Oranges and Yellows
The rain has returned but the colour stays...
The rain and cooler weather has returned after a September heat wave with temperatures reaching 29 - 30 degrees in my part of the world. It is the first spell of that kind of heat at this time of year on record apparently, over five consecutive days hitting high numbers…climate change surprises us again.
The colours in the garden certainly reflect it, and autumn tones are everywhere adding beautiful warmth to the flower beds and veg patch. There will be more soon as the butternut squash are turning from green to burnt orange, the sunflowers continue to open new blooms and the leaves on our spindle tree begin to change.
In the greenhouses the grapes and peppers have loved the heat! I picked a bunch of grapes yesterday bigger than my hand…
… and there are many more to come. I mentioned peppers too…they are fairly impressive, as good as one would find in any shop…
I am so pleased with them, and they taste delicious, the glut of tomatoes is slowing down now and I have a freezer full of pasta sauce to use over winter.
What a bounty…and all for the price of a few seed packets, I honestly can't tell you how much joy this brings me. More joy comes from the flower beds, especially the wild flower bed, it is alive with bees, hover flies, butterflies, moths, frogs and more. It is a bat-friendly seed mix this year and we do indeed have bats, they are too quick for me to photograph but sitting outside at dusk watching them is fantastic.
There is plenty of life in the autumn garden, crops still to come, flowers still to open, then the winding down period before it's winter rest. Every season is wonderful.
