bring me sunshine

Not an allotment post today but a few pics from the garden. I had a stroll around this afternoon and realised that many of our flowers are starting to go over, so took the opportunity to take a few snaps of our sunflower while they are still in full glory.

We have grown some different types of sunflower this year and they seem to have been fairly successful. Here are a few from our garden.

Giant sunflower - this one is about 8 feet tall

Just love the deep purple centre with contrasting cream tips to the leaves

These hint towards 'traditional' sunflowers with the heavily seeded centre and tri-colour leaves of pale yellow, lilac and cream

A real stunner this one - I just love the purple leaves; very striking

spud you like?

We're due to go on holiday in a few days time so it was decided that we needed to harvest the 2nd earlies and what a crop it was! We have from left to right: Kestrel, Courage and Mayan Twilight. We'll leave them to dry off in our greenhouse at home then bag them up and store them. Should keep us going for a week or two!

So here's a quick and tasty potato-based dish:

Layered Potato and Onion Bake

Potatoes sliced thinly

Onions any variety (I used our red onions) sliced

Milk or single cream if you're feeling extravagant

Grated cheese

All quantities to fit in whichever dish you're going to cook it in

Pre-heat oven to 180C

Alternate layers of potato and onion

You can also add anything else you fancy, e.g. courgette, tomato, aubergine, etc.

Splash over some milk (or cream) to give a bit of moisture

Cover in foil and place in oven for about 45 mins or until potatoes have begun softening

Remove foil, sprinkle over cheese and return to oven for about 20 mins or until cheese golden and bubbling

Allow to cool for 5 mins before serving either as a main vegetarian dish or accompaniment to chicken or fish

Enjoy!