Meteorological autumn began last Monday, although it seems that autumn started a few weeks ago.
The ground is already littered with fallen leaves.
Astrological autumn is marked by the date of the autumn equinox when both the northern and southern hemispheres have the same number of daylight hours. The date varies, but this year it falls on 22 September.
We had some rain last week but not enough to soften the soil.
Martyn has managed to dig several beds, however although the top layer of soil seems workable, a spade’s depth down is very hard. This shows that all the gallons of water we have applied to the beds only really penetrated the surface.
The lumps are too hard to break down so we hope that rain and frost over winter will do the job for us.
We need to plant our winter onion sets and garlic, so need a bed that we can use. We decided to give an area the same treatment as we did the bed where we planted the sweet Williams. Last week we watered the soil well in order to try and soften the lumps so that they could be broken down.
Martyn then went over the ground with a tiller in order to break down the lumps.
That should have left us with an area that we can plant.
We concentrated on half of a long bed and you can see from the photo above the difference now between the two halves.
We had other commitments last week so didn’t spend much time at the allotment. Other than a little watering we spent the rest of the time harvesting.
It’s the first time that we have grown butternut squash so we didn’t know what to expect but considering the weather they haven’t done too badly.
Last year we left the baby corn on the plants for too long. This year we were determined to do better. The corn we picked earlier was fine but once again we left lots of cobs too long and the cores had become very hard. We will try again next year. Gardeners do like a challenge although this year has been too much of a challenge
I used some of our carrots, cabbage, peppers, baby corn, mangetout, and garlic is a chicken stir fry.
Butternut squash, garlic, and onion were used in this dish cooked in the slow cooker,
Ruby was treated to a spa day, although she doesn’t consider it to be a treat.
Firstly, she had a shampoo in the shower before being rubbed down with a towel.
The photos were taken off a video camera set up in the shower so excuse the blurriness.
She was then given a blow dry. You can see from the photo that I was blown as much as Ruby.
Once dry, it was time for a brush. You can see how impreesed she was. She just wanted it all over so she could have her dinner,
The next day the groomer came to give Ruby a trim. She’s not keen on the trim but puts up with it as the groomer comes armed with treats.
Next week is our turn. The hairdresser also comes with treats for Ruby which hardly seems fair but Ruby doesn’t agree.
Just to finish, I couldn’t resist adding this photo..
It must be tricky getting used to those feet.
That’s all for this week so as always stay safe and stay well.
Again, I am joining Dave for Harvest Monday over at his Our Happy Acres blog.
Oh, it feels too soon but everyone is clearing and prepping for next year. What a shame.
Ruby looking lovely after. Going through the ‘torture’ 🙂
Yes everywhere is looking bare Belinda
We finally got some rain here. The soil was hard as a rock when I set in the fall brassicas a couple of weeks ago.
So far away but the same experiences Dave
Have you ever considered the no dig method of gardening?
Considered Debbie but not practical for us. We’d need tons of compost.