September Remembers

 

I believe Autumn will arrive quickly this year. The trees are already stressed by the prolonged heat and drought the Summer brought, as a result, many have dropped their leaves early already. Fruit and Nut yields have been affected too. 

Early Leaf Fall Caused by Drought

Apples and Pears, normally abundant by this time, are often very small or even non existent this year. We have been out and about searching all our regular trees but the yield will be sparce this year for sure.

Tiny Apples

Hazelnuts, in the city and on the common, have been affected too, the nuts falling early and many with the shells empty, without kernels. Generally, when I collect these nuts, I do it gradually - I know a couple of trees on my route to work and fill my pockets on-route each day, they soon build up.

Hazelnuts

On the gardening and produce growing front, we have struggled to keep the vegetables watered sufficiently, lugging watering cans up and down the garden from our water butts. The Butts (We have 10 blue barrels) were already dry by June and we subsequently had no significant rainfall until September. It's been difficult to keep things alive and we will be reassessing our situation during the Winter, and increasing resilience for next year.

Gardening and Home Grown Produce

Elderberries are having a great year, seemingly unaffected by the weather. I will be topping up my port-wine supply to keep us going over the dark months. I recently harvested our grapes, which have thrived well on regular buckets of used washing up water. I made two gallons of delicious red juice, so it does show that you can find successful work arounds. More on this later...

Elderberries

The good, old fashioned Medlars that grow in the University grounds are looking nice and healthy and we will be looking at them briefly during my presentation for the British Science Festival (17th September).

Medlars

Next month I will be looking forward to Walnut gathering, Grape wine and Sloe Gin making and possibly even Chestnuts.

Yuletide Traditions

Another Yuletide is looming fast and the stormy weather has been perfectly suitable. We have been busy with all the normal preparations and arrangements. We cut our own Christmas tree from a local quagmire (nursery) and this has been a fun, and inevitably muddy, tradition in our family for years. Then we spent about 2 days in the loft hunting for the lights, which were actually buried, deep in my son's bedroom.

Venus has been shining brightly in the East each morning. I'm far from superstitious, but I'm sure that this will be bringing love into our homes. Although, just in case, we did also pop out and harvest a big carrier bagful of mistletoe, to hang around the house. This also always makes a welcome gift to friend and neighbours.

I have also been siphoning & bottling this season's cider, and I'm pleased to report that it is tasting mighty fine already, and will only improve with time.  We are looking forward to adding some spices and mulling several bottles, to take to parties.

We also have 2 gallons of fine rose wine to bottle, this is the produce of our grape growing escapades this year. Obviously, this needs more time to mature but all the signs are good and I have high hopes for it being drinkable!

Harvest Moon

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is once again upon us. A baleful harvest moon illuminated the evenings of the equinox weekend, and the traditional Autumnal storms came billowing in from the Atlantic. None of this prevented us from breaking out the Apple pressing kit. 

We had been harvesting loads of Apples and on the Saturday, we set about pressing them into 35 litres of juice; I filled my demijohns, and several gallons are now merrily bubbling away, tuning into cider. The remaining juice was pasteurised and bottled up, ready for the forthcoming year.

We also collected enough Pears for me to produce my essential annual stock of Chunky Pear and Walnut Chutney. We still had Walnuts and Hazel nuts left over from last year, and fresh ones are falling already, early, like so many other things this year.

It turns out that the 2018 weather was perfect for vineyards and it promises to be a special vintage - we harvested our own grapes from our allotment and produced several gallons of tangy juice, most of which will be fermented into a new rose wine, Chateau Vin du Witts Hill, perhaps.

Sweet Chestnuts also look like they will be falling soon, we will be out gathering, and competing for the largest, fattest fruits to bring home and roasting them on our fire as the cooler, darker evenings draw in.