June

'What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade' 
Gertrude Jekyll

It's been a cold and very wet start to June in this corner of the world, but despite everything the lottie is looking good. Fresh, green growth abounds but still not a lot to harvest. It may be my imagination but everything seems late this year.

But there is promise of things to come; I noticed an abundance of tiny fruit on the apple tree, plenty of gooseberries and blackcurrants forming on the bushes, strawberries too. And as I mentioned last time, beans, onions and squash growing well, but the beetroot sown what seems an age ago now are still just tiny seedlings.
I did, however, gather a posy of herbs to brighten up the kitchen windowsill.

 The non-stop rain meant I have been marooned indoors for a large part of the week so I decided to make cake!
Tea and cake can always cheer the spirits!
A few weeks ago, I made a very nice coconut, raspberry and yoghurt cake from a recipe I found on the Yeo Valley website.
But this time around I decided to ring the changes and swap blueberries for the raspberries.

Apart from the above mentioned substitute, all the other ingredients were the same.The only other tweak was that I baked it in a 2lb loaf tin instead of the round cake tin and finished it with icing flavoured with lime juice.

A rather alarming dip appeared in the middle of the cake after I had removed it from the oven ( though it was cooked all the way through) and the fruit had sunk to the bottom, but slight defects aside, it tasted good and was well received by mr digandweed!

The nice lady on the weather forecast says things are going to pick up this weekend, so hopefully we shall be venturing out down to the allotment.

Happy weekend everyone whatever your plans.




annjenny x