Dori's cross-stitched kitchen towels

What a wonderful surprise! The postman brought me these lovely kitchen towels from Dori, with whom I went to school in Herzogenbuchsee, and who lives in Beatenberg, above the lake of Thun.

She has sent me some pictures of her garden too and the view from her kitchen window onto Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau.

Roast Vegetables

Eggplant, zucchini and peppers are very reasonable right now, and I still have loads of home-grown sweet onions, so I make huge platters of roast vegetables and freeze them for use in the winter.

(See page 40 in my book Wild Garlic)

My Compost

I decided to dig down into my compost and use that soil for the broccoli I am going to sow.
What I found out is that peanut shells, surprisingly, do NOT decompose, nor do pits of peaches, apricots etc. Less surprisingly nails, plastic, bits of crockery, moules shells and snail houses
were prevalent and intact.

After putting the soil through a sieve, I ended up with this:

---and more blackberries!

--

I have found a new spot, unbelievable! With the help of the secateur I whacked my way into it and it's like finding a gold vein.

Katrin, David and Harry-

-have come down for a surprise visit. We are feasting on grilled beef ribs, grilled corn on the cob, baked beets and green beans.