My garden in October

I ended last month’s post wondering where autumn was, well it definitely arrived! In less than a month, while there are still glimpses of sun, the weather has most definitely changed. So much so, that there’s a nod to winter’s arrival already too. That’s reflected by how much time we’re spending in the garden too - at the start of October the weather was still warm and sunny, so we started (and finished) painting the trellis around the heat pump. Between us we covered the three outer sides, then MOH quite literally picked up the brush to complete the inner three sides, once we’d replenished the paint.

The result is a much smarter housing for the heat pump, which now blends into the garage rather than being the prominent feature. It’s no surprise that this was one of the first jobs we tackled as even when we were viewing the house, this was something that was on our list.

WE DID PAINT OVER THE 1990S SHELL SUIT DIAGONAL DESIGN!

This month I’ve been tracking the mahonias and hebes which have started to do their thing. We had neither in our previous garden, though many years ago there was a large hebe at the end of our garden - it had grown so big that it didn’t enjoy the pruning we gave it, oops! Here though they’re smaller so we’ll be able to control those more - they’ve some really pretty flowers too, at the start of the month the flowers were just starting, so I’ll save the pictures for later in this post.

We have two mahonias and I’m keen to see how each do in the spots they’re in. One definitely has more sun, and it’s that one that I’ve snapped during the month. The other is in the inner border, and it’ll be interesting to compare them - though it’s currently much smaller and less developed. They’re fascinating plants, this one I’ve snapped leaning over the wall to get a top-down shot of it in the outer border.

As well as this there’s been other major news. Remember the potted rosemary that I brought with us from London, which I thought had died? Well, it seems not to have died after all - early in the month I snapped this admittedly blurry photo, with its returning green tips. Most bizarre, but perhaps it wasn’t a fan of the spot it was in - too much wind maybe? Anyway, I’ve moved it somewhere a little more sheltered to see how it gets on - hopefully it will pull through, but even so I may get another just in case.

You may have seen my post last week about Bramley Apple Day, well my crab apples have been having their say this month too. I wasn’t sure when to harvest them, and if I’m honest I think October was too late - they looked more apple like in September, so that’s something to note for next year.

They turned a glorious yellow shade though on the tree, with the branches truly overladen with fruit. I’d hoped to pick them and use them to make crab apple jelly, but even in the first week of the month I think they were too ripe. So a bit of a fail on using them, but definitely a learning point.

The hebe flowers are making up for it though, aren’t they delicately beautiful?

And look at the difference to the mahonia during the month - I can’t wait for this to burst into flower, and for the top to be crowned with its yellow flowers.

As you can see we still had gloriously blue skies in the middle of the month, and the butterflies were still regular visitors to the buddleia which is clearly enjoying its stay of execution - I’m so glad I went on easy on it, though it’s also blessing me with plenty of seedlings in the gravel so I know that if I choose to move it away from the tree then I can, as long as I do some pre work to ensure that if it doesn’t go to plan, I’ll have a backup plant ready to put in its place.

Towards the end of the month, and after Storm Babet which gave us a month’s rainfall in a single day, causing lots of problems and flooding throughout the county (thankfully though not for us, though the fields near to us did flood), the crab apples took a turn for the worse, and the poor tree looked even more laden down than before.

MOH gave the grass its last cut - once again prompted by the brown bin collection - and it was clear that more and more of crab apples were falling onto the grass, so as the tree was growing a little taller than we’d like we decided to give it a trim. The ladder came out for the first time since we’ve been here and I gave it a gentle prune, realising that the branches would spring up once the weight of the fruits was removed. I left them longer than perhaps I would have cut them, reasoning that if anything were to happen to it over winter, there’d still be room to manoeuvre.

It still has some fruit, though much less than before, and its retained its shape. Our plan is to keep this at a height that we can manage ourselves, but also to make use of the fruits. Since I made my autumnal wreath I’ve also plans to incorporate some of the fruits into next year’s version!

The rowan tree is also looking quite autumnal and suffering a little from Storm Babet, but I think that adds to its charm.

But it really is the hebe flowers for me this month. I’m not sure I’d ever looked at the detail of them before, but they are exquisite.

And talking of detail, I couldn’t help but take a photo of the dew on this spider’s web on our garden furniture.

Another pretty thing, though I’m less keen on its inhabitant not that it was anywhere to be seen - it was most likely making itself comfortable indoors, but that’s a whole other story!

Garden ornaments and Bramley Apple Day

One of the things we like about Newark and the surrounding areas is the relatively large number of independent and antique-type shops, but one of the things we’ve done very little of since we’ve been here is visit shops like this. In fairness we’ve had a lot going on with getting our new house how we want it, and our trips into Newark have been almost entirely functional.

However after having dropped MOH off at the station and with some time to myself ahead of an appointment I had time for a little mooch around, finding two new-to-me vintage shops which I know I’ll be back to visit.

One of them, based in an old Methodist Chapel has plenty to explore, but what caught my eye immediately were the iron garden ornaments and signs.

They were reasonably priced too, so I’m sure I’ll be back at some point as these would look great in any garden, but something that adds height and structure is definitely something I’m keen on for our new build garden. While I have some ideas, they’re very early stages and something like these garden ornaments could definitely help both in the short and more longer term.

There were also stacks of the traditional hooped plant supports, what I would have done to know about this place for our previous garden. I’d often see these types of plant supports in gardens we’d visit and admire them, but the garden centres near us in London had nothing like this, or at least not at prices I’d be willing to pay. Now though, I just need some plants to support but that will come!

The only other picture I snapped in here was of these vintage metal signs, mainly to remind myself to go back and look at in more detail, as I’m sure there will be ones that will make us smile, some for brands we may remember and many more to admire too.

I’m very much of the opinion of the more you look the more you see.

Which I know makes sense, but often when you look regularly inspiration strikes and if you’re very lucky then you might find something that’s absolutely perfect that you didn’t know you were even looking for! As someone who likes a quirk to their decor (which is thankfully mostly accommodated by MOH), these shops provide plenty of opportunities to add something with character into the mix.

Bramley Apple Day

Being new to the area one of the things we’re doing is keeping an eye out for local events, mostly this is through Facebook groups, but not always. There’s a lot going on, especially in the run up to Christmas with plenty of local fairs and Christmas Markets appearing almost weekly.

We went to one, and not a Christmas related one, last weekend. We saw that Southwell Minster were holding a Bramley Apple Food and Drink Festival in the Minster, and as it’s somewhere we’ve been a couple of times now we thought we’d go along.

We didn’t realise the significance of the event, or of Bramley Apple Day (28 October), though as we approached the town we started to get an idea that it was bigger than we’d anticipated as car parking spaces were few and far between. We tried our usual two car parks, both were full and ended up in a third getting lucky with a space.

As we walked back through the town towards the Minster we spotted a lot of apples, and a lot of shops adding them to their windows, this one even had a sign.

Still not realising the full significance until later, when I learnt that the first Bramley apple tree was sown in Southwell in 1809, and the original tree is still there, which seems incredible. To be honest I’d never thought about when or where an apple would originate, but there’s a lot more information on the Bramley Apples website if you want to know more.

Consequently it’s a day, a week after the UK’s national Apple Day, that is celebrated in a town that’s about half an hour down the road. Who knew?!

But anyway, in the Minster there was a throng of food and drink stalls and plenty of people. The church was decorated with apples too and it seemed unusual to see the refrigerated cabinets in the main body of the church, until you think back to the bible stories and illustrations with traders and markets doing this very same thing. Then it’s not such a giant leap from our more established and traditional views of what a church is and should be used for. I’m also sure that churches, of all denominations and sizes up and down the country, like many businesses need to diversify and work with and alongside their communities to survive, and this is no different. It seems odd at first, but it makes an awful lot of sense.

We’ve been to a couple of events where the traditional church set up has been very much not the setup, and it’s great to see. We left the food and drink festival armed with some local cider, and more unusually a homemade keema lamb curry, samosas and a huge onion bhaji, which are now in the freezer ready for a day when we need an easy evening meal.

Obviously the cider’s not in the freezer, that didn’t hang around for long as while chatting to the brewer he helped us match cider to our dinner the following night - a pot roasted chicken cooked with fennel, celery and white beans. And both were very nice indeed!

Southwell has some great shops too, and once again I found myself looking at things I didn’t know I needed, and wasn’t even sure I wanted. These large glass jars caught my eye, and the ones with the larger necks could potentially be used with a candle, similar to a hurricane lamp I think.

And you can’t beat a florist’s display can you? Hydrangeas and eucalyptus are both favourites, but even so I left the bouquet there - and remembered to add both to my plant wish list!

It’s good to get out and do something for fun every now and then, especially when it reminds you of where you are in the country, and why.

Pepping up the grey

One of the things about moving house is that it unearths your unfinished projects, or as I prefer to call them works in progress. And it seems I have quite a few, so I’m going to tackle that, but only when they call me so that finishing them doesn’t become a chore. That may mean picking them up for a bit, and then leaving them for a bit more - which many of you will realise is pretty much my crafting approach anyway! However many of those I’ve rediscovered, like this variegated grey throw, are so close to being finished, but for one reason or another (and in most cases it’s the making up) they’ve been stored away for another day.

This one I’d carefully laid out and decided on how to place the variegated grey outer squares. And I still like that, so that’s good. But, well, it’s quite grey isn’t it? And the greyness doesn’t really sing to me - the work is good, but it’s still quite grey.

The pattern, and what originally attracted me to it, was based on Portuguese tiles with vibrant blues and yellows. I’ve no idea now why I decided to go grey, so I’ve decided to pep it up by adding some colour.

It seems by go to colours for adding colour are pinks, oranges and yellows - and I’ve nothing against using them all together.

I remembered that I also had a bag of small yellow granny squares that I was also planning on using up somehow. I’d thought about making them into a mat for my new drawers (more on that another day), but it didn’t feel right. But they are right for this project though.

I thought my adding some colour could work something like this, with an inner round of yellow and further colour added on the outside with yet to be made squares - as you can see this is very much a thought in progress type blog post.

I soon realised though that I’d need to amend this slightly so that the grey outer border didn’t have gaps. My revised plan now looked something like this in my head:

By laying out the actual squares on the floor I worked out I only needed to make about 10 or so more yellow squares, which were the result of what now seems to be very productive lunch breaks while I was working. I’d take my lunch and the wool and hook I kept in my desk drawer and find a bench to sit outside if I didn’t have other plans, and quickly created a pile of small yellow grannies, which I’d bring home a few at a time.

And so while working on creating the extra yellow squares needed I also started to sew the grey and yellow squares together, still thinking how to incorporate the red, pink and orange wool I’d pulled out. Plain granny squares are easy, but can be a bit dull. I didn’t want full size squares though as I thought having them offset (because of the yellow cross border) would make me twitch.

Then I remembered the vintage sweethearts blanket, which I’d made great inroads on sewing together before we’d moved (but haven’t picked it up since!) and remembered there were some mid-sized squares there which could work.

And I think they could, so once I’d completed the additional yellow squares I started on these.

I’ve chosen three different designs for the pink squares, above is the first design - I’ve already started on the second one, but I couldn’t resist a peek at what the pepped up throw might look like.

It’s feeling a lot less grey, which feels good!

This is also the first time I’ve picked up a crochet hook since my Carpal Tunnel surgery at the start of June - and no ill effects, and that feels good too. Especially as I have the wool for a new knitting project on the way, more on that another day - but needless to say it was love at first sight!

But for now I’m enjoying less grey.