Chilli time, yay!

Hello Friends,
Oooh, how much do I love Autumn? Absolutely my favouritest time of year bar none! Now we're back from our camping trip, I need to spend a bit of time each day picking & gathering so as not to waste a single scrap of our home grown harvest. Just a day or two when the weather's hot can mean lovely free organic food going past its best, so I need a boot up the bum.
Today it was chillies. I've already picked & frozen all the jalapenos, as well as a box of hot green Superchilli. The ones I left on the plant are now ripening nicely, so I've snipped all the bright red ones off today & strung them for drying.

 It's really easy to do, with a needle & double thread passed through the stalk & feels a bit like making paper chains (which is what we used to do before we spent Oct - Dec fending off the creep of flashing plastic battery-filled tat shipped in from the other side of the world!) Of all the varieties of chilli I've grown so far, this one - Superchilli - has been the easiest, so if any novice growers fancy trying a few chilli plants, I can recommend it. The chillies are not as long as some of the cayenne types, but they are juicy & beautifully glossy.

There are still plenty of green fruits still to ripen, so I've left those on the plants  - they should hopefully all be ripe by the end of the month, & if not, no worries, I'll freeze some more green ones. Nothing will be wasted.

The 3rd variety I grew this year....well, that was a new one to me - 'Pot Black' - & they were temperamental. The pack contained 5 seeds & not all of them germinated. I ended up with 2 decent plants. Once they'd decided to grow, they've been quite interesting. As the name suggests, they're a black-fruited variety......

......& they turn scarlet when ripe.

Can't comment on the flavour yet, but they are supposed to be quite a hot variety, so am hoping they'll be great in all sorts of dishes.
How did it get to be the middle of September already? I saw tins of biscuits in a shop last week with Christmas baubles on them, which means that Easter eggs are probably being put out as I type!) I intend to prioritise getting the rest of our fruit & veg in so will be putting a bit of time in every day until the end of the month. Doubtless I shall have plenty of Cat Help - the singularly most UNhelpful 'help' that could ever be offered. Albert Whiskers enjoys helping. I mean, he REALLY does. He went into full helpfulness mode recently when I decided to clear the duckweed out of our pond. I got out everything I needed, turned my back for less than a minute while I put my rubber gloves on, turned round to pick up the fishing net, & this is what I found.........

.......& he was most disgruntled when he was asked to move. He really is the most attention-seeking cat ever!
Another glorious day of sunshine here as soon as that mist had cleared. Hope you're all seeing some rays. Aiming to be back tomorrow.....that's if I haven't disappeared under a ton of windfalls, which I can't rule out.
Until next time,
C x