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.

Autumn In The Air

We are now in the middle of November and I am well behind in my blogging, in fact I still need to revisit everything we achieved in September and October. One month at a time, here goes with September albeit a brief roundup!!

The month started with some more bulb planting. We were slightly disappointed with the number of daffodils in daffodil walk so we bought a big bag of mixed narcissi and daffodils.

The bulbs were planted between the line of shrubs which are now sporting their new anti-deer defences!

The tomatoes kept coming so of course there was plenty more soup and passata made for the freezer.

I couldn't believe the carrots we harvested this year, they were so tasty. We sowed 3 different types and they all grew extremely well although I think the best tasting ones were the purple carrots.

Most of the carrots were lovely straight specimens but we did find a couple of wonderful wacky shaped ones.

They were purple on the outside but inside they looked orange with really interesting pattern.

Our Camellias didn't have the best start in life as they were planted just before the hot dry weather set in from May. One of them was also munched by deer or rabbit but this little beauty seemed to have survived and even had new glossy leaves. It was too late for flowers this year but you never know we might possibly be treated to some blooms next year.

 

Mum gave us a pot of Rudbeckia which also had a little ground cover plant (name unknown). We planted them in the woods and eventually there were flowers and buds to be seen. We were not sure if they would be deer resistant but decided to give them a go.

Strangely we had a late bloom on one of our latest little white Rhododendron, there were plenty of buds which didn't open so hopefully it won't affect the flowering next summer.

Our Passion Flower plant had been residing in the greenhouse for ages but M found the perfect place for it near the orchard where it could climb happily over the fence. What a delight we had when the flowers appeared, they are amazingly intricate and so beautiful.

We didn't have much of a harvest from our fledgling orchard but we managed a few lovely plums from the Victoria Plum tree.

There's something wonderful about fresh veg from the garden and despite our meagre broccoli harvest we had a gorgeous meal, along with our sausages it was all home grown.

When you get invited out for dinner it's customary to take a gift and, trying not to conform to the tradition of chocolates or wine, we took a variety of home grown and home made produce (M made some incredible crab apple jelly). It definitely makes for a good talking point!

I had another trip away to visit my aunt with mum but when I was back on the smallholding we had plenty to do. The continuing good weather had encouraged the weeds to keep growing so out came the strimmer in a bid to give our bulbs and plants a chance to grow in the spring.

It took a while but was definitely worthwhile as the 'white' garden was looking great, all neat and tidy.

 

I was completely amazed that our jalapenos were still producing chillies and rather than let them go to waste I made another batch of poppers destined for the freezer.

We had Storm Ali visit us nearing the end of the month and although we survived pretty well we did lose a couple of trees along with a few big branches.

M did a marvellous job with the chainsaw and filled up one of the byre bays where the wood could season before being used in the wood burner next year.

 

It looked like Storm Ali didn't like our sweetcorn or beans and knocked them all over. It was shame as this was the best sweetcorn we've had since moving here. Well that was the kick we needed to clear up the last of the veg bed.

By the end of the month it was clear that summer was now behind us, a distant memory. With autumn well under way the shorter days and cooler nights were starting to turn the leaves a rich mix of red, yellow and brown. A beautiful end to an amazing summer.

Phew!!!

And Breathe

Well, it took a while but I got there in the end and managed to complete a round up of our first year on our smallholding. If you read it all then congratulations that you made it through; hopefully you got a sense of what we are up to, our challenges and how we are getting along.

It's been quite intriguing to look back at what we have been doing, what we achieved and how the landscape has changed in a short 12 months. I love the picture above as it captures so much of what we have been doing; from the orchard and hedging to the veg patch and the pig ark, it's all here.

I didn't even get around to mentioning the wonderful wildlife we have here, the deer we see in our field and woods, the heron, frogs and ducks in the midden, our resident barn owls and the local bats. We have been mesmerised by the variety of birds and since my recognition skills are so poor we just had to get a book of British birds. It is a shame they don't stay still long enough to give me a chance to find them in the book. At least we could identify robins, sparrows, crows, magpies, buzzards, kestrels, willow warblers and I think curlews. Unfortunately we never seem to have a camera when it's needed.

We had numerous house martins nesting around the barn and at the side of the house and had to rescue a few of the babies who weren't quite ready to fly. The most exciting moment was watching a fledgling learning to fly, it was running down the yard flapping until eventually it flew.

There was a commotion one day with some wrens making a lot of noise and then we realised that a chick had got it's leg caught in some twine used for it's nest and was hanging upside down. The mum and dad couldn't get it free and then it fell quite a distance and bounced off some old crates. Thankfully we were able to rescue it and put it back in the nest, after M had remove the dangerous plastic twine.

 

In an effort to combat the intrusive weeds and generally tidy up the veg patch M built wooden edging around the whole area. it definitely neatens up the whole place and will hopefully make it more manageable next year.

One unexpected and unwanted surprise was the discovery of this little family in the barn, yes, they are baby rats. It probably explained the ripped pig food bag but M took these off to the far side of the field and put preventative measures in place to deal with the parents. The pig food is now secure and will hopefully be eaten just by the pigs now.

Talking of pigs, they are growing really big now and are still as entertaining as ever. They are loving the apples and rooting around their large enclosure. We have learnt that they are very quick to notice when the battery is flat on the electric fence and will then try to disconnect the whole thing. Hopefully this is one mistake we only make once.

 

I love this time of year, the change in colours can be so dramatic and the gorgeous deep red of the blueberries is heart warming.

As the leaves turn and fall we are able to roam more freely in the woods again although it does mean there are lots of jobs to do before the onset of winter. Thankfully M is a dab hand with the mower, strimmer and brush cutter!!! We also coppiced a lot of willow, clearing out as much dead wood as possible. It's a pretty big job which we have yet to complete as there's nearly as much willow as ash around our woods.

Although it's been a mild autumn we have had a few wet and windy days which call for indoor activities and so emerged another bench made by M. Unfortunately we didn't have any paint left over and so we had to buy some more, this was half price for some reason!! It wasn't until a few weeks later that we realised how bright it really was as we could see it from the road, 3 fields away.

 

Another great thing about this time of the year is the end of the main harvesting and preserving of vegetables, which in our case meant the last carrots, peppers and Jalapenos. We are fortunate to have an old, highly productive apple tree and some autumn raspberries and in a last ditch attempt to use them all I embarked on another batch of apple and raspberry/blackcurrant crumbles. We also had some bananas well past their best so I made a couple of small banana loaves with the aim of freezing one but they didn't last the weekend - too tasty.

This is the very last picture of the kitchen, I promise, but I had to include a little photo of the final touch, our blinds arrived and for once we didn't pick plain neutral colours. I just love them.

I often think autumn can be as busy as spring in the garden as plants are lifted, divided and potted up before the cold weather, tender plants are brought into the greenhouse, pots are replanted with autumnal colours and bulb planting beings in earnest. Having removed all the dead lobelia and marigolds from the hanging baskets we managed to give them a lift with some ivy and winter pansies which I hope will start to flower soon. We were pretty disappointed with the lack of bulbs/flowers around the woods last year and so set about planting lots of daffodils, tulips, ferns and primulas in areas where we will get the benefit of their colours. I can hardly wait until Spring.

One last job for M was a second coat of black paint on the yard gates which look great and match the house now. We were thrilled when a car stopped one day and a chap (with 4 children) got out to chat about the history of the farmhouse where he spent the majority of his childhood when his grandparents owned it. He was a lovely man and the memories he had were fascinating. We are still so delighted to be here and hearing his stories brought the farm of old to life for us.