Back again!

I cannot believe it is the best part of a year since my last blog post, where does the time go to? I am determined to start making regular posts again so I really would appreciate anybody who is reading this to comment which we give me that much more incentive 👍

This year has been the best ever in the garden in terms of produce, we have had a huge amount of beans, both runner and french beans and some superb potatoes, I have enough potatoes put away to last us all year. Unfortunately we had a very late and very hard frost one night that killed off all of the blossom on the apple trees with the result that we haven't got a single apple this year!

This is our pumpkin patch on our "Back to Eden" garden, a record amount of pumpkins this year, 30+ the biggest must be getting on for a 100 lbs in weight already!
Now that we are getting into Autumn I have an annual job in cutting back the vegetation on the bank on our driveway to the house, it must be nearly a 100 yards long so takes me quite a while and maybe up to 25 full wheelbarrow loads of grass/saplings/brambles/ferns etc

Some of the saplings growing out of the oak trees that have been cut down in the past have grown 4 feet since I cut them back last year, as you can see from the ladder propped against the bank it is quite high.

Well that's it for this update but hopefully not long before the next so please comment if you would to give me some encouragement.

Autumn is well and truly here

We have just been away on holiday for 18 days and the difference in the garden is amazing! The very last thing I did before leaving was to cut all the grass and pick up all the leaves that had fallen, take a look at it now.

There was hardly an inch of the ( large ) front lawn that wasn't totally covered in a thick blanket o leaves, up to now I have shifted around 20 wheelbarrow loads with the same amount yet to pick up.
Of course the upside to it is that I have a huge amount o beautiful leaf mulch for the fruit garden, I am putting it in a thick layer all around the blackcurrant and raspberry bushes.

At the back of the house there are even more leaves from our huge chestnut tree, in some places it is over 6 inches thick, all of this will be going on top of my "Back to Eden" garden.

Autumn

We have had some lovely weather here over the last few Summer Months but bang on time Autumn has arrived. Mornings and Evenings are definitely cooler and it won't be long before the wood burner is put on again.

The biggest indication for me is the leaves starting to fall. We have a couple of huge Acer trees in our front garden and a lovely line of Lime trees down the side of the drive, however the downside is the amount of leaves that come off of them all of which I shall need to rake and clear over the next couple of Months.

As you can see from the photo above they have only just started falling but even the few seen here on the driveway and under the Lime trees resulted in two full barrow loads of leaves, I estimate by the time they are all down I will have collected between 100-200 barrow loads.

At least it will all help for compost for the ground which we need!

Autumn

I've just had a very rewarding couple of afternoons down in the bit of woodland leading to our stream. There were a couple of large trees, probably Oaks, that had probably fallen down several years ago. You could see where the whole roots had pulled up from the ground but over the years the tree had been covered with a layer of thick moss and Ivy.

So I have been down with my chainsaw and have made a start cutting them into logs, not the easiest of jobs as it is on a fairly steep slope and several times the log that I sawed off rolled into the stream!

I have a very good quality splitting axe thanks to Avril, who insisted I get a good one rather than the cheaper one I was looking at! It has a carbon fibre handle and is very well balanced so made surprisingly quick work in splitting them up.

I now have quite a decent stack put aside for the coming winter for our wood burner which now goes on every night. We are just starting to collect chestnuts of decent size from our trees which cook nicely on top of it in a purpose built "Wok like" pan with holes in it that Steve bought as a present for us with exactly this in mind.

Autumn

We seem to have been forever waiting for summer to arrive and all of a sudden we are well and truly into Autumn.
As you may have seen we have a lovely tree lined driveway to our house with mature lime trees that make a lovely setting to the house, however the downside is that at this time of the year all the leaves are starting to fall.
I jokingly said with slight "tongue in cheek" knowing that I was probably exaggerating, that there would probably be at least a hundred barrow loads of leaves to pick up and cart away. Wrong! I way underestimated, I have already cleared around 20 and the leaves have hardly started falling.

The leaves in the photo above are just what fell in the last day as I had totally cleared them yesterday. In addition we have two fully mature Acer trees probably around 70 feet tall with more leaves that all the lime trees combined. I'm not grumbling though as they look gorgeous.

All sorts of Fungi are appearing as well, Anyone know if these are edible?

Another sure sign that it is Autumn is the molehills that just suddenly spring up at this time of year, we have seen nothing of them since last Autumn and yet here they are again. What happens to them during the rest of the year is what i want to know?