Golden Brown

What a lovely Autumn weekend we had. It was a bit fresh, but very pleasant in the sunshine.

Saturday was a quick visit to pick some veg. Mainly for soup - I have some chestnuts left over after making the most delicious chestnut and pumpkin stew last week..

Onions/shallots are being steadily eaten, they're surviving pretty well in their netting suspended from the greenhouse roof - some are attempting to re-grow as it's been warm. The beetroot and small carrot were grated for a salad - though the purple radish had been nibbled by something, I only needed a few bits (luckily). The HoneyBoat squash will be stuffed for a meal during the week.

A beautiful calendula which has survived the cold weather and the hot sun has drawn it back into flower. So pretty. But the cold weather coming up will probably stop them in their tracks. Unlike the Californian poppies which seem to be indestructible and have almost covered the plot where we had our sweetcorn. Oh well, they are beautiful and if they pop up between some veg I won't be too upset.

There is still more to harvest - the kohl rabi have recovered after the pigeons pecked most of the leaves - they have more growing to do before we will pick them and there are nice florets on the purple sprouting broccoli, although there are a lot of whitefly. We need a harsh frost to kill them off I think!

Something large has visited our garlic bed, but no sign of garlic appearing yet - I think this is probably a cat, I'm pleased it didn't leave a 'gift' behind :-}

I'm at work, eating my delicious chunky carrot and chestnut soup while there's a very cold wind and rain hitting the window - but I don't mind too much as Jamie and I are going to Oxford this week for a bit of Christmas shopping - I'm feeling quite Christmassy already after seeing the Newbury lights at the weekend.

And, I can't believe I haven't already used this Stranglers song on my blog - this was the second single I bought, such a great song. Enjoy.