Autumn treasures

When our children were young I always used to take a polythene bag out with us when we went on walks.  This was to collect treasures.  You know the sort of thing, shells and pebbles if we were going to the beach, pine cones, leaves, conkers, etc on country walks. Our children have grown up now and probably outgrown that habit of collecting things. But I don't seem to have, because I still collect things when out walking.  On the other hand maybe it was me all the time who wanted to do the collecting.

I love everything about autumn, the colours, the falling leaves, the spider's webs in the hedges, shiny conkers, walking on crunchy beech nut shells, the seed heads of  summer flowers, berries in the hedgerows. And so I am often to be seen at this time of year, whether it is just strolling back from taking the grandchildren to school, on longer walks, or down at the allotment, clutching a handful of brightly coloured leaves, a bag of conkers, seed heads, rose hips, hawthorne berries.  In fact just about anything which catches my eye and looks interesting.

I press the leaves to preserve them, they can then be used for craft activities with the grandchildren. This year I have decided  to make some Christmas pot pourri so I will have plenty of natural ingredients to hand.  I might spray some of them gold.

They look good also left as they are and simply arranged in a bowl  next to a vase of berried branches for an autumn display. I have a table in the front porch where most of these 'treasures' are displayed. It's like a nature table and it changes with the seasons.

Autumn jobs on the allotment

As we move into Autumn, the work on the plot changes. No more is there a rush to get things in the ground, no more sowing, planting, staking and netting. Now we are harvesting our produce, clearing the ground, tidying up and manuring. Now is the time to start thinking about those jobs we didn't have time to do in the summer, like laying paths, cleaning out the shed, clearing that overgrown patch of ground.

The leaves are starting to fall from the big sycamore trees which overhang both our plots. Soon I will be gathering up the leaves. That's reminded me that I need to sort out the leaf bin. I recently found bindweed growing in it coming from the plant which is growing along the fence between ours and the plot next door. After I have cleared out all the bindweed roots, I will give the bin a turnover to see how well composted it is. I hope to be able to use the leaf mould to cover some of the beds over the winter. Then I will start to add this autumn's leaves to the bin. The compost bins need turning too and the manure bins will be topped up.

This week I have been pruning the gooseberries and blackcurrants. I managed not to get too many scratches from the gooseberries.  Before I tackled the pruning I first pulled up the nasturtiums which had been planted behind them to climb up the fence. They had given a lovely display through the summer but it was time for them to go and they were getting tangled up in the fruit bushes. They were easy to pull up but left a lot of seeds behind, I think we will be seeing them again next year! Having got rid of the nasturtiums and as many seeds as I could get hold of I could then see how well the climbers were doing which we had planted last year to try to cover the wire fence.  The honeysuckle, ivy and clematis are scrambling away along the fence,  the cotoneaster has berries on it which is providing both food for the birds and some welcome autumn colour. Once the fruit bushes had been pruned I weeded the fruit bed. It looks very tidy now.

There is plenty of autumn colour from the apple tree on plot 8. The tree has done really well this year after it's re staking and pruning last year. The cut flower beds are also providing colour to the plots, but they are coming to an end now. Soon we will be pulling them up.

I'm always sad to see summer come to an end, but once we are into autumn I love the colours and changes that the season brings. I love the clearing away of all the dead plants, preparing the beds for their winter sleep and having a good tidy up  It's still a busy time yet as the autumn clear up continues, but soon there will be time to slow down,  time to rest and reflect, time to think ahead and plan for next year.

Rose hips, sloes and a lovely walk

According to those who know these things, this year is a bumper year for foraging. Well there are certainly lots of blackberries about in the hedgerows. I always pick the blackberries from the lane down at the allotments. This year there have been lots and I also found some at the top of plot10b where we haven't cleared yet. I've made a mental note not to cut these down when we eventually start to clear this area.

My freezer is quite full of fruit now from the raspberries, rhubarb and gooseberries grown on the allotments this year, but I managed to find room for a few pounds of blackberries.

I mentioned before on my blog about how I like to make fruit gin and vodka with the blackberries, raspberries, and rhubarb from the plot.  The one thing I've also been wanting to make is sloe gin and as  I haven't found any sloes in the area around the allotments, we had to look elsewhere. So on a lovely sunny afternoon recently Richard and I set off walking in the direction of our local scout camp where I had been told there were plenty of sloes. It was lovely to get out walking on such a beautiful autumn day, it's quite a steep walk, but the views are fantastic. As we walked up the lane we noticed that the hedges had been cut, so if there had been any sloes here there weren't anymore. There were plenty of rose hips though, so I collected those I we walked. I like to dry these for Christmas decorations, so I gathered a bag full, leaving some on the bushes for the birds.

The path went through the scout camp and onto the fields, where we spotted what looked to be sloes in the hedge. We weren't disappointed, we picked nearly 2lbs of them. I was well equipped for foraging with plastic boxes and bags.  My rucksack was a bit heavier as we set off back over the fields.

The sloe gin is now prepared and will be ready for Christmas. I also made damson vodka using damsons from a friend's garden and gooseberry gin with allotment gooseberries, which at the moment looks a bit like frog spawn. I'm sure it will taste good.