The tomatoes keep coming.

For us it has been a bumper year for the tomatoes, and they still keep coming. I have given up weighing them, but we will have plenty of bottled ones to last us through winter. I can't even claim that I had given them much TLC, if anything they got rather neglected, but I did resist planting every one of the side shoots that I removed, I replanted just three of them. This is such an easy way to increase the number of plants that you grow, but the danger is you will be taken over by tomato plants. I ended up with nine vines, all of which have and still are producing well.
I had expected to lose the Sweet Peas when the first frosts arrived, but I am still picking them and they are still full of perfume.

The Sarpo Mira potatoes produced well for us, some of the tubers are huge, this one weighed in  at 1lb 4oz.
We also have a very good crop of Brussel sprouts  this year. This is a crop that we normally have a problem with, and it has rather surprised us  at how well they have done. They prefer a heavy slightly clay soil, or so they say. Our soil is the complete opposite.


 Over the last couple of weeks we had a lack of eggs coming from the pullets house, more correctly we had no eggs coming from the pullets house. These are all young birds who have only been in lay for a couple of months, they are all fit and healthy, no sign of mites or lice, so where were the eggs? I was looking out of the window a couple of days ago and spotted a Magpie, she landed on the roof of the house, jumped down onto the door, peering into the house. It got me wondering, was this the culprit. Admittedly I didn't see it go in, nor have we found any empty eggs shells  but it was clear that it was well used to having a look inside. So I suggested to Simon that it might be a good idea to make a pop hole as the hens entrance, rather than them using the big door, it was only half an hours work to do this and today we have eggs again. I rather think this has proved who the thief was.
                                                                                     

 He also made a pop hole in the original house, this had not been done before as the house is made of plastic sheeting, it was one we had brought over with us from Spain and in which we had stored all our furniture whilst waiting for the big move. We had always planned for it to double up as a hen house as soon as we arrived. We don't like bought eggs, even the so called Organic ones, knowing that the birds who produce these eggs are merely called Organic due to the feed. So once again we are flooded with eggs. time to make more Ice Cream I think.

The veg garden has now been put to bed. The raised beds have had a good mulch of compost and then covered with black plastic, with the exception of the bed reserved for the carrots and parsnips. The raised bed for the new strawberries has also been covered with the woven ground cover, this allows the rain to get through but keeps the weeds at bay. The new plants are due sometime in Nov. The area for next years potatoes has also been covered with black plastic, this is a new area of ground and by covering it this way will make it far easier to dig over come the spring.

This has been one of the most colourful Autumns we can remember. Vivid yellow and reds, rusts golden browns. These are Sycamores on the edge of our land. Hopefully next year we will also have lots of colour from the trees that we have planted.