Early autumn

A bumper autumn for sweet chestnuts. The paths are full of their fruits and empty cases. Grey squirrels are caching the abundance.

A big dahlia provides a welcome nectar source for a queen tree bumblebee stocking up, accompanied by hoverflies and a glorious red admiral.

Tree bumblebee queen

Tomatoes now limp towards the finish line. I pick them at the earliest hint of ripening and place them in the sunny window to redden. Overnight temperatures are dropping to single figures.

A paltry harvest of dried climbing French beans. Although down on last year, we still have a useful crop of dried broad (fava) beans. Ive chosen the 100 plumpest dried beans to sow.

Garlic bulbs planted today using big bulbs from this years harvest.

The vacant vegetable garden beds are thick with chickweed which is harvested for our neighbours hens.

Fruiting bodies of fungi are appearing; in the woodland garden, the Bolete Mould. It is parasitic on various species of bolete fungus.  It begins white, becoming pale yellow and then golden yellow. 

Bolette mould

My team are on the radio, losing a game they should have won. I forego the second half. The lawn has recovered well and is now thick and difficult to cut due to the morning dew, the rain and the lengthening shadows cast from the trees preventing drying. Grass grows at 6C and the warm early autumn sun has accelerated growth. There is an unrivalled pleasure in a freshly-mown lawn.

The greenhouse has been jet-washed and panes cleaned with rags. You can now see the garden through the panes of glass!