Enjoying summer's bounty

So many goodies from the garden to savour right now. So many that it's hard to keep up with picking, eating, processing and cooking all the super-healthy fruit and vegetables we're all growing. Raspberries picked and eaten on the spot. A few crunchy lettuce leaves. Heavenly strawberries and cream (or ice cream, or yoghurt). Baby courgettes, the first tender runner and French beans.

Flowers too to enjoy. A vase of sweetly perfumed sweet peas, bright calendula, delicate cosmos and wonderful blue cornflowers. What's not to love.

Preserving time too. Following the days of making rhubarb and ginger and gooseberry and elderflower jams now kitchen aromas are of redcurrant jelly, and strawberry and blackcurrant jams. Time to stock up our store cupboards for the dark days of winter.

Success this year with growing florence fennel. So many ways to cook this handsome vegetable. The end of June is the ideal time to sow it again for autumn harvests as it tends to bolt over summer if the weather is warm and dry.

Let's enjoy these bountiful months to the full.