Summer gardening is full of flowers and handsome vegetables with gorgeous colours and liberal sunshine. Autumn gardening is more gritty, sunshine is hard to come by and plants are less appealing as the vibrant green fades to shades of brown and grey. Even the produce is less joyful, with pumpkins supplying beta-carotene and some fine orange, but the plants have long since faded back into the earth. This is a third of the crop, and some are the size of cricket balls.
The courgettes have now given up producing much by way of fruit, although there are the odd vibrant flowers. After harvesting over 300 during the summer, I'm not overly upset at there being few now to add into dishes of anything. It was magnificent and probably quite healthy, but a respite is now called for! The plants will be pulled up during the week.
My attention now has to turn to potatoes - I have already lifted one block of 18 plants, but today I needed to lift more as I have run out of potatoes in the kitchen. Even with the added energy and fitness that should come from two keep fit classes per week, digging up 8 plants today was hard work. The soil is heavy clay, and while we've had some rain, because the bed is at the bottom of the hill, all the mud seems to accumulate there. Looking at the tubers, and given that we do no water potatoes so they have to fend for themselves, it is easy to see the mixed rainfall pattern in the extra knobbly specimens we are getting this year - no lovely sleek baking potatoes to speak of yet.
The campaign to capture and sterilise the feral cat population has continued this last week, when we managed to capture Randolf, Wimsey's father. He was not at all happy at being caught and transported and dealt with, and has been noticeably less visible since his session at the vet. However he is a fairly dominant male, so it is good to have his line brought to an end, if you get my meaning.
During the week I brough in a trail camera to check up on its battery function and saved files, before putting it in a different place in the hope of catching cute boar action. The camera had been out since early July, so I was a bit disappointed to find only 120 files on it, approximately half of which were us walking past. The tree I had tied it to seems to be a popular one with pine martens and squirrels - I think this was a marten from the video stream that followed.
Early in the period, the deer were in the zone, but they seem to have moved off too. Well the land can't be wildlife central all the time I guess!
It has been a quiet week really, recovering from the cold I didn't want. Looking forward, I need to check the other trail camera as it has been out longer than this one. We have a quince pressing session at the fruit press on Friday, which is always entertaining, but might clash with my annual boule de forte humiliation on Friday evening. The Comite des Fetes Ladies team is facing off against one of the boule de forte societies in the annual Communal Challenge. It is not the winning, it's the taking part! However before Friday, I need to show my boules a bit of love and affection - wood wax and a special "gommage" for the metal bits so they don't look rusty. I might also need to make some chutney.
Have a good week!
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