Autumn brings certain pressures, like doing everything in daylight that needs to be done in daylight (it is getting horribly close to the equinox), making all the jam, jelly and juice before things turn, getting stuff into the freezer, fire wood and getting the chimney swept, lifting produce and enjoying heritage open days (next weekend in France). It does also mean that there is a bit less pressure on preparing things, while grass and some weeds at least are slowing down. So our Sunday morning marathon gardening stints are getting shorter, and once the midday curfew for loud engines sounds, we can actually take time to reflect and enjoy the hammocks and see what is/has been working.
We are currently enjoying our sweetcorn harvest, although by this time in a fortnight, it should all be eaten or in the freezer. The little bits get fed to the chickens.
We are coming to the end of our third season working the Garden at The Shack. About 30 months ago, it was all like this - impenetrable scrub.
We now have three large potager beds, which can now be rotated reasonably well, so back to potatoes in the bed that has corn this year, corn and beans into the middle plot and aubergines, brassicas and peppers, plus broad beans in the top plot, which I have just emptied (haha - there will be more hidden I'm sure) of potatoes.
Then we have a number of leisure zones - the hammock zone, the sitting and being drooled on by cats zone, the place where the picnic bench will go if I ever spot a cheap one in the sales, and the shaded area under the walnuts for high summer.
At the top, by the redundant spotlights, we have the developing flower border with the Fergus Memorial Rose and all sorts of rescue plants, plus a load of annuals that I hope will self seed, but if they don't I will add more seed next year.
Of course scrub will continue to do what it does and grow and encroach into the tamed areas. That first picture of dense scrub has engulfed a storage bunker we put in down there and haven't seen for about 9 months now! It's all a work in progress, but today we felt rather good about what we have achieved, not least as we listened to many different types of bird chirping and very little else by way of sound.
Now I must go and make jam, as there are three and a half pounds of stoned and peeled peaches festering in a bowl that need my attention. Until next week!
Comments