Autumn

This squash came from a seed marked Pink Banana but I think its mother must have been playing around because this big strong fruit looks pretty much like Bix Max to me.

Even though we haven't quite reached the equinox it's definitely moved on into autumn now.  There have been gales and rain for the last few days and although a settled dryer and warmer ten days is now predicted it's a bit too late to hope for any more summer crops to mature without help.


Just two of these from the one plant this year. I think they'll be o.k. but it's keeping the genepool small for the next generations.

I'm hoping to be able to share some seeds from these Whangaparaoa Crown pumpkins. With luck there will also be some Irish Prean peas and I have a couple of heads of  Babington Leeks bulbils if there's anyone left who doesn't have any by now. Watch out for a '2013 share' page coming soon with all the details.


Small, late and neglected, sunflowers this year were a washout.

It was old seed but even so I was expecting better things from the small patches of sunflowers dotted around the place. The weather was good enough and this one in the back patch was watered all through the driest spells so I'm not sure what was wrong.  Very disappointing, and this is the only one that's even come close to flowering yet.


It was bound to happen. The deer have discovered that yacon is edible.  They still don't think much of ulluco except as trampling space.

So we do still have naughty deer, the small sneaky sort who creep by in the night to nibble away on my precious vegetables but much as I wish them to the other ends of the earth I am a bit concerned that we've not heard anything from the Red deer so far this year. Usually by now they are preparing for the rut by bellowing out challenges and securing territory for the does but there's been nothing so far. Strange and a little worrying because the hunters are already on the job.


The Alberto Locoto chillies have formed fruit, but not a lot.

The tree chillies came through the winter well and I thought they'd make a lot more growth this year but they are rather pot bound and the unexpectedly high temperatures don't seem to have been to their liking either.  There are fruit forming and slowly acquiring some size and with luck they'll over winter again back in the UK where they can be better protected from the cold.  I really want them to succeed - perennial cool weather chillies seem to me to be a much more perfect crop than ridiculously hot and finicky annuals. I'd like to find some other varieties too, they come in a range of colours from red to yellow and with various fruit shape and sizes.


Blackberries and medlars.

We've had such a good year for blackberries even the birds can't keep up and there are fruit mummifying on the brambles. I've been eating them raw, foraging as I wander around the garden but I've not bothered with jam or jelly as we still have leftovers from last year.

The meldars are doing fine and will be harvested in November for jelly. We always manage to eat that.

And elderberries are desperately in need of harvesting for syrup, as are the rose hips.

No more Mr. Blue Skies

It had to end and now normal service has been resumed. Which is not to say that there's anything like enough rain falling to do much towards improving the moisture content of the soil but the sun has lost its intensity and clouds are piling over the horizon taking the light away and spreading gloom.

There's still a touch of blue about the place. Morning Glories that I had planted in the hope of a glorious display near the Doghouse eating area have finally, rather sulkily, started to flower. It's not much like the ravishing curtains of colour I had envisaged but each individual bloom is still a wonder.



Even now the seasons seem to be running a little late. On the bay tree yesterday I found this lovely Brown hairstreak butterfly, a female, who might in other years been out and about ten days earlier. Very pretty and we're glad to see her as she makes our second new butterfly species identified on the farm this year.

Rest and Relaxation

Bit of a holiday today. It might just be the last good day of summer; sunny blue skies with temperatures expected to reach the high twenties and a warm breeze. I hope it isn't of course but a change is expected at the weekend, we're heading into autumn with no hope of reprieve and this is as good as it's been at any time in the last four months.

With my main tractoring tasks completed for the summer (there's more, there's always more but I'm going to pretend I shouldn't have to do it) it seems the perfect moment to stand and stare and enjoy a summer that I am more grateful for than can be described. For all my middle England antecedents, stretching back as far as the eye can see, I should definitely have been born in a Mediterranean country.



Proof of the excellence of the summer, a rock melon in the greenhouse. Admittedly it's pretty small and it's the only one but it's probably the second time in my life a melon has grown for me. Years ago, in Worthing I did have one even smaller Jenny Lind but that really was more than twenty years back now. This is Prescott Fond blanc from Realseeds.



The cats have had a good summer too although as they enter early middle age they've slowed down a lot and we're having to watch their diet to avoid excess weight gain. But they still love a good walk with us in the evenings. It's just a pity that the hunting season starts soon. I won't want to take them with me far from the house then.



There are still quite a lot of butterflies about. One of my more grandiose plans at the moment is to turn the entire existing vegetable plot with its poor and rock filled soil into a large prairie garden strip with Michelmas daisies, Joe Pyeweed, Hemp Agrimony and other strong growing late flowers to help feed the insects into autumn. With a few patches kept for nectar rich annuals it would also provide a wonderful draw for photographic models through the year.

Working the Tractor

I've been trying to blog for a few days now and being given writer's block by the subject that I wanted to share with you. It's too frightening even to put into words.

It's no secret I find using the tractor one of the most consistently terrifying experiences of my life. Put me on a frisky horse and even after all these years out of the saddle I reckon I could ride it out, find the fiercest roller coaster and I'll take it with nary a peep but this monster, this essential tool of farm life is something that sets my heart racing with such speed I fear an attack every time I start the engine.

There's just no feeling of control or being able to communicate with it and yet unlike a roller coaster where you can surrender to your fate it needs coaxing along, steering, directing and anticipating. The sheer weight of the thing renders me negligible by comparison and the unsteadiness of the ride as we inch over tiny humps and bumps is every anxiety and fear of death I've ever had rolled into one awful moment after another.

I've been cutting meadows over the last weeks. It really is the perfect weather for it, baked dry and delightfully warm and sunny.  It's not a bad time for the plant life either, these old hayfields are full of flowering plants (if a few too many thistles and docks) and they have reached the stage where cutting and scattering their seed heads will keep them going for future years. As I work I'm surrounded by swallows scooping the insect enriched air and often have birds of prey, a buzzard and a kestrel watching for displaced rodents and lizards as well. After my initial fears have had time to settle a little I can occupy my mind with choosing the most efficient path to cover the area with fewest repeated cuts and after that there's even room for some boredom.

But last week I really think I lost one of my cat striped lives. In our fields are cider trees, huge old things, covered in mistletoe and on their last legs frankly. We keep them because we hope they are old varieties that we will eventually identify and because one day we'll make drinkable cider, also it's a lot of work taking them out.

One of these trees had fallen in the winter. It wasn't dead but was lying on its side, head poking up at an angle such that I thought I could see where the root was, so I swept up to it in my fierce beast of a tractor, engine roaring and cutters whirring and drove over the real trunk submerged in the long grass. The whole machine reared up, it wobbled and rocked. I was clinging to the steering wheel for dear life, convinced the whole thing would topple over with me inside it. Then the back wheels came over and finally the cutter, each new impact creating further perturbations and causing some unladylike language most unsuitable for taking to the pearly gates. And I survived. It was a lesson. Well, several lessons but possibly the most valuable was that the thing isn't quite as unstable as I believe it to be. Even so, it still takes me several hours to convince myself to go out for another session.

At last that's done. Perhaps I'll be able to do some stuff about vegetables, butterflies and cats now!

Potato: Druid

A new potato variety for us this year, you can read the technical spec. on it here; a red skinned tall maincrop covered by plant breeders rights until 2026.

It wasn't our first choice but I can't remember what it replaced on our want list in the early spring. We think we chose it because it's recommended for chips and crisps, two of our favourite ways to enjoy the potato.

It's been a mixed year for spuds, little rain and a lack of humidity have helped keep blight away but the resulting dry soil has given disappointing yields and scabby tubers. The picture shows pretty much the full crop from 25 plants. Not impressive at all.

Although there was no blight one or two plants did fall to the sort of virus infection that gives stunted weak leaves and a couple were mined by rodents so didn't contribute to the crop. That slug hole in the  picture is probably the only one we found.

Our soil is poor (yes, we're working on it!) and I don't feed in any significant way. I think these potatoes would have benefited from extra input so I'd recommend a wider planting distance than I gave these which was about 50cm between starts on anything less than perfect ground. The ones on the end of the rows were considerably more productive.

Eating quality is good and the few crisps we made as a trial excellent.  I'm not sure I'd grow them again but I wouldn't rule it out either.

In the eye of a depression

It's dark and gloomy outside today, thick black clouds cover the blue skies I've become accustomed to and yet it's still as dry as a bone out there. Checking the forecast suggests we might get as much as a millimetre of rain today and if we're lucky another tomorrow before we revert back to another week of sunny days, a little bit cooler than they have been perhaps but just as arid as the last few weeks.


I'd hoped this was a Pink Banana Squash but it seems not. Looks healthy anyway.

It's beginning to be a problem in the garden. Planting seeds for autumn cropping today - a bit late but again dictated by the weather, the high temperatures were prohibitive - the soil was sere and like crumbled concrete 15cm down.  I took out several full watering cans out for the new rows and hoped to bluff the rain clouds into dropping their load but the bluff's on me and if I want my seeds to make any sort of a start I'll be watering them all next week as well.



Hops are flowering or is it fruiting? Whatever, it's a sign that autumn approaches.
 
For the record today I planted out some chicory which had been started in modules, two sorts of radish; the quick salad sort and some long black winter ones which we make a wonderful stinky pickle from.  A half row of yellow carrots - I don't expect much from these but if they germinate and over winter they'll be food for swallowtails next springs - and the other half row with parsley root. Again, if the roots come to nothing at least I'll have a crop of (rather coarse) flat parsley next April.

These new additions are sharing a plot with previously planted burdock, cardoons and evening primrose (for their roots) interspersed with some dill and coriander going to seed and a few spots of salsola. There are also a few beetroot and carrots  which were started in modules a few weeks ago and have now established fairly well.

In the bed next to the courgettes I put half a row of Florence Fennel and the rest as spinach, to be picked small if it comes up at all.

The swallows left on the 23rd August, probably a week earlier than we've ever had them go before.  It's quiet without them and the yard is bereft of their amusing games of tag so they are missed.


A naughty black cat shows his disrespect while I take his picture.

In the garden

A bit of a catch up in the garden. I've not had a lot to say about it this year, the weather is o.k. and most plants are doing what might be expected of them but I've made poor planting selections, things are a bit stunted from lack of water and food and the continuing attacks by deer are dispiriting so there's not a lot to be enthusiastic about.

The fuchsia is one of a trio I bought in the spring in an attempt to brighten the place up a bit with some container planting but this one, Autumnale, seems frightfully tender and I had to take it back into the greenhouse early in the season as it looked as if it was about to die. It didn't and has hung on to make some flowers but I fear it won't overwinter in my care. Pity.



The last plant from the last seed of the Whangaparaoa Crown pumpkins I had such hopes for a while back. I'm not really sure what happened to find myself with just this single survivor of my seed saving but at least it has a couple of fruits; it's not all lost yet. I am a bit worried about the mottled and slightly pitted skin texture and hoping it's a function of physiological stress as it doesn't seem quite right for the variety.



Yacon were new to me this year but I was expecting them to be bigger by now. The three plants look well enough, if a little dry but are still only 50cms high.



Some of the very few beans that survived (so far) the depredations of the deer. These are (I think) Cosse Violette and will probably be eaten rather than saved for seed since it's a widely available variety but they're not going to make much of a meal.



In a different, more protected, part of the garden are the Irish Preans and I am hoping to have enough of these to have a few for swaps this year which will be nice after several seasons with nothing to offer.



Onions have been, like the shallots, more  successful than most things this year. Two varieties, both planted as sets and looking good. I love the flat bulbs of the Stuttgart and I'm not sure why I bought the F1 variety Santero other than an insatiable need for novelty. It looks from the picture as if the round bulbed Santero are bigger than the others but that's just bad photography. The Santero may be prettier for the show bench but seem to have little benefit for my purposes.



Blueberry Herbert. I've become a convert to home grown blueberries and bought this plant of Herbert to extend the season of my unnamed original plant which usually fruits in late July. In fact the two plants have fruited at almost the same time this year so I'm now looking for much later and earlier varieties to supplement them.