After October Showers

This week brought days of heavy rain, dull clouds and a few bright hours of sunshine in between the showers. Saturday afternoon, after rain, I gathered some of the last garden fruit before it could be bruised and battered any more. Michaelmas daises were dotted with water drops as bees and hover flies buzzed from flower to flower.

Pears from a tree by a sheltered wall. Some need time to ripen in a warm window.Others are ready now.

With them are late runner beans; a few are still tender enough to eat.


Maybe the last handful of soft fruit for this year?


The wasps have enjoyed this ripened pear, so it can stay on the tree to feed them.......


....while others need a week or two more before I harvest them.


Rotting and spotted with mould, this pear attracted flies, wasps and a red admiral butterfly to taste its sweet juices.


Scarlet dahlias shine in the afternoon sun.


Climbing French Beans have fed us well this year, so the ripe pods stay on the vine to dry and give next summer`s seeds.

Stringy runner beans hide among lush leaves, waiting to give up their seeds. If they are not too tough, they will still make Garden Soup.


We share our veggie garden with friends, who are growing kohl rabbi on their patch. The Cabbage White Butterflies have been........


Rich, glossy leaved and beautiful Red Chard. Worth growing for its colour alone.


The last round courgette, where mice have been feasting for a week or two.

Someone has seen me picking runner beans........


........"Any chance of a bean for me, I`m starving......I`m always starving!"

"Please!"


An old horse shoe dug out of the earth.


Endive leaves have given us fresh salad greens for weeks, but they are toughening now.


Good compost for mulching a raised bed before winter.


Round in the little orchard, which doubles as a wild garden , there are sweet apples to pick........


....and Bramleys to gather and store.


There is a helping paw with the weeding.......


....and Old Dog pulls at grass with his mouth or paddles and digs alongside his gardening Dad.


The mole is back.......


Another bowl of apples is gathered from the trees..........


....while rosehips hang like lanterns in the shrubbery........


.......and the last Crab Apples lie on the grass; a feast for passing birds and foxes and rich with the scent of ripe, fermenting fruit.