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!

The Basque Country

It's pouring with rain as I write this and I've got an apple crumble baking in the oven from the meagre pickings from the orchard. It all seems so autumnal that I fancy a sunny trip down memory lane. This time last year we spent a fabulous 10 days in the Basque country, which straddles the border with France and Spain on the Atlantic coast, all nestled into the lower parts of the Pyrenees mountain range.

I've never really shared these photos apart from a posting here about San Sebastian in Spain as part of a 7 day blog challenge back in March, and one of my French Friday postings about the Villa Arnaga, whose gardens were utterly remarkable. The Basque country is so completely different to where I live in Brittany, with the only similarity being that the native people have their own, totally incomprehensible language! The architecture, the mountainous scenery, the cuisine, are all different, although some of the coastline is as beautiful as Brittany, but in a different kind of way; it's still rocky but there are more cliffs the further one gets into Spain. The climate is wet and mild and all sorts of plants grow outside there which are not remotely hardy up here in the north west of France. All that made me want to move there and I felt quite unsettled when I first came back home, but a quick look at the property prices in that part of France and I soon changed my tune. It's obviously where everyone want to retire to - if you can afford it!

The weather was warm and sunny most of the time we were away, sometimes as warm as 25C, whilst our friends who were housesitting for us suffered cloud and gloom and about 18C - pretty much what today is like, plus rain!

I'm just going to pick out a few random photos and post them here, then give you a link to my Picasa album if you'd like to see any more.

Typical French Basque architecture with Piment d'Espelette decorations.
A chocolate/bonbon shop in St Jean de Luz, France.

Colourful boats in front of Fort Socoa, near St Jean de Luz, France.

A spot where we stopped for a picnic.

The lower foothills of the Pyrenees. Wild horses roam free up on the mountainsides.

More beautiful Basque architecture at La Bastide Clairence, France.

Here we are in Spain, looking at the river which marks the border
between the two countries. The town of Hendaye is on the French side,
and the town of Hondarribia on the Spanish side.

Umm, no thanks!

One of the really wild horses who ambled over to check us out,
on our way inland and uphill to the Foret d'Iraty, France.

This point was about 1,500m high and that was the only ski station that we saw.
Further inland the mountains get much taller.

The higher we went, the more the autumn colours became apparent.
It's so mild, lush and green down near the coast it's like we went from autumn back to summer.

A beautiful house in St Jean Pied de Port, France.

This lane is part of the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela,
or St Jacques de Compostelle as it is known here in France.

Lesaka, up in the mountains and just over the border in Spain,
where the houses had quite an alpine look to them

There are some fabulous forests here!

Espelette, the village where we stayed. The small town is famous for its mild chilli
which is used in place of black pepper as a table condiment, and liberally flavours their cuisine.

The local hotel where we ate a number of times and learned to understand and
pronounce a few Basque words on the menu! 

If you'd really like to see more, I have an album in Picasa all in date order and captioned, which I made for my mum. It's not public but anyone with the link can view it. There are rather a lot of photos in it, although you can view the thumbnails and just pick out a few to look at - if you're bored and it's raining where you are too!

The secret life of a chinese cabbage patch

Since being able to observe the miniature life in my garden with my macro lens; even better now that I have extension tubes which show things up even closer, I'm starting to notice just how many insects there are amongst my plants! One day I had a good look around my chinese cabbage (or chinese leaves as some of you may know them by). I couldn't believe the life that was going on in amongst all the leaves!

Some of these insects are sap suckers, some such as flea beetles munch holes, some are good to have around, and some such as spiders are predators on other insects, such as flies and the really tiny flying insects that I think just settle (and therefore often become prey for the spiders laying in wait). Don't worry, I have not posted any spider photos here even though I found a number of them on the plants. One day I will do a spider posting and those who don't want to see can avoid as I will give you due warning!

Green Leafhopper (Cicadella viridis)

Green Leafhopper (Cicadella viridis)

An unknown Leafhopper

Froghopper - unknown species of superfamily Cercopoidea
The difference between the two is that the Leafhopper has spiny legs.
Froghoppers are the insects whose nymphs are hidden in Cuckoo Spit!

The above are all sap suckers, but in small numbers like this they are not going to make much difference. I've already got holey outside leaves due to slugs which I feed to the chickens, and when the plants are fully hearted up, which they are starting to do, the inner heart is absolutely fine for us to eat.

This is a nymph stage of a Shield Bug who will probably grow up
to become the Cabbage Shield Bug!
Possibly Eurydema sp.

This is an adult form of the Green Shield Bug (Palomena prasina)
I see quite a few of them about the garden, including their nymph stages.

Red Velvet Mite (Trombidiidae)
About 2-3mm long, all over the veg patch at the moment.
These are not related to the red spider mite that you find on houseplants
and are in fact a good creature to have in the garden.

Of course there are flies about!

This one is tiny and rather cute with interesting wing markings

And this one, whose pose I love!

There are still Flea Beetles about, but not in such great number
now so they can do little harm to the plant. This is the kind of
flea beetle that I see with the naked eye -
it's the size of a flea and hops just like one.

I thought this little guy was a real cutie, but guess what it is?
It's another species of Flea Beetle! Still cute though.

There are Plant Bugs from the family Miridae, another sap sucker.

And the occasional Moth having a rest on the leaves. I've no idea what this is,
but it isn't the Cabbage Moth as I checked!

Sometimes interesting solitary predatory wasps come along such as this one,
which is probably the Ichneumon Wasp, Pimpa rufipes.

It was crawling about quite oddly and I thought it may have been injured,
but then it flew off!

Another day I was passing and spotted this fabulous Cricket sitting on the leaves.

And then I discovered this oddity.
I named it the Duck-Billed Platypus Beetle.
Thankfully an entomologist put me right and told me this is in fact
a Dung Beetle of the genus Onthophagus
and very probably Onthophagus vacca

Another view of it

As well as spiders mentioned above, I've also found harvestmen and today my first slug. I'm not taking a photo of that!