…but it’s not supposed to be autumn yet! However it’s pretty cool and there’s quite a nip in the air in the early morning now. I’m planning to upload some pictures of an awesome & inspirational garden I visited yesterday – I now have serious orchard envy – but here are just a few from around our own little patch to keep you going until I find the correct lead for the little camera!
Around the wildlife pond – two cats and a brontosaurus…
You always kind of know that a garden is never altogether your own, that you share it with all manner of shy & unseen creatures. Or not so shy & unseen, in the case of Felis Sylvestris Catus… Which probably explains why the wild birds are leaving the blackberries alone:
Loads of berries ripe now, more to come, and still flowering…
The plums are at that tantalising stage where they look absolutely ripe & delicious:
Plums next to rowanberries, neither of them fully ripe…
…but they’re not ready to part company with the branches just yet! Some of the tomatos are ready to pick:
The label said, Gardener’s Delight – looks like Moneymaker or even Tigerella to me!
…but I’ve actually snipped off about half of them, ripe or not, as the cool rainy weather forecast for the next few days is a recipe for blight. They’ll ripen up on the conservatory windowsills. And there are still a few flowers going strong: Montbretias, fuchsias, the hydrangea, and these little troupers scattered around in old hanging baskets & windowboxes:
You can’t go wrong with a pelargonium or three!
I’m pretty busy picking & preserving right now; blackberry jam and mango & apple chutney are already made, and 2.2Kg more blackberries were picked today, from the garden and the riverbank. Also a small bag of crab apples, mainly for their pectin; interesting to see that that tree also has a poor & slightly-manky-looking crop this year, so it probably wasn’t anything we did or didn’t do that’s caused our own trees to fruit so poorly this year. Blackberry vinegar will be started off tomorrow, and blackberry & crab apple jelly. If I can find enough of them, Apple Butter’s high on the to-do list too, but finding more jamjars may have to come first!
A year of old-style gardening... 