Wordless-ish Wednesday

As I wrote lots in the last post, I'll just finish off the month with a number of photos taken over the last few weeks with just captions and no more blurb!

It's harvest time! Walnuts are dropping and we have quite a few
apples this year, so we've already picked a load of them and they
are a million times better than the rubbish apples sold in the shops!

Thanks to the rain we had some peaches this year -
they are wild and only small with quite tough skin,
but I like these tart white fleshed ones.
Yet they only stay good for about a week, even in the fridge.

The bare earth is where the potatoes were growing but even that is being
rapidly colonised by self seeding flowers - and since I took this photo
a few weeks back it is even more colourful.

Coriander lawn emerging, with a Phacelia lawn by the fence!
I have weeded out dozens of self seeded Borage.

Again the weather has been kind to my spinach which was
about to bolt but cooler damp weather has meant
there is absolutely tons of it to harvest.

A Small Heath butterfly on my Sedum - it's rare that I see these butterflies nectaring.

Plenty of butterflies this month with a Brimstone at the top,
Red Admiral left and Comma right.

I love the wings on these huge Violet Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa violacea).

I'm being kind again - here's another Cross Orb Weaver, this time with some dinner. Just click on the link here.

Smokebush 'Grace' is flowering again
thanks to the rain in August and Sept!

I want to get more Sedums like this 'Autumn Joy' in my
thyme bank next year, along with some more Stipa grasses
as they are all drought proof.

Out of focus, but does anyone know what this is?
It was in a packet of mixed seeds for pollinators, and keeps self seeding.

Greenfinch enjoying the sunflower seeds.

A load of huge fungi seen in a nearby orchard - one was as big as a dinner plate!

A walk we did a while back up high looking down over
the Couesnon valley - not sure what is what down there as
there's a river, a mill race and a trout pond.

The viewpoint was the shrine at the top and
I'm amazed I managed to get up there at all! :-)

To finish, Bertie in some silly and cute poses.

A tummy tickle would be nice.....

.....or maybe I'll just smell the roses Erigeron!

Hope everyone in Europe is enjoying the sun!

Veg patch update - October

This will be the last one of the season, that's for sure! I took these photos on Sunday when it was already rather soggy, but since then we've had an enormous amount of rain and yesterday morning our seasonal stream had started flowing into our lake and by the evening it was a raging torrent! This morning the lake level had filled to about 4" short of the overflow and very soon we will be hearing the sound of running water again as it flows over and feeds the stream which runs beside my orchard.

An overgrown jungle with plenty of flowers in it!

Possibly the only tidy(ish) area with my PSB and Purple Curly Kale.
The peaches this year were not very good and had a lot of rot, so although
I have picked and eaten some the rest the birds can have, which is why I have left
the non rotten ones in piles for them. They're not interested though!

Gardeners' Delight. These large cherry toms are always so loaded
in very long trusses it is impossible to get through them in a short
season without a greenhouse which would need to be heated both
early on and late in the season - which I don't have
and woudn't do anyway - toms are cheaper to buy than electricity!

My chillies are loaded and I've been picking and drying red Cayennes
for a month now. Not quite sure what is happening with the
Piment d'Espelette as I seem to have all shapes of chillies on those plants.
I feel I was sold a duff packet of seeds, and that cost me over €10
so I'm not entirely pleased. They also need to be red/ripe or they are no use.

Chinese Cabbage.
Full of slug holes but hopefully
the hearted bits when ready will be OK!

I do have other veg such as leeks, which are a bit small and pathetic this year and I hope they will swell up now that the soil is moist. There are still beetroot for harvesting, lots of spring onions, a few radishes and loads of rocket. I even have a few small cucumbers left even though the plants are finished. As for the courgettes, I had the grand total of 9 from 2 plants (should be more like 50!). The last two that were forming I waited about 5 days until they were big enough to pick because I wanted to make a last savoury cake, but when I went to harvest them they had pitted marks of rot all over them. Even waiting 5 days for a courgette to get big enough to pick as a smallish courgette is quite ridiculous.

My Sunflowers are a bit of a mess now but the Calendula is
still looking good and colourful, so long as I keep on deadheading!

By one of my gates. There were actually once some veg here -
now it's just a lovely flowering jungle of Nasturtiums (new ones as
the older ones have gone over) and self seeded Verbena b. and Dill.

There are still a few strawberries to harvest -
when I can be bothered!

Still tons of raspberries

I don't really like these orange ones as they lack flavour;
in fact I wasn't aware that I had transplanted one of these plants to my new raspberry bed.
However raspberries spread like crazy so there is no guarantee that what you dig up
will be the plant you thought it was!

Yesterday in the pouring rain I harvested all the remaining tomatoes; the cherry toms are now spread out on my living room floor and the big tomatoes spread out here in my cellar-come-mud room. This also is the sum total of my pumpkin harvest - 3 potimarrons from 2 plants! I shall be making green tomato chutney with some of the big green toms and the cherries should ripen up slowly indoors.

What's left of the tomatoes

Here's a recipe which I first made about 10 years ago and is incredibly tasty. As we've only really got rocket left as a salad green I remembered this recipe of 'Grilled Spanish onion salad with parmesan and rocket' from Delia Smith, who is a very well known English TV cook and cookery book writer. Ignore the salt, she's always heavy handed with it and there is absolutely no need with parmesan which is quite a salty cheese. I also use a frying pan or griddle rather than the grill in the oven.

Rocket, griddled onions and parmesan - delicious!