Last week I was in mid-pudding steaming when I wrote, so I won't leave you in suspense any longer - here are the puddings, cooled after 10 hours of steaming and ready to be wrapped up and left for 2/14 months depending which gets eaten first. The smaller one is pretty good looking all round, the larger one I clearly didn't wodge down enough, so is a bit crumbly.
There are still quite a lot of flowers around. The rudbeckia on the flower border are still going, while the cosmos is just starting to flower - they are always so late for me, other people have dug theirs up already but mine is covered in buds! In the One Acre Wood, there are small white cyclamen that we transplanted from another woodland about 10 years ago, and they are really coming into their own now. The ones in the garden around the birch tree have been going since July and show no signs of stopping yet. They always lift the spirits.
In terms of fruitfulness, well we have a couple of walnut trees that have produced good looking nuts and we now have two big drying racks well stocked with drying nuts. Sweet chestnuts are just starting to fall now - the ones that are worth eating, others have been dropping for a while - so we enjoy the guilty pleasure of roasted chestnuts with our aperos. I also have some interesting savoury crumble ideas tucked away, including leek and red peppers with a savoury chestnut crumble topping...
The last fruit of the year are always the medlars - still not ripe, but getting there. They aren't edible raw unless they have been bletted, or left to rot for a bit, but in their unbletted state, I believe you can make a jelly from them. There is a tree that we know that is coated in them. Some people also have olive trees in their garden and they are also a very late fruit, and I gather making them edible is quite a process. I regard them as a pretty curiosity this far north.
Wildlife is getting more scarce and preparing for winter. I met this young toad in the Garden, and encouraged it to steer clear of the cats, who miss all the mice in the now harvested and empty maize fields. The badger preparations for winter continue and as the meadow has been mown now, ready for winter, the entrance to Badger Delvings is pretty obvious.
It wouldn't be autumn without a few leaves turning colour - this is a Wild Service tree in the One Acre Wood, one of the earliest to turn there and also the species that is likely to produce the best colours for us.
Until next week!
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