Situation report - 30 September

I have been away from home for three days this week, for work purposes. So today, of course, I had to have a good look round the garden to see what was the latest state of play. Fortunately, the weather conditions this morning were ideal for the sort of photography I like best -- sunny but moist and misty.
This is what I found...

The Runner beans won't admit that the Summer is over. They are continuing to produce flowers. Unfortunately there were no Runner bean pods to pick, though I did find a handful of the Cobra climbing French beans.

Runner bean flowers - 30th September

There are still plenty of tomatoes to be had, although many of the Black Cherry ones are unuseable because they have split. I have picked the remainder even though they are not ripe. I shall ripen them indoors. There are still a few of the medium-sized Sungella ones, and the yellow Ildi ones are continuing to ripen in droves!

Today's tomato crop

Ildi - VERY prolific!

There are lots of chillis as well. Jane made a batch of Chilli jam this week while I was away. She says it's incredibly hot (in the spicy sense), and should be great for flavouring Laksa. Another way we like to use Chilli jam is on top of Ritz crackers spread with cream cheese, served as an aperitif. Nice with a glass of dry sherry, I reckon!

More chillis coming along

I picked another sizeable batch of raspberries (probably £5's worth at supermarket prices). The plants (they are Autumn Bliss) look very tatty now - many of the leaves have gone brown - but the fruit is better than ever. They like the cooler, wetter conditions. I never manage to harvest a huge number of raspberries at any one time, but we actually prefer to have little and often. This year I think we must have had a two-person helping seven or eight times.

Raspberries - the "arty" photo

Raspberries - the "practical, culinary" photo taken later on

I tried really hard to get a good picture of the berries on the Asparagus plants -- but I failed. The camera just could not work out what to focus on, and I haven't yet got the skill to tell it! The tiny raindrops on the plants make a very confusing background. This is the best I could do:-

Asparagus berries

There is still a decent amount of salad in the beds -- mostly lettuces and endives, though at this time of the year we are eating less salad, which somehow seems less appropriate in the cooler weather. The Cavolo Nero and root veg seems more appealing.

Endives

The Rossa di Verona chicory is looking OK, though it is growing very slowly. It's pretty hardy, so I hope that it will survive to maturity before the weather gets really cold.

Chicory Rossa di Verona

The plants in the ornamental border were looking good as well. Here are some pictures of the Cornus (Dogwood) bushes.





Leaves of a Dogwood bush

All in all, I'm pretty satisfied. Lots of stuff looking nice, a few crops harvested, and no damage to repair!