Wet and cold

   Winter finally arrived with a bump. There has been a few of days of cold, frosty and wet weather and that has finished off anything left in the garden and poly tunnel that were not winter crops. So, no more sweet peppers and chili's. It also means that my tidying up came to an abrupt halt as I hunkered down in a nice warm dry house!
   So not a lot done. Cut a couple of outside cauliflowers before they were spoiled by the rain and colder weather. In the poly tunnel the sweet peppers and chili's have now been cleared out. Outside I made one of the vegetable plots a little bigger. This is to compensate for the loss of ground under the oak tree. The cabbages continue to develop well. They are starting to hearten up. The outside turnip/swede are slowly swelling but those in the poly tunnel look wonderful with nice large green leaves but the root is not yet swelling. One good thing that the arrival of the cold weather has done. The cabbage white caterpillars have all been killed off!
  In the animal arena the chickens are now back to laying reasonably well. There has been one day when seven eggs were laid but on average the daily count is four. The sheep, particularly the rams, have been a pain. They are determined to get amongst the ewes and one of the blighters jumped the fence. I had a fun forty five minutes rounding up the ewes with the errant ram and sorting them out! The geese are enjoying playing with a couple of dog play balls that I put in their water. I spotted one in the pond with the ball in its beak! 
   The days are short and getting shorter every passing day. Sunset is now around ten past five and sun rise around seven thirty. Christmas is just around the corner!
   

Ok where did the time go?

   Well I do not know! Time has flown once more and before I knew it I should have already written my blog by now. Now being fully fit I have been taking advantage of the warm and dry weather to get jobs done that should have been done in the September/October time frame. There is now only about one third of one bed left to fork/weed so I am feeling pretty pleased with myself. I have even managed to rake up the leaves under the old apple trees and cherry tree while they were still dry. Problem is the weather is about to break and as I write this outside it is windy with a drizzle in the air being driven by the wind. Day inside methinks!
   I have been harvesting cauliflowers in the outside garden. They are bigger and better than those in the poly tunnel would you believe. I mean they are as big as ones you would buy in the local supermarket. I am very pleased with them. The winter cabbages are starting to hearten up and there are going to be some giant ones! With the warm weather this autumn 

Outside cauliflowers

there has been an infestation of white butterfly caterpillars. I would not have believed it but there they were munching my purple sprouting. They seemed to have a preference for the purple sprouting. I wonder if it is because the sprouting is a non F1 seed variety whereas the winter cabbages next to them are?
  As the photograph below shows the weed pile is growing. I decided to burn the weeds this autumn rather than compost them as my weed compost heap is getting rather large.
  In the poly tunnel nothing much has changed. The turnip/swede are looking ok as are cauliflowers. The sweet peppers I

Leeks, purple sprouting, winter cabbage

 should really now take up as should the chili peppers. There is a useful crop of beetroot that I need to harvest. Looking to pickle these.
   With the change in the weather it is unlikely that I will get outside very much so the emphasis now changes to dealing with the gathered non hybrid seed. I have already podded the Champion of England peas and have other plants to do. Also I need to exam my seed collection and see if I need to get anymore seed. So still plenty to do!

Growing weed pile

Life gets in the way.

   Well despite my good intentions life gets in the way. Too many jobs to do and not enough time to do them.
   In the poly tunnel the sweet peppers are now dropping leaves which means it has got too cold for them. There is still one or two to pick but the end is nigh. The cauliflower is now bigger than a tennis ball and looking good. In the outside garden I have continued to clear tomato plants and put the poles away in the, for want of a better description, potting shed. All of the tomatoes are now cleared as are the haricot vert. Several beds are now weeded and forked over. Come spring, no doubt, the weeds will have reappeared. I have shortened two of the beds that had a small area under the shade of the oak tree. After a couple of years of trying to grow stuff in these areas I have called it a day. Too much shade and the oak tree is taking too much out of the ground, water and nutrients. The garlic continues to grow.  I have been picking up some windfall apples but have failed miserably to pick any reasonable number from my own older trees. Shame really but the Jerusalem artichokes are benefiting from rotting apples and the chickens have been getting easy access to them too. 
   In the animal world the last the meat chickens have been processed. They were all hens and came in at a good weight - 3.75kg, 3.5kg and 3.5kig. It looks like leaving them a couple more weeks after dispatching the cockerels has allowed them to put on a decent weight.
  To add to my burden the trees have been dropping their leaves and there is now a carpet of them on the lawn. One more job to add to the list.
  To my mind, unusually, there is a borage plant in flower in November. Do not believe I have seen that before!
   The 100 weight pumpkins I grew were cheerfully carved in Halloween lanterns and made a good display on the front of my daughters house.

Borage in flower

Cauliflower in the poly tunnel 

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