Autumn Leaves

Halloween tomorrow and the clocks have returned to Greenwich Mean Time so we got an extra hour in bed. We’ve spent a couple of hours concentrating this afternoon… carving pumpkins is a serious business 🤭

Only one of those is home-grown this year but we have to have one each; one for the plot and one for home. I’ve had a 4-day weekend which has been great. We had a lovely walk at Bowdown Woods in Newbury on Friday. It was warm and sunny. I was hoping to find some fly agarics but they were all past their best, nibbled or booted.

I photographed this little lone mushroom at the allotment. I’m not sure what variety it is, it’s looked like that all weekend. I’ll see if it changes over the next few days, if it isn’t completely eaten.

At the weekend the temperatures reached 21° so we were in tee shirts on the allotment. I wonder if this is weather we’re going to get used to for future years. The weeds are loving it, especially with rainy mornings and sunny afternoons. The garlic has germinated already, in just 4 weeks - that’s fast, I normally find it quite slow to germinate, which is why we’ve ended up with two plantings some previous years!

Jamie sowed the broad beans yesterday. Aquadulce Claudia We don’t want them to grow too quickly this side of Christmas but we wanted to get them sown before the really cold weather arrives… if it does arrive. The little cloches are for mouse protection.

They’re far enough apart so we can put net cloches over once they’ve germinated.

I cleared the raised bed. I’m planning on it being a herb bed from next year. That’s lettuce at the end of the bed. Slugs have avoided it so far - famous last words; they ruined my Chinese cabbage ☹️

Ivan showed me how to trim back the bearded iris where a fungal disease has damaged the leaves. They’re sprouting new plants around the crown. That’s spread a lot since it was planted last year; the corms need 7hours of sunshine a day to be happy and flower.

Talking of Ivan, he gave us some of his dried peppers. They’re not chilli, so I look forward to adding them to some dishes over the next few months. And our peppers in the polytunnel are finally changing colour! They’re yellow at the moment.

This was a meal we had in the week - mostly home-grown (apart from the plant-based steak strips) including some of our Salad Blue potatoes, roughly chopped and roasted.

Have a fun and spooky Halloween, here are a few more pics from our Autumn woodland walk. The song title is provided by the Goo Goo Dolls.