I love our garden. The plants, the wildlife, the seasons. These are some observations about it, not from an expert but from an enthusiast. And a few other ramblings besides.
The glorious sunshine of the last few days has done a good job of ripening the winter squashes so they should store well through the winter. The onion squashes are a bit on the small side considering how much rain we have had, but the butternuts have been prolific. It looks like I will need a few more traditional garden trugs.
This wet summer hasn't been kind to butterflies. Only the cabbage whites seem to have thrived.
But during these last few days there has been a flurry of small tortoiseshells, particularly on the over ripe apples. Maybe the fermented apple juice gives them courage to face the winter.
Last year we waited until mid October to make apple juice, but this year we have started earlier. This weekend we made 15ltrs from 5 tyre trugs filled with Katy and Discovery apples. The juice is light, fragrant and a wonderful deep pink.
Compared with the later greener varieties, there seemed to be a lot more juice. Or maybe its just an upside of all this rain.
