Welcome October! Perhaps my favourite month. I love Autumn. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors referred to October as 'Winter full moon month', the hunters' moon being the first full moon of Autumn. I love the whole continuity thing of knowing that they would have been busy getting everything gathered in for winter, foraging, drying, storing.........just as we do on a much smaller scale, albeit with a less 'Life or death' outcome. This has been continuing apace at The People & Cats Republic with more additions to the pantry, which must now be close to imminent collapse. Apple chutney made, & a bucket of windfalls turned into a batch of delicious brown sauce - honestly nicer on a bacon sarnie than any you can buy.
Blackberry & apple gin also on the go. Looking forward to warming me cockles with a glass or three of this by the fire in months to come!
Although our veggie garden has almost finished producing for the season, it's surprising how much I'm still picking. More aubergines, chillies, courgettes & herbs this week, plus heaps of pears.....
.........and apples showing no signs of stopping just yet.
This may surprise non-gardening friends, but rather than October being the end of the garden season, for me it's the first month in the gardening year. There is SO much that can usefully be done in October, from planning, to improving the soil, dividing plants up to make new free ones, planting bulbs, cutting back & clearing, potting up self-sown treasures you want to keep or use for swapsies, as well as October plantings of things like garlic, broad beans & sweet peas. I've had a fab morning out in the sunshine today, assisted by our tame robin, who is Feathered Pest Control in action. He (or she) sings loudly until I've cleared an area, then swoops in & hoovers anything wriggly, slimey & edible. We have no shortage of places for wildlife to shelter in our garden, so I'm happy to start a big tidy up now. Amazing how many pests this exposes, as well as snail & slug eggs which I'd rather didn't overwinter to emerge next Spring as a New Model Army of ravenous molluscs. Today's efforts uncovered a colossal slug who had clearly set himself up for the winter......such an impressive pad had he established for himself deep in the heart of an overgrown alchemilla that he was practically ordering in an M&S Wine & Dine to enjoy in front of his 3D hi-def TV! Needless to say, he has been dispatched to a grassy area frequented every 5 mins by our blackbird family! Another bonus this morning, was turning up 2 flowery little gems:
A rather late 'Morning Glory' which must have self-seeded from a few years ago.......lovely family of plants, just don't go googling it in public, as a friend of mine once did, perfectly innocently, to see what colour the flowers were!
Also, a tiny Primrose Vulgaris flowering already! Wild primroses grow like weeds in our garden, which suits me fine as we have such a pretty display in Spring.
So, if your plans to start growing stuff have fallen through for another year, the spring season passing into summer without you having sown a single seed & all the intentions you had to redesign your garden have fallen back yet again, I can almost guarantee it'll partly be because you didn't do anything useful in October, the first month of the gardener's year. Think on!
Septembers's garden wildlife
In addition to all the usual suspects noted since July, we've seen:
*Sparrow hawk (we are now minus 2 sparrows)
*2 juvenile collared doves
*Toad
*Hedgehog (regular visitor in the hope of catfood leavings & another great predator of sluggy foes)
*Flock of 14 long tailed tits chattering away in our fruit trees - such pretty birds.
*Blue tit
*Coal tit
*.......and this lad......any ideas anyone?
Food plant was our greenhouse peppers....leaves only. I suspect this may not have been the preferred choice of scoffs (though he was making impressive headway!) as internet searching for caterpillars/peppers really only threw up various hornworms & he didn't appear to match.
So these are a few of the things I've been doing. I've been busy as you can see. You are probably unable to detect similar levels of industry in Albert Whiskers who has mostly been engaged in charming visitors, trying to fetch 'Dreamies' out of the cupboard using the powers of telekenesis & testing beds........
........Hmmmm, not exactly been caning it, has he?
Till next time,
C x
No comments:
Post a Comment