It's a good day...

...when the autumn sun is bright, 

you take the veg peelings out 

and bump into a little hedgehog who is snuffling through the compost heap. 

"The fox has many tricks.

The hedgehog has but one.

But that is the best of all."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hedgerow adagio

Colour is slowly being wrung from the hedgerows.

As the summer greens fade, coral and carmine briefly dazzle,

then slip in tatters.

Discarded pantomime costumes.

Leaving winter sketched on the horizon.

Salad or soup?

It might be November but on bright days the garden maintains a distinctly summery tempo. The dahlias continue to throw out dazzling blooms and there will be salad for lunch with pickled beetroot.  

 

  

More fitting for November alas, we have bleak days when mist hangs in the air and virtually obliterates the vegetable patch. Out of sight out of mind, I have to make a positive mental note to gather dinner before darkness.

This weekend I pulled up the old beanpoles and prepared the ground for planting garlic. Nothing complicated... just the painstaking removal of a barrow load of buttercups. The ground was well composted in the spring and if my garlic cloves are lucky I’ll remember to add some lime and wood ash.

As a bonus for my efforts, there were a few wizened pods clinging to the beanpoles, from which I rescued perfectly nourishing beans. They’re now squirreled away in the larder for the increasingly frequent days when a hearty soup is really more appropriate than a summer salad.

And what’s more the larder shelf is comfortingly shielded from the elements!