Winter Solstice

The Holly and The Ivy

Tiny Tim

'He' has discovered the seed I put out for the robin.

Meruhen Kabocha

Just split open my only Meruhen Kabocha squash. Beautiful thick dry dark orange flesh. A tip-top fruit which tonight will be cooked with chestnuts, rice, sage, and butter. A recipe found on the internet.

Murder Most Fowl!

Jardin au Crépuscule

The weatherman predicts 0° tonight. We have shifted the lemon tree into the greenhouse.

Senescence

Time to recycle nutrients, but here and there, small pockets of resistance.

Still In Bloom

"Nasturtiums and other Indian flowers are still in bloom: a sure token that there has been no frost."
Gilbert White
November 11th 1772

The temperature has dipped as low as 2° at night this past week, but has been hovering between 8° to 10° during the daytime. Good weather for getting on with the pruning, weeding and tidying.

TPS

A few King Edward potatoes formed fruiting berries. Now harvested, cleaned, fermented, dried and stored.
Oh the possibilities!

Bird Bath

I have overhauled, weeded and removed the box edging (done in by the box leaf-mining caterpillars) in the central circular bed. And the birdbath - pieced together from ceramic shards I have collected along the Thames at low tide - is now sited in the middle on a plinth high enough to be clear of any feline intruders.
Motif inspired by Tom Waits.

I am distracted...

... from my distraction by a distraction.
I'm watching a little video explaining biochar and my eyes wander below the line where I read that if I want to see an albino squirrel I should look at the upper right corner after 35:35. And, yes indeedy, there it is...

Cabbage Wrap

The 'January Kings' that I sited on my hügelkultur started off with great promise. But as summer progressed they just sat, unblinking, hidebound. Above was the biggest - a scant 6 inches in diametre. I realize (a couple of mushroom blooms was a clue), that I didn't get a good balance of composting material in the mound and it must be too acidic. Something I am currently trying to redress.
The row of 'de Wädenswil' cabbages did very well in another part of the garden and I've got two 3 litre crocks of sauerkraut fermenting in the potting shed.

Hot Chili Peppers

... still going strong in the greenhouse

Annual Group Photo

A total of 53 lbs. of squash here. The big green hubbard up top is a 20 lb. monster, the picture doesn't do it justice.

Un-Earthed

autumn colours
  without a pot
    of red-brown soup

Matsuo Basho

And now to prepare the perfect recipe for sausage (as described in Tampopo) I must get a wild boar to eat the yams, butcher it immediately afterwards and then roast it's yam-stuffed intestines.

Some Potatoes

"It was one of those deliberately lovely Roman autumn afternoons, when walking is a climax of crisp joy with the thought of a cup of tea as the final finial." Hadrian VII Baron Corvo