…and boy oh boy is it chilly. Night time temps are negative at the moment. We have a bitter wind blowing but the large citruses have been wrapped up for winter and all the others are in the greenhouse. The hens have makeshift cladding around the hen house in an attempt to keep the interior above 3℃ overnight. The greenhouse has both a hotbed full of horse manure and a 1 kw fan heater. The former is running at 45℃ and the heater kicks in if the air temperature drops below 5℃. Although I’d prefer not to use the fan heater I don’t want to lose all the produce that is growing in the raised bed. I am at least made less guilty by knowing that our electricity comes from completely renewable sources. Thank you Planète Oui.

At the moment the tomatoes are surviving well and the fruit is ripening albeit relatively slowly. From the greenhouse I am still picking coriander, sweet cicely, spinach, purple basil, lamb’s lettuce, lemon basil, wax peppers, giant basil, chillies, tomatoes, mizuna, purple pak choi and lots of other things I’ve forgotten. As I like salad for lunch every day it is a treat to still be picking fresh produce.

In the vegetable garden purple sprouting broccoli, cabbages and cauliflowers are coming on a treat. We and the hens have finished the Chinese cabbage which was a real draw for slugs after a massive downpour that lasted several days.

Heavy winds saw off the rose arch on the way into the potager so I bought a couple of metal ones from the internet and tied them together to make a decent sized replacement. Stakes in the ground have held it firmly in place and have survived some real gales. Despite challenging weather, we still have roses in several parts of the garden.

The hens aren’t very happy as I’ve had to make a temporary wild bird proof run for them since the outbreak of bird flu that has Europe in its grip. As if Covid wasn’t enough.

I’ve had another delivery of horse manure which is already pretty well composted, so that will go onto the vegetable beds over the next couple of weeks.

At the moment I am looking longingly at the seeds on the Real Seeds website. As the UK is no longer in the EU I can’t order from them and my favourite tomato supplier, TomatoEden, has written to say that they are no longer allowed to sell seeds. I’m guessing that they don’t have all the required paperwork according to Polish law so it’s a tragedy that they’ve had to stop selling their fantastic range of heirloom and rare seeds. I checked another organic grower from Austria today but the postage was 16 euros for five packets of seeds, so that’s a no-go too. Luckily I ordered the vast majority of my seeds during September so I have enough to see me through and I can make a real effort to save seeds at the end of next summer.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Jim Felici’s house to pick olives. Amazingly none of them seemed to have olive fly. After soaking them in water for a week I loaded them into a tub of brine where they will now soak for around five months to remove the bitterness.

In the car park beds I removed some dead lavenders and replaced them with some pale ceanothus and Sterling Silver caryopteris clandonensis. In the courtyard I planted three beautiful Liquidamber Slender Silhouette. The ground is solid schist so I had to plant them in raised beds. I’m hoping they’ll find their way through the leaves of rock eventually.

Here are a few photos from this month.