A bit of inter-family cashless bartering

Dad called in this afternoon on the way back from his allotment with a surplus of produce for us. A large pile of onions, ordinary and red (he planted 5 times more than we did!), a large bag of potatoes, some leaks, 3 garlic bulbs (we are due to plant out own shortly) and a couple of kg of red currants (which went straight into the freezer as I am rather tight for time at the moment - one reason why I am blogging at 2am!).

In return we gave him 8 jars of jam and chutney and a carrier bag of wild pears and apples.

I did find time this afternoon to break away from earning a living (I was editing one of the publications I look after which is due for publication tomorrow, Sunday 12th October) to walk over to Lotties Wood next to our village of Sunniside. I was there last week picking berries etc for jelly making but discovered a large number of hazel trees. As I reported previously, the hazel crop this year is not great but I was able to add a bit more last week to our supplies. I decided to return this weekend for a last attempt this year to gather hazel nuts. I added about a third of a kilo to our stock. Not a staggering quantity but we at least have sufficient now for Xmas.

I did also found a large number of shrubs covered with small black coloured berries. At first I thought they were very small sloes but I found they contained seeds rather than stones. I brought back a small branch to check out what it was. They weren't bilberries which was my next thought after sloes. I'm still baffled.

News from the allotment - David spent much of today digging over the patches we used this year. We will be adding compost to them soon. We just have to ship over the contents of our two compost bins in our back garden. We are going to need an awful lot as well. Just about anything biodegradable is going into the compost bins. All the documents I shred are heading for the compost bins as well.

Courgettes are still coming thick and fast and we also had a few runner beans from the allotment today as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to the allotment myself today. Other than my hazel nut gathering expedition, I've been stuck in front of the pc working today.