Stunning Asters, Runaway Courgettes and the Great Tea Cake Takeover

 Another week of this weather. I don't know about you, but I've started talking to my watering can like it's a member of the family.  Let's see what damage we can undo today. It's been that dry that the water butts are down to their last few inches, and watering isn't so much a chore up the plot anymore as a full time occupation. Sam reckons he could set his watch by me, out there at half six with the can before the sun's had chance to steal it all back off the soil.

But here's the thing about a dry spell, it doesn't stop everything showing off. Quite the opposite, in fact. In amongst all the dust and the worry and the "have we watered plot two yet" conversations, something rather beautiful has quietly gone and stolen the whole show.

A Little Beauty Called the Dwarf Aster

I'll be honest, I've grown asters for years without ever really stopping to appreciate them properly. They're one of those plants that just gets on with it in the background while I'm off fussing over tomatoes. But this year, tucked along the edge of plot one, my dwarf asters have come into their own, and I've been stopping in my tracks every single morning to have a proper look.

For anyone who doesn't know them, dwarf asters, sometimes still sold under their old name Aster dumosus, are compact little perennials, usually somewhere between a foot and eighteen inches tall, which makes them perfect for the front of a border or even a decent sized pot on the patio if you haven't got an allotment to spread out on. Come late summer, just when everything else is starting to look a bit tired and sun bleached, they burst into these masses of small daisy-like flowers in white, pink, purple and blue, with neat little yellow centres. Some folk call them Michaelmas daisies, on account of them flowering right through into autumn, often past Michaelmas Day itself at the end of September.

The best bit, especially in a summer like this one, is how little fuss they need. They like a sunny spot, they're not fussy about soil, and unlike a lot of taller asters, the dwarf varieties don't need staking, so no faffing about with canes and string. They're also an absolute magnet for bees and butterflies at a time of year when a lot of other nectar sources have gone over, which I reckon makes them worth growing on their own merits even before you get to how pretty they are. Plant them in a little cluster of five or seven rather than dotting single ones about, and you'll get a much better display for it.Sara's already asked if she can have a clump for the front garden. I suspect that's the asters' way of telling me I've been keeping them to myself for too long.

Meanwhile, Down at the Veg Patch

While the asters have been quietly stealing my heart, the courgettes, cucumbers and tomatoes have been quietly stealing my kitchen worktop. All three of them have hit that point in the season where they seem to grow visibly between breakfast and teatime. I went up Thursday morning, picked what I thought was a very reasonable haul, and by Saturday there were three more courgettes trying to disguise themselves as marrows behind a leaf.

Iris has taken to checking the courgette plants daily now, on account of what happened last year when we went away for a long weekend and came back to find one the size of her arm. "It's basically a canoe, Dad," she said, and she wasn't far wrong.

If you're growing your own this summer, the trick with courgettes and cucumbers in this heat is little and often. A modest drink most days rather than one big soak that just runs straight through, and pick every couple of days without fail, because the more you pick, the more the plant tries to produce. Leave one too long and the plant thinks its job for the year is done. Tomatoes want the same treatment, plus a sideways glance most mornings to make sure nothing's split from an uneven drink after all this dryness.

And do you know what, for all the daily faffing about, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that tastes like a tomato you've grown yourself, still warm from the sun, eaten standing up at the plot with the juice running down your wrist. Shop bought ones haven't got a look in.

Saturday, Flour, and a Very Ambitious Baking Plan

Saturday arrived, as Saturdays do, and with it came baking day. Now, I don't do things by halves in this house, so when Sara mentioned the freezer was looking a bit sparse on the treats front, I decided two dozen tea cakes felt about right. Sensible people might have started with one dozen. I am not, by all accounts, a sensible person where an oven is concerned.

Here's the recipe, for anyone tempted to have a go themselves.

Ingredients

• 500g strong white flour
• 7g dried yeast
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 50g softened butter
• 300ml warm milk
• 1 egg
• 180g mixed dried fruit

Method

Mix your flour, yeast, sugar, salt and spices together in a big bowl, the same way you would for any cob loaf. Rub in the softened butter until it's nicely worked through, then make a well in the middle and add the warm milk and the egg. Bring it all together into a dough, then turn it out and knead for a good ten minutes, until it's smooth and springy under your hands. This bit always takes a touch longer with an enriched dough like this one than it does with a plain loaf, so don't rush it.

Pop the dough back in the bowl, cover it, and leave it somewhere warm to prove until it's doubled in size, about an hour depending on your kitchen. Knock it back, work in the dried fruit until it's evenly spread through, then divide into twenty four even pieces and shape each one into a neat little round. Set them out on your trays, cover again, and leave for a second, shorter prove of around forty five minutes, until they're looking nice and puffy.

Bake at 200°C, or 180°C fan, for around twelve to fifteen minutes, until they're golden on top and sound hollow when you tap the base.

The smell that filled the kitchen was, honestly, something else. Sara came down from hanging the washing out and just stood in the doorway for a moment with her eyes shut, having a proper sniff. That's the real test of a good bake, if you ask me, long before anyone's taken a bite.

What They Actually Cost

Because I know a fair few of you like to keep an eye on the pennies as much as I do, here's my rough breakdown for this batch:

• Flour: 36p
• Dried fruit: 50p
• Eggs: 18p
• Milk: 46p
• Spices, sugar and a bit of electric: 10p

Which works out at roughly 13p a tea cake.

This week, I happened to buy four tea cakes from the shop for £1.65, purely for comparison purposes. That's well over three times the price of baking your own, for a tea cake that's been sat in a wrapper rather than coming out of your own oven twenty minutes ago.

And it's not just about the money, though goodness knows that adds up over a year of Saturdays. When you bake at home you know exactly what's gone in, you can make them as fruity or as spiced as you fancy, and there's not an additive or a preservative in sight. You get a kitchen that smells like it should, a bit of flour-covered chaos with the kids if they're about, and a full tin of tea cakes at the end of it that'll see you through the week and probably into the freezer besides. It's proper, honest, frugal baking, and once you've got the knack of it, it barely takes any more effort than watching the shop bought ones sit in your trolley.

So go on then, tell me, is baking day a fixture in your house too, or is there something you make every single week without fail that the family would never forgive you for stopping?

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.