I have a feeling we will look back and say, “This was the last day of Summer.”
It’s was a glorious summer’s day and we felt the urge to cut grass. It was also time for some work on the compost. Bobbie cut the grass whilst I turned the hot heap. Then we raked up the mowings and barrowed them over to the working heap, interspersed with cardboard and horse manure.
I call that a good way to celebrate our third wedding anniversary! (Actually, we did the celebration on Monday by going to Oxford to see the Moody Blues:>)
Posted in In the Garden
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Tagged Compost
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I assume this is a Toad since s/he was on his/her own in the grass, but s/he’s not very warty.
We had our Autumn Equinox celebration today. I took along a basket of apples to share and to give thanks.
We have three old apple trees, two desert and one cooker. There is also a Russett but that hasn’t produced much this year.
Had a woderful day climbing up into one of the trees collecting apples. So many this year but all a bit smaller and not quite a sweet as last year. Too little water in the production stage and not enough sun at the ripening stage I guess.
The first result was two plastic dustbins full that went up the Chiltern Ridge for juicing. This made sixty three bottles! And we still have another treeful.
It’s going to be a big chutney season…
Posted in In the Garden
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Tagged Apples
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Two buckets underway, that should make three demijohns. The berries are juicy and gorgeous at the moment.
What a fantastic few days we have had! I have spent a fair bit of time on the veg plot. Bobbie had created one of our raised beds which I had intended to start using earlier this year but there was no time to do anything about it.
Needless to say, a lot of green stuff had risen to the challenge of a vacant spot, so it took a lot of forking just to get it level. Each fork hit a chink of this or that and sometimes this turned into a full blown excavation!
I have now forked it all over and retrieved masses of large peices of flint and chalk which I am going to use to make the paths between the beds. We also uncovered three peices of crazy paving and a great slab of concrete which would have seriously bent the carrots. Bobbie had to lift that one out, I couldn’t!
Today, I raked up the grass mowings and have laid this on top. Tomorrow the cardboard boxes to surpress any weeds and then it will be a layer of compost with the intention of getting some spring greens in. Somehow I doubt we will see much of these as I am sure the various wildlife will help themselves until we get the fence up. We shall see:>)
Posted in In the Garden
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Tagged Veg Plot
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We have had such strong winds these last two days, I am not picking the gages but collecting the windfalls. They taste fab but too many to eat. I think these will be stewed and bottle for pies rather than jammed.
Great! That’s 3lb of blackberries turned to jam:>)
The blackberries are galloping now. Looking at last year’s notes, I was making jam on the 24th August so they are about on target. This year, the first couple of pounds are starting an amazing adventure into becoming balckberry liqueur. I made some last year and it was fab :>) Jamming time next week I think.
The gages are just turning golden and delicious. We can pick them off the tree and wander about the garden munching. I leave the stones about for the squirrels. They love the kernels.
I was looking up at the skies late this afternoon and saw the swifts. I love these birds. My spirits always lift when they arrive in May. They were doing their amazing aerobatics over the garden. Next year, guys, I’ll try and have some nest sites ready for you.
It looks as though the cucumber plants are responding to treatment. They had gone very yellow and the fruits were no longer viable. Then I read the label and realised I should have been feeding ‘every’ watering, I was only doing it once a week. I gave the pots some extra fresh compost and started to feed daily. They have started growing fruits again. Which is great coz the tomatoes are starting to ripen off rather well. With all this and the cut-n-cum-again lettuce we are doing fine for home grown salad. I love that poly tunnel:>)
