The beginning of October is the start of my autumn. In my flower garden many of the late flowering plants are well into it, purples and pinks and burnt oranges abound and the grasses are a beautiful oaty colour. Even so I have to ruin the display by cutting and splitting and chucking and moving, and it has to be done before the unworkable weather comes in.
In the orchard I'm waiting for the last pear tree to ripen up while I wander about picking up fallen Bramleys from the dewy grass and sorting them out - nice and clean and unholed to the kitchen, bashed and holed over the fence to the ponies. The ponies are feeling their oats again and spend much of the day 'bulling' in anticipation of a visit from the stallion.
The late vegetable harvest is well underway with about 50lbs of humungous onions doing their final drying off on the empty staging in the polytunnel where the last dozen or so pounds of tomatoes are hanging around in the last of the heat. My pumpkins are fantastic, purple skinned and orange fleshed 'Crown Prince', and they're lurking amongst the huge yellowing leaves. Gallons of fantastic soup stored in their skins for the winter, replacing the tomato soup lost to the blight. My bell pepper plant from last year is still doing well with about 8 green peppers slowly turning garnet coloured.
In the kitchen it's been all go with bottling fruit and mixing mincemeat but today was my husband's fave of the season - I've drained off the plums in brandy, the plums have gone into a) my husband and b) the Christmas puddings now simmering on the stove and the brandy is filtering ready for my store cupboards. Best of all, England have just beaten the Ozzie Rugby team to a frazzle so some of that Plum Brandy will be going awol as part of his celebrations :O))
2 comments:
You have so much energy :) you've got the true picture of England's seasons in your garden Fairy. You've painted a lovely picture for me reading this :) Rache
Humungous onions?? Now I'm hungry. Off to the market!! :-)
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