Autumn approaches the garden




Lets start with a few images of the Autumnal leaves around our garden.




We have had the first frost (although the readers in Ottawa and Oslo might not regard a brief whitening of the lawn as a frost) and it is time to get on to a different form of gardening. It is certainly a lot nicer working in the yard at 20 degrees C than 35!

One of my small tasks was to pick the last of our grapes. I took a photo to celbrate the fact that we managed to get a fair crop this year, largely as a result of the good advice from (and work by) the Ey family, and Frances efforts in sewing up the netting to keep the birds out. Now that we know it can be done, next year we will do something about getting some water in there occasionally to boost production.




The photo to the left is a fractal half-cabbage. A splendid vegetable by any standard, but especially so since it is the first time we have succesfully grown cabbage. It tasted nice also but the purple coloration gave rise to some interesting after effects (which you don't want to know about).
Having mentioned the apples in the past here is a shot of some (about 20%) of the picked fruit .


We had been thinking that a really huge task would be planting the 650 daffodil bulbs which Frances had acquired. The task became more daunting when she sprained her ankle the day before we planned to start this epic task. In fact, as a result of several hours preparing the beds it was all done in a day. The image shows the lady in question about to get stuck into the major bed.
Tulips are slated to happen soon.




A further Autumnal flavour for this bed was spending about an hour raking up leaves from our willows (plus a few pine needles and some eucalypt trash) to mulch this area. Hopefully this will retain water etc and give us a good splash (perhaps a tsunami) of colour in about 6 months time.

I haven't photographed the removal of the tomatoes, but we do have about a peck of them ripening off here and there, including some entire plants with a few fruit on them hanging in Frances potting shed/glasshouse and my tool shed. I think it will be a few weeks before we buy any love apples.









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