The Last Days of Autumn

It is hard to believe that the year has finished, Christmas is becoming a distant memory and we are already at the start of 2019. We have been so busy that 2018 year appears to have disappeared in a haze. Sadly during October my Aunt died and therefore much of the month was dedicated to her funeral and looking after my Uncle. In between trips away there were a few things going on around the smallholding so here's a quick catch up on October and November, the final flurries of Autumn.

At the start of the October the peppers plants were all beginning to look like they were approaching the end of productivity. I decided to take all the fruits off before we lost them to frost and mould. We now have a huge bag of chopped peppers in the freezer which we can use during the winter to add to stews, bolognaise etc.

 

 A couple of years ago we hired a wood chipper to get rid of a lot of the sticks around the woods and at the same time create some paths. Four days of wood chipping nearly did us in so, we saved our pennies and this year we bought our own. The wood chipper runs off the tractor and the main benefit is the ability to do short stints at a time depending on the weather. We tried to complete some of the paths but they look a little like zebra crossings so there is definitely more work to do there.

The 'White' garden also got the chipper treatment and looked wonderful, even on the first day when the path was only just emerging.

By the end of the next day the path through the 'White' garden was almost finished and seemed to set the whole area off really well.

I always get a bit fed up with the tomato plants at the end of the season and they look so straggly and messy. It's around this time that I remove all the fruit, whether they are ripe or not and remove all the plants.

With all these tomatoes it was time to get the chutney on, a tomato chutney and a green tomato chutney. Unfortunately when the second lot was nearing completion we sat down to eat and it caught the bottom of the pan. The chutney tastes fine but I'm not sure my gorgeous jam pan will ever quite be the same again. I've tried to clean with a combination of heat, water, white vinegar and a lot of elbow grease. It's almost clean but it's in the naughty corner until I can face it again in the new year.

The latest Clematis in the 'White' garden decided to show us that it should be there and we had one very large bloom.

This was Actaea, we bought a couple to put in the 'White' garden. Although the foliage has a chocolate brown tinge, the flowers are beautiful spikes of tiny white flowers.

The weather during October wasn't too bad although I always find the early afternoons are depressing as we approach winter.

This was a lovely little Rudbeckia which mum gave me. There were lots of little plants in the pot so we planted one in the woods. This was it merrily flowering away, the day before the deer found it!!

Sometimes when the nights begin draw in there is nothing better than cuddling down in front of the toasty fire.

We had quite a lot of geraniums in the garden so thought we may be able to pot them up, pop them in the greenhouse and see if we could save them over the winter. I also managed to sow some seeds, Nigella, Cornflower, Calendula, Cowslip, Ragged Robin and Red Campion.

All the dahlias were brought in for the winter, along with the lavender and on the right hand side are some cuttings I took from my Aunt's garden.

On the deer war front again we bought some larger and sturdier tree protection for the orchard. The fruit trees were quite badly damaged in the summer so we're hoping that this may give them a chance next year.

The orchard looked quite tidy with the new mulch mats and tree protectors on. Fingers crossed for a bumper harvest next year.

M cut and stacked some logs from our woods, they'll be ready for use next year once they have dried out.

I also got out and about, collecting, breaking and stacking sticks for kindling. You might be able to guess, but M stacked the ones on the left and mine are on the right 😂

At the beginning of October M suggested another spot of strimming. It had been so mild that the weeds and grass were still growing so I'm glad we made the effort.

I managed to complete the 'White' garden in one day which gave me room to plant out some of the Delphiniums and Foxgloves I had grown from seeds. I was hoping they would get some roots out before the temperatures dropped too much.

Easter Holidays

Easter holidays are normally a time for us to relax around the house and garden, a time for reflection and recharging. Not this year! We had a big job to tackle but I'm hoping that this is not going to become an annual activity.

The woods had become covered with fallen branches and twigs and although we collected a lot last year for fire wood there was too much for us to use. So, after a little searching, we hired a wood chipper in the hope that we could have a mass tidy up. We found a wonderful local hire store who let us have the chipper for an extra few days over the Easter weekend for free. A few days before the chipper arrived we started to gather the sticks and branches into piles, hoping this would speed things along.

There have been lots of little seedlings appearing around the woods and we thought we'd try to rescue some before we started trampling all over them. Having no idea what they are it could be interesting to see what they grow into, M was joking that they are probably weeds we have just rescued.

And so it began, I was amazed by the speed we were able to work through the piles of wood, the chipper could take up to 7mm diameter sticks so pretty much everything we had went in. The time consuming part was raking up the little twigs and getting them lifted up without spilling everywhere.

After 2 days work we had completed the smallest area and were pretty pleased with the results. Unfortunately the chipper was really noisy so Jess and Finn had to spend the majority of the time inside but obviously came out to check our progress. Although the little piles of wood chip seem disappointingly small given how much wood we gathered, we're hoping all the seedlings and bluebells will now be able to get some light to grow up big and strong.

I'm not sure if we had underestimated the magnitude of the task but on we pushed, literally dragging the chipper through to the next bit of the woods. M was in charge of operating the chipper and I made piles and piles of wood. Our Fitbits were definitely working overtime as we walked an average of about 12km each day.

By the time we got Easter Saturday (day 5) it was clear that we would not be able to drag the chipper any further into the woods. Thankfully we were able to use the quad and trailer to move the wood bundles out to the chipper at the edge of the trees.

This is just one of many many trailer loads. Again, I was in charge of collecting and M was driving the quad and master machine operator.

Slowly the wood chippings started to grow and we could see a little bit of progress. The sun is shining here and after a couple of days we were starting to get a bit of a suntan, if not windburn, but only from the neck up.

This has got to be one of the worst photos of me ever, pretty much done in at the end of day 3 (only half way through) then. Each day we were completely exhausted, I remember how sore my feet were when I removed my boots and put on my supposedly soft slippers and tried to walk into the kitchen - ouch! It sounds like such a simple job of wondering around picking up sticks and putting them together to get collected in the trailer. But then you realised that you are bending over every other step and because of the long unwieldy shapes you can only carry a few at a time, negotiating the trees to get to the piles. Anyway, we're not complaining, it was physically tiring but very satisfying work. Thankfully Easter Sunday arrived at just the right time for us to take a day off.

Easter Monday was the last day we had set aside for chipping as the chipper needed to be cleaned before collection on the Tuesday. We didn't quite manage to clear the whole lot but concentrated on the biggest branches, leaving some sticks for the wildlife and hedgehogs and some for collection next year for firewood.

Not a bad few days work. An added bonus has been that all this exercise has completely cured my 2 frozen shoulders which have been causing me a lot of pain for about 8 months. We're hoping for a rest now but the days are getting longer, weather is slowly improving, the seedlings are growing and there is just so much to get on with. Where ever you are I hope you all had a lovely and hopefully relaxing Easter break.