Fruit frenzy but going quieter on the bug front

It's certainly harvest time and that means time to preserve some of this bounty, especially the fruit. I'm only spending time jamming and chutneying the fruit that needs to be cooked from fresh, so raspberries and blackberries are in the freezer and can be made into jam and jelly respectively later on. Freezer space is at a premium at this time of year so I also had to make some tomato sauce to make a bit of room in my chest freezer. I've still got three huge plastic bags full of frozen tomatoes and loads more ripening, despite the cooler weather.

I'm keeping busy..... the Mixed Fruit Chutney has damsons in it as well as tomatoes,
and the Sweet Aubergine Preserve is a middle eastern recipe and amazingly delicious.

The rain that came over two weeks ago was just in time for the plums; however many of them split open or completely burst because they'd been dry and were then subjected to rather a lot of moisture all at once. Of course that's letting in rot so the greengages are spoiling at a rate of knots, but I managed to make my jam and it's the first time in three years I've had enough fruit for jam from the tree. The purple plums have also started rotting but there's only so much one can eat or preserve anyway, and just when you need some handy neighbours to take some off your hands, they all go away on holiday!

Greengage, known as Reine Claude here in France, and an unknown purple dessert plum.

Autumn fruiting Raspberries 'Zeva' and thornless cultivated Blackberries (with a Dock Bug).

Everyone loves blackberries! Dock Bug (Coreus marginatus) nymph left and (I think)
the Cricket is a male Speckled Bush Cricket (Leptophyes punctatissima).

We usually see juvenile Green Woodpeckers in summer pecking away at the ants' nests in the lawn, and since taking these photos recently I've been seeing and hearing them regularly. They are loud!

A male juvenile Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis).

Male juvenile Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) again looking a bit fluffy.

It was time for my OH to do some varnishing but when he went to unhook the bedroom shutters he found about a dozen bats roosting behind one of them. Some flew off but he had to close the shutter carefully to protect the rest of them, so no varnishing for that shutter that day! Now I missed what came next but I'm kind of glad that I did. As he was varnishing the window frames and the other shutter, a bat came back and started circling around. My OH retreated slightly and started to close the windows so that it could go back behind the shutter, when all of a sudden out of nowhere came a Sparrowhawk who caught and flew off with the poor bat! Oops.

I assume they are Pipistrelles which are common bats but they look bigger in the photo, but I think there were several of them all grouped together here. I couldn't do any better than a silhouette and was trying not to think of the drop as I leant out of the window!

Bats roosting behind the bedroom shutter!

Here are a few tatty creatures seen recently. Summer feels like it's really coming to an end with the cooler, more cloudy weather and there are far fewer butterflies than I'd expect at this time of year. Hopefully it will pick up in September.

I'm not sure what the bee is, possibly a Bombus sylvarum.

Most of the butterflies I'm seeing are Browns or Whites - here's a Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)
 feeding on my Garlic Chives - another odd thing about this year because this plant is usually
covered in bees, flies and some butterflies, but it seems fairly unpopular this year.

And still the only 'Blue' I've seen here in my garden this year - this is a female Holly Blue
(Celastrina argiolus). They don't normally open their wings when resting or feeding,
so I was lucky. Apparently they only do this in weak sunshine.
Weak sunshine is what we are grateful for right now!

Female Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus).

I nearly didn't take a photo of this bug as I thought it was a Sloe/Hairy Shield Bug - luckily I checked because I'm wrong. I then spent half an hour IDing it only to find when I was keywording my photos that I've already seen and logged this species this year - it would have been quicker to do a search for shield bugs in my photo library! Judging by where I live in France, then using this guide I would hazard a guess at Carpocoris purpureipennis, but it's too difficult to say, so let's just say it's one of the Carpocoris species.

Carpocoris sp., an interesting bug with little info about it on the internet.
Obviously it likes running around on hairy arms. :-)

Carpocoris sp. doing the 'biz', seen back in June.

There appears to be an exchange of fluid going on here -
looking at my other photos that droplet disappeared, so I hope it went where intended! ;-)

The eight day weather forecast looks dismal for the next week, although I will appreciate whatever rain we may get today as the garden is already drying out.

I may go quiet for a while and that's because I have a new desktop arriving this week - and not just any old desktop. I'm jumping ship so it's bye-bye Microsoft, and hello to the world of Apple and iMacs, which could be interesting for a few days weeks? until I get used to it! :-) 

Preserving frenzy and veg patch update

In between swanning about playing with butterflies, I've been spending time in the kitchen dealing with monstrous amounts of fruit and veg. No really, actually this year everything has been pretty well under control; I have managed to keep up with nearly all the veggies, and the fruit that can be frozen for later use has been bunged into my freezers until I had the time to do something with it all.

Raspberry jam. It was supposed to be seedless and I spent ages pushing
all the pulp through my mouli thing to get rid of the seeds!
Never mind, it's an acceptable level of pippiness.

The orchard is brimming with fruit and nuts. It's mostly an autumn type of orchard with pears, apples and walnuts planted, as well as wild hazels and elderberries. My two newish plum trees are about as rubbish as the other ones in the main garden though, but I've found over the years that plums and peaches are dodgy fruit to grow and succumb to disease very easily; that's if they ever get pollinated and produce any fruit in the first place. Apples and soft fruit are much easier! This year is probably the best ever for pears though (also a bit hit and miss) so we've been making the most of it!

Three different kinds of pears ripening at different times, thankfully.
On the left are Conference and the other two are unknowns.

Just to give you an idea of what I've been harvesting on a regular basis as far as veggies and soft fruit go..... this photo was taken at the end of August but the French beans have only recently finished, there's little left in the way of lettuce and the cucumbers are history now, but only yesterday I picked a load more strawberries and tomatoes, the courgettes are still producing and there's tons more beetroot. And we are so sick of raspberries because we've been eating them non-stop since mid June!

Note the two greengages!

Elderberries, different apples and Pear Clafouti,
which is one of my favourite desserts.

The next two photos (this is all rather random and in no particular order, date, fruit or anything else-wise) show me having a blitz on every courgette clogging up the fridge by making two savoury courgette cakes (recipe here from last year), a vat of courgette, basil and parmesan soup, with blackberries dripping through muslin in the background to make bramble jelly. 

The pic below that is yet more courgettes in a sort-of-ratatouille using the tomato sauce which I've already bottled, cooking down loads of frozen tomatoes to make said tomato sauce (method here from ages ago) and a spicy mixed fruit chutney which I usually add damsons to but this year just used tomatoes and apples. The recipe for the chutney is here but this time I used 2kg of tomatoes instead of 1.5kg damsons and 500g tomatoes - it's fairly easy and safe to adapt different kinds of fresh or dried fruits in a chutney recipe, so long as you keep to the same quantities.

I will get through these courgettes if it kills me!

Ditto the tomatoes!!

I have to mention something regarding the photo below of beetroot and apple relish from a recipe never tried before and elderberry syrup. I spent hours picking the elderberries off the stalks and my hands turned black. I duly made the syrup, the recipe for which I'd got from the great Greenside Up blog (later to find I already had that cookery book here!). So, bottled up the relish and left the syrup to cool because I was going to freeze it, then went off to do other things. 

A little while later a very sheepish husband came to find me and said "oops". He'd only gone and thought my syrup was the beetroot boiling water and tipped it all down the sink! And if that wasn't funny enough, I had to remind him that actually, I had boiled the beetroot the day before, and he had already washed up that pan! I guess I should just be grateful that I have a hubby who clears up my mess and regularly washes up my preserving pans..... but oh, I've just remembered, there was also the time he chucked my Tom Yum Goong (Thai hot and sour prawn soup) down the sink because it looked like 'dirty dish water' in the pan.... hmmmm. :-)

Beetroot Relish and Elderberry Syrup.

Back in the veggie patch for a few more pics. There's still plenty to eat and loads of colour from my various strips of flowers for pollinators or butterflies. I'll do a report on my Pollinator Meadow Year 2 at some point, because it's been a huge success both visually and for the bugs.

Various veggies with various flowers in the background.

I found a third, much larger Swallowtail caterpillar which I put on the same plant as the other two. Since then the smallest has disappeared and the middle sized one is the same size as the big one now, and they have chomped through most of a plant and I've moved them to another one. They have a tendency to just sit on a stem which they've eaten all the leaves off. Maybe I should leave them to it but I like to mollycoddle my 'babies'!

Swallowtail caterpillar, tomatoes, a strawberry and a late squash which I don't know if
it'll have time to ripen (I've already picked the two that had turned orange).

Physalis, a fruit I have never grown before. The jury is out really as I've
only eaten a few and I'm not sure this is something I would regularly grow.

I've decided to take out the peach tree that grows in the veg patch. I've kept that one because peaches need so much water that it has to be irrigated with a seep hose, and whilst it's got a bit too big despite pruning, it does provide some much needed shade for lettuce in summer. But two years in a row and no fruit at all due to brown rot setting in (which affects our plums some years too), and all the fruit has scab anyway. I already buy peaches and nectarines all through the summer season and if mine were good, they'd all come at once in a big glut at the end of September and I can't freeze them, and they are no good for bottling due to the scab. And the biggest problem with brown rot is that you don't know you've got it until the fruit is almost ripe.... so you can spend all summer nurturing and watering your fruit, and then the whole crop is lost, just like that. It's just not worth it.

Brown Rot or Monilinia on a peach. Not pretty.
The black freckles are scab.

Not my hairy arm.
This tatty old Peacock really did just land on my OH's arm
whilst we were standing in the veg patch!

You may have to look hard, but you never know
who is sheltering under your cherry tomatoes!

"Holy Cow Bertie, what on earth is THAT?!"

We had a good amount of rain yesterday and the weather forecast shows mostly sunny and still very mild for the next week, and my tomatoes continue to ripen. If only autumn was always like this!

Veg patch update - July

I've been taking photos for weeks meaning to do an update, then after a few days it's all gone and changed again! In the last few weeks everything has grown really fast due to so much sun and warm to hot weather. Of course that has meant copious watering, even at times getting the hose pipe in there. Once I gave up and put the sprinkler on to try to give my maincrop potatoes and red onions a good watering, as a watering can is quite futile for things like this (unless you do it all day long). But using mains water is costly, so whilst we long for sunny days we also need rain!

So now I am harvesting all sorts of lovely summer veg but I'll show some of the photos from several weeks back anyway.

6th July and I only show this photo because I actually captured a Swallow swooping over
the veg patch - sometimes they land in it and take soil or just perch on the tomato posts.
But have I been able to capture this? No, of course not!!

13th July and looking nice and moist after the sprinkler had been on!
The shallots have been lifted now and left to dry in the barn.
My wildflower meadow is in the background.

My rusty garlic has been lifted and left to dry in the barn; we are already eating it.
The spring onions (left) are huge now and the leeks (right) are desperate
to be planted out, but have to wait until the onions come out,
as they need that space!

That nice feeling after you've dug up a load of spuds!

Oh no, not more courgettes.... a week later and it's glut time again!

16th July when the harvest was still quite meagre.
First tomato, 2nd cucumber and something like courgettes nos. 5 and 6.
Since then there's been nothing meagre about the harvests
and my fridges are bursting with cucumbers and courgettes which we can't eat fast enough!

I am still picking tons of raspberries, although I have had to put the seep hoses
on regularly on my two raspberry patches as they are very thirsty plants.
We even got a few cherries that the birds left for us.

This is a Physalis (Cape Gooseberry) flower - first time I'm growing them.
They are already forming their 'lanterns'!

18th July and planting out my French beans -
the soil was getting seriously dry.
I dug down about 6 inches into pure dust.

And then it rained! Hoorah, hours and hours of thunderstorms last Sunday; the temperature dropped a whole 10C which was a blessed relief and it rained and rained, totalling 28mm which is a little over an inch. Most of the water butts were full and the garden and I sighed in relief. Of course it was short lived because the temps are back up to about 29C again and the plants have sucked that moisture up like you wouldn't believe, and I have just started watering the veggies again, but having 3 nights off from the watering was like the best present ever.

After the rain and my bought squash plant 'Courge Musquée de Provence' is going crazy
in all directions. Usually I train smaller squash up through the fence wire a bit but
I have never grown this variety before and have discovered that the fruit grow to 6-9kg!

Another view of this plot which has tomatoes, courgettes and two kinds of squash.
The straw mulch is more for keeping the tomatoes off the soil than keeping moisture in.
We've eaten 4 tomatoes so far, medium sized ones called 'Fournaise' which are
my favourite all rounders. I've tried all sorts and been disappointed with many.

The 3 cucumbers are producing too well now but the lettuce
in the background is starting to bolt.

I also have 3 cherry tomato plants in pots at the front of the house which are
doing really well and the first fruits are just changing colour.

We're also eating blueberries from my one plant which is in a pot.

Finally, did you think I could post anything without a bug?! I just noticed this tiny Cinnabar Moth caterpillar last night, on a groundsel 'weed', near my currant bushes in the veg patch. Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)* really is an annoying weed as it has fluffy seed heads that disperse seeds like dandelions, but the Cinnabar Moth larvae eat this, although their primary food plant is Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris/Senecio jacobaea). So I always leave a few of these weeds here and there and check them for the caterpillars before I weed any out. The moth is a daytime flying one and very beautiful; I've only seen a few this year but I finally managed to capture one at long last, sitting on a strawberry plant!

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar on Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)

Cinnabar Moth (Tyria jacobaeae) on a strawberry leaf

* Note about Groundsel from Wikipedia, and I have read this before elsewhere. I've not had a problem myself, but I wouldn't purposefully leave it growing right next to crops because of it:

"Groundsel acts as a host for the fungus that causes black root rot in peas, alfalfa, soybeans, tomatoes, red clover, peanuts, cucurbits, cotton, citrus, chickpeas and several ornamental flowering plants...."

Weeds! (a veg patch update)

I knew I'd come home to weeds but was surprised, given that there was only one night of rain totalling 6mm whilst we were away, that everything had grown so much and that all the seeds that I'd sown had germinated. Since coming back there has been far more rain which is a good thing for the garden. I do have so far, potatoes (three varieties), parsnips, shallots, onions, leek and spring onion seedlings and two sowings of various varieties of lettuce.

Somewhere in here are parsnips, shallots and onions!

The after shot after much hand weeding

Many of my weeds are edible: in this mess are magenta orach which is edible, borage, dill, a potato (they haven't been grown in this plot for 4 years so how one still got through I don't know!) and a 'Red Salad Bowl' lettuce....

Can you spot the rogue potato and the self-seeded lettuce?

I found another self seeded lettuce beside my onions
so I had to remove some leaves as the poor onion is a bit stunted!

I have about 5 varieties of lettuce coming up
which we are eating the thinnings of along with the orach

Finally got to weeding my five strawberry beds! Had started spreading straw around and thought there was no rush until I noticed a few already starting to turn red, so fast work has been done over the last two days to get the rest of the straw down and netting over before the birds start helping themselves. I ate that strawberry yesterday and delicious it was too. Actually I ate half, and I'm so nice I gave the other half to my OH. Is that love or what? :-)

Several pollinators doing their job although I'm not sure
if the micromoth was pollinating or just sitting there!

Spuds. The before and after, all nicely hoed and earthed up now.
Just need to watch out for blight and colorado beetle.

Year 2 of my original Wildflowers for Pollinators Meadow. There was one plant which dominated which has grown enormous and burst into flower whilst I was away. I didn't know the plant but was pretty sure it was part of the Brassica family and after a bit of a google managed to ID it as Hesperis matronalis, very pretty and slightly scented, and a hit with the butterflies as well as some bees. There is also Phacelia flowering here now which self seeded from last year's plants during the mild winter and is much loved by the bumble bees.

Butterflies enjoying the Hesperis matronalis - left an Orange Tip
and right I think it's a male Small White but the markings are
not as apparent as normal.

All sorts of bumble bees and solitary bees are enjoying
the flowers on the purple curly kale, which I always leave
to flower especially for them.

Due to a reasonably mild winter some borage and calendula managed to survive so I'm very pleased that they are already flowering. The larger green plant is a flat leafed parsley (I have two here) which I'm leaving to go to seed as I hope the pollinators will enjoy the flowers. Lilac flowering in the background and as usual my ugly propane tank gets in the picture!

The unweedy patch is where I sowed annual seeds for pollinators
which I collected from last year's wildflowers for pollinators meadow.
My pegs indicate where I sowed diagonal lines so I can find the actual
seeds and hoe off the weeds in between!
The rest of the green stuff is just weeds which need hoeing.

Blackcurrants loaded with flowers and fruit as usual.
Currants are a very reliable fruit crop!

Raspberries are flowering away and the thornless cultivated blackberries are looking good but as for the poor young gooseberries, although I checked them a few days ago and they seemed fine, yesterday I found them already with a number of leaves munched by Gooseberry Sawfly larvae which have been squished, so I'll have to be very vigilant!

Overall I'm pleased with my progress in tidying up as I've been working at half my normal energy levels due to having a cold; however one thing I've found is that I feel so much better being out in the fresh air than indoors!

I have now to get to a garden centre to buy my tomatoes and some other veg which is a bit late to start sowing now, such as French haricot beans, courgettes, cucumber and squash/pumpkins, not to mention the bog standard ivy leafed geraniums for my tubs and planters. Just hope there are some left which are not dried out leggy specimens.... but really it's just been too cold here to put those tender plants out anyway, so wasn't worth rushing to get any. With going away when we did, I felt the easiest way was to cheat and buy ready grown young plants. That's also why I have no peas or broad beans this year and even more space being used for wildflower meadows. But they keep me amused and my pollinating friends will be happy!