Our spectacular summer continues, even though the calendar says it’s autumn. The sun, lower now in the sky, continues to shine day in and day out and rainfall is a distant memory. Well not really, we did have a little precipitation last week, but not enough to do more than wash off dusty leaves! At my sister’s place near Victoria, they didn’t get the rainfall we did, and her well is dangerously low. As such it was a particularly bad time for her to have an old truck burst into flames while idling in a field surrounded by tinder dry trees, lucky for her the fire department arrived in time to douse the flames!
Buh-bye old truck!
No such excitement in my neck of the woods but today I was out in the garden harvesting more food. I’m still picking blackberries and raspberries, next year I look forward to having a larger crop of ‘Anne’ yellow raspberries after quadrupling (at least) the space I give them. Their flavour is just so amazing that I’m eager to make some yellow raspberry jam. I will put it up in the smallest jars I can find and if you receive one from me you’ll know you’re one of my favourite people!
Berries in October
I took the last few cukes from my ‘Cucina’ mini cucumber plant and all the peppers off today, there was frost on the roofs of some houses when I took my daughter to school this morning, so it’s time…
Peppers, cukes, carrots and grapes from the garden today! And corn, not pictured.
The peppers, all hot ones, will be dried, ground and used to flavour all sorts of dishes. I find myself craving spicy food more and more in my old age. One of my favourites is roasted corn on the cob with butter, lime juice and a generous sprinkling of ground super chili peppers… yummy!
Sweet corn and carrots
I also harvested a big bowl of red grapes this afternoon, they are sweet and delicious! Grapes are not a reliable crop here on the (usually) wet coast, but all the sunshine in August, September and so far this month has produced a bumper crop. I have two varieties of seedless red grapes (my seedless green Himrod up and died over winter last year) Suffolk Red Seedless and Vanessa. They’re both tasty but if I had to choose one I would pick Vanessa, whose full clusters of grapes have a satisfying crispness, texturally toothsome.
Red seedless grapes
Tonight we feast on roasted veggies, with sweet corn and carrots from the garden.
Roasted vegetables
What a wonderful harvest!
My next project is blackberries and raspeberries.Fingers crossed for me please!
Good luck Pip! Berries are my favourite crop, so delicious and SO much better than any you can buy in a store.
Looks awesome!! I am picking peppers today
A peck? For pickling?
for drying
Oh…and I pinned you
Does that mean we’re going steady?
hehehehe…yep
quite a harvest!
sorry to see that truck go, is it a dodge d150?
“Trucky” (hey I didn’t name it!) was an F350
Came via Pip and am hooked. What a sensible way to live and garden! Thanks for sharing.