Autumn was always our grandmother Harriet’s favourite time of year. As a Norwegian, who moved to this farm in 1939, she associated it with foraging. Foraging for berries, nuts and mushrooms — and here we are doing a similar thing, collecting interesting things from the hedgerows to go in our bouquets.
A couple of weeks ago we put together bouquets for Brixton Farmers’ market, and added a few blackberries, just to give our urban customers a taste — quite literally — of the countryside. Feedback on the bouquets, oh dear, another unintentional pun, was that the blackberries ‘made’ them. Both the guys and the ‘ladies’ thought they were a really nice touch. Pretty thorny for me to pick, but I may have to grit my teeth and pick another batch for this weekend’s market, back in Brixton.
Although the nights are getting quite cool, we’ve had glorious warm Autumn days this week. Yesterday I was out on the plot, picking zinnias, dahlias and bits and bobs (see pic) in the sunshine, when I heard a buzzing overhead. I know from an environmental point of view, I shouldn’t really enjoy watching a little Tiger Moth bi-plane circling over our flowers, but when it’s your big brother taking someone for a birthday flight, I couldn’t help but smile. I jumped up and down by my wheelbarrow, waving my arms and calling out like a loony. It did a couple more circles, waggled its wings and was off along the Greensand Ridge, buffeted by the breeze.
The other great excitement on the plot this week was the delivery of 27 tonnes of organic, green waste compost. You got it. Not 27 bags, but 27 tonnes. I convinced Bek that it was cheaper this way, and we would just sell some off to cover our costs. As we’re based on a fruit farm, we’re used to some fairly big lorries coming to pick up the apples and pears, but this lorry was even bigger. Adrian, who works on the farm, came walking across the yard, huge grin on his face, saying ” Do you know what you’ve done!?” “Have you seen this lorry!?” It took up almost half the side of the plot when it reversed on to tip out the compost. We now have a snake-like pile running the length of the plot. It’s already being spread on our beds, and looks wonderful and dark as well as making the place look tidy and well-tended.
Hope you like the pic of the wheelbarrow and flowers. The ‘bushel box’ has got our great uncle’s name on it and is over 100 years old. They make perfect temporary shelving at farmers’ markets, and also give us a bit of a nostalgia trip every time we use them.
Good to see we’ve got another follower of our blog. He looks very much like our cousin Matt from Oz.