16th October

Today there was an horrendous accident on a main road into town that caused tailbacks pretty much everywhere. To save burning petrol, I pulled off into the garden centre and bought 2 bags of 10 tulip bulbs. Some purple ones for a space in the back garden border, and some red and yellow for the front garden – they will circle the fuchsia – which will not be growing when the tulips pop up. The garden tidy up continues with the job of raking up the fallen leaves. The holly leaves that drop throughout the year are put into council recycling bags as they are very waxy and take years to break down in a home composter. The deciduous leaves from the lilac tree and the sycamore tree are raked up with gratefulness and sprinkled with water and placed into black plastic bags, poked with a fork to give aeration and drainage holes and stored behind the shed to breakdown and be used as leaf mould the spring after next.

17^th October

I went to the allotment to see if there were any last courgettes. This morning when I got into the car and switched on the windscreen wipers to clear the condensation, it was a thin layer of ice that was swept off. This must have spelt the end for summer fruiting squash plants. I picked 7 very thin and short courgettes – just enough to add to other dishes as a small enhancement. I picked the last cucumber too, as the 3 plants were obviously now past it, along with the courgettes, squash and pumpkin plants – good feed for the compost bin though! As I went to clear a pumpkin plant, I found, hidden by weeds, a small pumpkin, which I later weighed at 400g. So the pumpkin harvest totals one more at the last post. I like those sorts of surprises.

Next post: 22nd Oct