Now we're in September, there's a real chill in the air at night, and the sky is overcast with rain most days. Definitely starting to feel autumnal already, although we might still get a few sunny days before winter closes in.
The growing season is almost over, but I have to say it's been one of the best I've ever known. A combination of great weather and quite a bit of planning at the start of the year meant that we had literally tons of produce from a relatively small garden.
Some plants are still going, like the bean vine in the photo above, and several tomatoes in grow-bags. We'll need to move those into the greenhouse shortly if the tomatoes on them are to get to the point where they can ripen after being picked.
But as you can see, we've already had quite a lot of beans. And yes, some of them are mottled black and green, it's just what that variety looks like.
We've also had quite a lot of pears. Quite a few were wasted when stormy winds blew them off the tree - half got damaged and rotted on the ground, the other half were taken away by foxes. I'm fine with that, foxes are a bit of a pest now they've all moved from the countryside into towns, but they help to keep slugs and snails under control, and they are beautiful and intelligent animals, so it's not all bad.
The pears below are ripening on the windowsill, and in a day or two will be turned into puree to last the winter (although a few already turned into pear crumble...).
The windy weather did present us with one surprise. Is this a hazelnut, or a walnut ? Actually, it was a hazelnut that was blown out of the tree and somehow landed perfectly balanced on the walnut tree !
I've picked up an absolutely silly number of hazelnuts this year. The bucket below is about half of them, just picked up from the patio and small patch of lawn outside my office. There are probably five times as many in a carpet under the tree, which I'll pick up once some of the undergrowth has died back a bit. If I don't, I'll have a forest of saplings in the spring !
We've also planted our first few tomato plants for next year. They've made seedlings, and will be coming in to live on a windowsill over the winter. They're a very early variety, so we'll be able to plant them out in posts as soon as the frosts have gone.
Overall, I'd say this year was one of experimentation, learning what works in our soil and climate. Definitely a success which we can build on next year to become even more productive !
I did have one surprise while I was rooting around picking up hazelnuts. Hiding in the undergrowth was a wasp nest. As you can see from the photo below, it was remarkably well camouflaged. I guess it must have been there all summer, and thank goodness appears to be dormant now. Although I'm not a huge fan of wasps, they have their part to play in the ecosystem. The nest appeared to be dormant with just a couple of wasps on guard, so I backed carefully away and left them to it....
All photos by me