Why does everything seem to ripen at once? I'm overwhelmd with tomatoes, I have a great big box of pears, and that's just the first tree! My neighbour brought me two bunches of grapes and some figs and I bought fruit this week because my son was supposed to be coming. (His flight was cancelled else he would be able to help me). As it is I have a punnet of nectarines, a punnet of plums and all the fruit from here, not to mention the vegetables! I have a few lettuces coming through again and some more strawberries have germinted so hopefully I will manage to get them planted out before I go away again.
Saturday,18th September
The autumn crocuses are coming out again! We've had a few days of rain life is returning to the ground.
Tuesday, 12th October
I was away last week but this time it rained most of the time I was away so my plants survived. It is also much colder, the peppers are growing nicely now, I'm going to have an influx of peppers. I must be sure to pick them before we have a frost. The tomato plants have produced lots of new shoots, leaves and flowers, so I've cut them back. I don't know if the green tomatoes are going to ripen. My courgettes have behaved this time, even the biggest isn't half the size of the courgettes I found when I came back from England in August. I've pulled out one of the plants now so I only have one left, this will allow some space for the last of the spring onions, which were getting flattened. The last sowing of lettuces is now a decent size for eating so, all in all I'm doing quite well.
My orchard had a pile of walnuts in one corner, I was a bit perplexed about this until a neighbour came to explain that these were windfalls, from their tree, that had landed in my plot. They had collected them for me because they weren't sure that I would know that what falls in my plot is mine! I have collected them and put them in a box to dry out in the sun. There are also loads of pears on the ground, these are really big juicey ones from the top of my tree, apparently it has been very windy as well. I have so many pears I don't know what to do with them. I have 3 boxes in the shed and 2 in the house!
The strawberry plants that I planted out before I went away have survived, they are still tiny but 2 look promising, I hope we get some more warm weather before winter sets in.
Monday, 18th October
Managed to get the burning done. Now most of the roots from the bracken have been burnt.
It took 2 hours to get the fire to light yesterday! Then we hit on the idea of using a box under the roots in order to allow the air to circulate, this worked, but by 3 I was fed up so gave up in order to cook lunch! Today I stared with the box and the whole thing worked so well we were finished by 12! Now I know. This must be the most unflattering photo of me I've ver seen!
