A beautiful sight

We have been picking apples this week. What a wonderful sight to see all our trees laden with shining red, golden or juicy green fruits. As they are still quite young trees, we have no bother reaching the top branches and so it is an easy and enjoyable task. We have quite a mixture of varieties including the best known UK cooking apple – the ‘Bramley’.
The first Bramley’s Seedling tree grew from pips planted by Mary Ann Brailsford in 1809. She lived in Southwell, near Nottingham before getting married and moving away. As she died in 1852 she never knew how famous her little apple tree would become.
The local butcher, Matthew Bramley, bought her cottage with its apple tree in the garden in 1846 and in 1856, a local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather, asked if he could take cuttings from the tree and start to sell the apples. Bramley agreed but insisted that the apples should bear his name and a legend was born. The original tree is still alive and there have been many cuttings taken from it to ensure that its legacy continues.

The Hunt for Drummond

At the end of each day we need to know where Drummond (the cat) is to ensure he isn’t locked in anywhere overnight. He has twice spent the night in the garage.  Often he realises we are gathering up tools to finish off and so he follows us around reminding us to feed him before we go home. But on occasions when there is no sign of him, our working day always finishes with a search for the cat. Drummond continues to find a wide range of sun-drenched, warm places to sleep or just generally hang out on warmer days and is rarely found in the same place twice. We have discovered him asleep on the garden benches, at the foot of the holly hedge in full sun, on top of the garden wall, inside the polytunnels, under a blackcurrant bush or even inside the compost bins where the sides of the structure protect him from the wind and the warmth from the compost heap below must feel like an electric blanket. This photo shows you one of his less successful sleeping places!

Harvest and Hope

Having passed the Autumn Equinox we are now on the path towards winter, colder nights and shorter days. The migrating geese have started to arrive on an almost daily basis, Robins have their red breast-feathers and spider’s webs seem to be everywhere especially noticeable in the early morning dew when they glisten and sparkle like diamond-encrusted filigree.  It is a time to linger in the garden, enjoy the warmth of the autumn sunshine and take in the late flush of highly- scented roses, the foxgloves in full flower, the dahlias bending under the sheer size of the flowerheads and the cheerful bright marigold flowers with their neon shades of orange and yellow. We have picked the last of the courgettes, harvested our pumpkins and stored our onions.

2024 has been a tough year for growing as the summer was cool and damp. I doubt if we will harvest any sweet corn, but the potatoes have done well and the leeks and kale are thriving. Our blackcurrants were amazing and we picked autumn raspberries today. The sunshine brings out all the pollinating insects and is good to see that their populations seem stable. I worry for the butterflies this year though. Last year we had clouds of Red Admirals on all our windfall apples and today I saw my first one this year. Let’s hope that Summer 2025 will be a little bit drier, a little bit sunnier with the days full of butterflies.