How's that for a squash?

All taken at Wimpole Estate (National Trust property near Cambridge)

Green manure and other things...

Well, I had a quick look at the beds in the orchard today and, blow me down, things were sprouting!
I think it must be the red clover (or, of course, some invasive weed that I wasn't planning on...) but it was very exciting to see.
Intended to take a photo, but then didn't get through the garden gate into the orchard - too much time with Joshua in the fallen leaves, then friends popped 'round. Ah well, maybe shots another day.
And did some raking today. Sort of feels pointless in some ways, given the magnitude of the task, but nevertheless is accompanied by a great sense of accomplishment.

Autumn action

Well, have taken out all the pumpkin/squash plants. They were hit by the recent frost, so the fruit softened and was then munched on by vermin (probably squirrels). Today Joshua and I have weeded and hoed the beds, and sown green manure.
The long thin bed has forage pea - two rows about 20cm apart, and 10cm between seeds. One or two (or in Joshua's case, six) seeds per hole. I poked holes with a stake and then brushed over and trampled up and down.
The T bed has forage pea both horizontal and vertical (poked and covered). The horizontal then has winter tares broadcast and raked in, then flattened with the rake. The vertical has red clover broadcast and then raked in. Then flattened.
The corner bed has winter tares, broadcast (quite heavily) and then sort of tussled in with the rake, and flattened by rake.
Loving the colours at the moment...We've done mega work in the orchard recently. I've almost kept on top of it, and Paul and Penny kindly helped collect apples on Wednesday to take to be pressed. Probably about 60-80 kg. Should produce about 50 bottles, with luck...
We've also picked loads for the crumbles. Aiming for 100 this year...

Update (yeah, boring title again)

Well, the last few days have involved some harvest (as mentioned, this has included inventions for the orchard...)
Here's some other stuff we've brought in...
We've had a little bowl of tomatoes. (A little bowl of little tomatoes, in fact). We've had boxes and boxes and boxes of apples (thus the crumble mixture that's being stockpiled in our freezer). I've taken off the last (sizable) squash things (we had a frost on Saturday night, which gave me a pumpkin and squash scare...) Ironically, there are now about 6-8 butternut squashes on the plants outside, no more than 3-4 inches long, and therefore not really big enough to pick. I've left them on, but don't envisage they'll grow much more before being killed off by the weather...
Plant them sooner next year!!!
I would also have pictures of the courgettes (the last of the season), but we ate them on Saturday night...
Tonight we ate some spuds from the garden (sadly, some of them died because I'd stupidly put them in a box rather than in a bag/sack.
I've ordered some onion, garlic and shallot sets last week, that will hopefully come in time to be planted in the holidays!

Time in the garden has also included a fair amount of clearance over the course of the last few days. The Sweet Pea and Tomato boxes have been cleared out. In fact, in the clearance process, I came across something that I thought was very cool indeed:
It's a tomato that had fallen off the plant and ended up buried in the bed. All its seeds have started to sprout! Very impressive piece of design there. It does worry me slightly about how many windfall tomato plants we'll end up with!
The rose bed has been weeded, cleared (the pumpkins in there didn't come to anything) and compost has been added. I've also taken a couple of rose cuttings to plant, with the hope they'll root and grow next year. I've done them in pair to double the chances, and if both of a pair root, I'll just pull one up anyway. It was a 20 minute job, so if it works, I figure I've saved some more cash!
I'll blog again soon about what's been going into all these beautifully cleared spaces :)

Apple picking.

Well, 'tis the season, and it's fast approaching the 'crumble' time of year... So today saw apple picking. The most exciting thing about this was the apple picker. I've just done a blog on it, so if you want to see what about an hour's work can achieve, with coat hangers, home-made 'catchers' and poles, go check it out.

Yet another...

Well, this is a quick update on things in the garden...
The Team have done some proper chopping in the front flowerbed, which may just have motivated me enough to create some sort of cutting-garden type thing. It will involve far more digging, but could be fun to do.
Out the back, I've dug up the lavender. No, not the stuff I've been carefully nurturing along the drive, but a plant that was probably nibbled on by dinosaurs in its younger days. It's created a rather bare patch. (Well, lots of weeding may have helped!). The patch will probably have some of the bedding plants that are still being 'brought on' on windowsills around the house.
(Yeah, the manhole cover isn't the most attractive thing to have in a flowerbed - we've got one in the flowerbed opposite too...)
Meanwhile, in terms of harvest, the toms that haven't died a horrible death (which most, regrettably, have) are pumping out their crop.
And the carrots sown a little while back have been thinned (a few days ago...) and are growing merrily. Well, wetly, probably. It's a bit damp outside for much merriment.
Can't be bothered to write any more atm. Am shattered and it's only 8.00.

Just catching up...

A couple of things done recently.
I finally put some more compost/soil in the boxes, but the toms and sweet peas don't seem to have done much better yet.
Beef toms probably won't ripen before frost
Red cabbages taking a hammering from darn caterpillars.
Carrots peeking out of the ground.
B'nut squash sat on a tile growing happily.
Have fed squash, pumpkins and toms (on tom food)
Filled up courgette tubs a bit too. They still look unhappy.
Ate a couple more raspberries.
Tidied veranda (wow, such fun).

Need to:
sort lavender gaps
sort marigold gaps
prune raspberries

Consider ordering some sweet potato slips...