Kitchen Garden Forum

Late Autumn Bits and Bobs, although you wouldn't think so, looking at the trees, as I think 80% of them must still be carrying there leaves at the momment. How I wish the weather would brighten a little and a few hard frost wouldn't go a miss either...could get everything cut back in the borders and put to bed for the Winter, then.

As you probably can all guess, i'm not a lover of these dark, dank days....

I think pretty much all of us are similarly affected by grey damp skies OH. It takes a real psychological effort to get through winter, and some sunshine, even if it's cold, makes such a difference. I really wonder how populations cope up in the deep northern hemisphere when they only get a couple of hours of winter daylight. No wonder alcohol consumption is so prolific!.

The trees round here still have plenty of leaves - the sweeping up operation gets later every year. I can't help judging the progress of climate change by the number of leaves remaining on the trees surrounding our war memorial during the two minutes silence on Remembrance Sunday. When we first moved here 40 years ago I would look around and all the trees were already bare. Now, in this comparatively short space of time in geological terms, many of the trees still have a lot of their leaves on.

Most of trees around here are well into their seasonal molt we have leaves allover the paths and lawns

It's already winter here in Ukraine. The few plants I had outside are already indoors. We had snow last week. Not a lot and nothing that stayed on the ground, but it was snow nonetheless and there's been frost too.

Oh well, every cloud has a silver lining, the balcony that was my outdoor garden in the summer has now become my outdoor walk-in fridge/freezer.

That said, the weather next week is predicted to be back up in the high teens (centigrade). It's as though it can't make up its mind what it's doing.

Dear Primrose, are you sugestting you and I turn to the bottle...

Just been over to the allotment and picked some Runner beans, the last few Tomatoes and pulled some rather wonderful Autumn King Carrots...the carrots were from a very late sowing in August and have done really well.

I am probably quite perverse, but I actually like this time of the year (sorry, Primrose and OH). Autumn has always been my favourite time of the year...... as a child, probably because my birthday is in autumn and now, because I can devote my time to indoor crafts and reading without feeling guilty that I should be working in the garden. And it's only another two months before the days get longer again!

Yesterdays big blow managed to dislodge most of the leaves, & several branches on the trees around here. Lottie was covered in leaves & the odd waterbutt lid from somewhere! Managed to right the few things that had a decided lean on them & unravel the membrane path from the netted beds which it had taken out on it's travels. The gusts must have been a hell of a lot more down there than home though as my garlic cloves were blown out of the ground most just held in by their roots but a few completely out of the ground.

You must have had it bad, Westi. I hope you get straightened out again quickly and the wind has abated.

I think we were in the eye of the storm because our barometer was at an extremely low level (968mb) and there has been virtually no wind at all the last three days.

When I was up at the allotment yesterday there were leaves everywhere. I'll need to spend several hours there this week.

Monika wrote:. And it's only another two months before the days get longer again!

Thank you for this positive thought Monika. I think we all need to hang onto this when we're closing the curtains at 4 p.m. !!

I must have been an animal in a previous life. It always seems to me to be quite a logical and natural thing to want to do to head for bed as soon as it gets dark !!

Today I cleaned out the shed! Would have looked weird to a non grower dragging boxes out with a rake but there are some pretty big spiders putting the 'Home Sweet Home' sign out! It took ages both in the squealing & running lark, but the amount of "I'll keep it, might be useful" stuff challenged me to as what I actually thought I could do with it? I was ruthless, but now just have to figure how I get these bags to the dump on the bus!

HA! that made me laugh, because we did ours in April, and used the same technique! My husband dragged the stuff out, mainly without the rake, but my inspection of each bundle was done at rake's length! Lots of rat damage and waste as well as Boris and his friends.

Strange light in the sky today after all the gloom and wet so got the camera out.

Autumn has properly come to the valley, my Noble Fir has a good crop of cones this year and the greenhouse chrysants aren't for show but will give us some fine cut flowers.

Very nice flowers Geoff ,after all the rain in the last few days I've got the plans out for the ark

very nice photos Geoff, my mother sent me a similar pic of their valley in the Vale of Marshwood, beautiful golds and oranges.