Sunsets

The weather has bucked up and we have had some gorgeous sunsets.

Home Grown

Amazing things have been happening in the garden and vegetables are actually large enough to eat, very exciting.


Courgettes, (one got a little large) runner beans and a nasturtium flower, all good in a salad.

Carrots. the small one had a little problem, the others however are splendid.

Still small and green, hoping that these tomatoes will swell and ripen up soon.

Sadly of the 3 small pumpkins, only one seems like it will be a real pumpkin. I think that the cooler weather may have made the plant decide to put all its energy into just one fruit. 

It is a little warmer today so I am hoping that the plant will come up with another female flower and we could have another pumpkin on the vine.

One of the poor apple trees has produced a few apples. 

Sadly the blackbirds were attacking the fruit, so I picked what I could, it is a bit early for apples, but things have been a bit off this year weather wise and I felt if I did not pick the apples there would be none left thanks to the birds, who were really annoyed with me for picking the apples. I did leave them the ones they had already pecked into.

With the small plums I made some jam. 

Bugs

Here are a couple of bugs that have been helping in the garden.
A ladybird, voracious eaters of green fly. 

This one spent the night sheltering in the agapanthus that is about to open.

And this is a bee who was very kindly pollinating the marrow plant.

We Actually Had Rain Today

First thing this morning it was cloudy, but no rain.

I picked some peas and froze them for Christmas, and then took the basket and collected some sweet yellow and red plums.

I may freeze some later, after cutting the stones out of each and every one of them, it is a bit of a chore, however, better then crunching on a stone at some later date.

Yesterday morning it was sunny and I spotted this pheasant in amongst the barley.

The orchids are looking particularly good at the moment.

Last evening I spotted this little hedgehog, I hope he has brothers and sisters who are eating lots and lots of slugs.

Motorway Travel

So........
Apparently the powers that be, have worked out that travelling at 50mph along great stretches of the M3 is pretty darn boring.

So they have placed some helpful messages to relieve the boredom.

Sorry that I did not get a picture of them all, I was so shocked that it took a while to realise there were several. Also the photo quality is rubbish. 
But, you get the gist of this.

Does that infer that you stop all the traffic and get the whole motorway helping?

Do they wear their PJ's?

Then ......

Just to add yet more fun and make sure the drivers are all paying attention, the M25 had these trundling along.

So much for 'Let The Train Take The Strain'.

Things Are Growing in the Veg Plot

Still short on rain here, so the watering that we have done is definitely paying off.

We have dwarf French beans, they are almost magic as they are a beautiful shade of purple when raw, but, that goes and they are green when cooked.

We have the very first, all 2 of them, runner beans.

 I made a salad and realised that all the ingredients were from the garden, (not the balsamic vinegar) lettuce, beetroot, French and runner beans. 

Yum.

 The pumpkins seem to be growing, although a third one does not look like it will make it, what a shame.

 I think this is the first marrow, well at the moment it looks like a marrow, just as the pumpkins look like they will be pumpkins, however, because of the wind all the seedlings got mixed up, so until there is a fruit/veg I have no idea what plant it is, the leaves are remarkably similar and it is just too difficult to tell.

 This is the first sunflower, it is very yellow, rather than traditional golden yellow and the great thing is that it has lots of side shoots so when this flower is over there should be more to follow on. Makes me very happy..

What a difference a week makes.

I had taken this picture a week ago and thought that the corn looked pretty ripe.

Until I took this picture today!

I do not know when harvest is, so we shall see how things look next week.