Winter wonderland

The temperature dropped to -4 last night, leaving a winter wonderland in the garden: This sets me up nicely for my annual wild and wonderful advent calendar. From tomorrow I'll tweet something that strikes me as wild or wonderful every day until the 24th to get us through the sometimes tricky dark days of December. …

Fox and a pear tree

I was down at the allotment in the rain, checking on my Brussels Sprouts. They're looking good, so we should have enough for Christmas Dinner.  As the light was failing this beautiful creature ambled up and sat down within feet of me, waiting patiently for me to take this photograph: It's a bit hazy as …

Hardy Watercress

I was out in the garden, doing some tidying up after this week's sharp frosts. the temperature dropped to -3 degrees during the week, leaving beautiful patterns on the broccoli and sparkles on the wild rose hips Unfortunately it also killed off the last of the nasturtiums so today's task was to clear them up. …

Apples and ice

This weekend has seen the first hard frost, with ice on the pond: and lovely frost on the Broccoli I thought I'd better harvest the last of the apples before it gets any colder - Yes these are the phenomenal Howgate Wonders again - I picked 30 on Saturday morning and we've had about 6 …

Creatures of the night – for Halloween

it's Halloween so here are a couple of our alternative Halloween lanterns (an orange and a pumpkin) from a few years ago in the days when we Halloween birthdays in the house and we were very creative with our traditions - for more on these, see here But tonight our Halloween birthday people are away …

Autumn light

It's just after 5pm and light is leaving the sky, the inevitable effect of the clocks going back and the beginning of the dark months of winter. But we've been blessed with a glorious autumn day and I've spent most of it in the garden and allotment. I cut back my runner beans which seemed …

Apples, onions and a toad in a hole

I've been wondering again about getting a pear tree for the garden, to grow my tiny orchard. I already have three apples and a plum and there is a cherry in the front garden. The plums are all finished now but there are jars of whole plum jam to look forward to. The apples are looking …

Autumn tidying

Today was a tidying up in the garden sort of day. I cleared all the tomato plants from the raised beds . The tomatoes have been pretty good this year but some had succumbed to blight. The green ones should ripen indoors and I've left a few in the seed house as well These are …

Harvest

Today was a big harvest day at the allotment. There's a real nip in the air and temperatures of two degrees forecast for next week. So we decided to harvest all the allotment tomatoes before they succumb to the cold. They are still very green but abundant and luscious nevertheless. We picked about 3 kilos, …

Ten years

It's ten years since we moved into this house. It seems like an appropriate moment to reflect on how the garden has changed. I kept a garden diary for the first five years that we lived here and have continued for the following five with this blog - its a little erratic but it records …