Worn out chair

This is what happens to unsafe chairs when Chris sits on them!

Guilty!

Guilty culprits in the beetroot row again!

Pumpkin Loser

Chris's pumpkin and our own - both from the same seed batch!  We lost!!  Chris's weighs 4 stones!  Ours - less than 4 ounces!

Even more autumnal.........

In fact; it's looking a LOT more like autumn at PTC.  With the exception of the Tree Fern, all tender plants are now back in the greenhouse for winter. Al has been busy picking and storing apples in the 'Hut'.  The spring planting around the pond has really grown and matured in one single season.  It's difficult to believe it was only done this spring.  The Virginia Creeper is making its presence felt (in its 2nd year) on the tool shed.  Hopefully by this time next year, it will look even more spectacular!  I can't wait for it to trail all over the roof.

Gardeners' Outing!

Above: Traditional wooden lathe

This week all gardeners had a day out to visit the Association of Professional Foresters' Show and saw the World Pole Climbing Championships and the European Chainsaw carving Championships!  The show is held every 2 years and as well as demonstrating HUGE timber processing/hauling equipment also promotes traditional woodland crafts, skills and traditions.  As well as coming home with a hand made trug and balancing dragonfly, we saw lots of pretty amazing sculptures and ideas.

http://picasaweb.google.com/PamsPhotographs/APFShow2010#

Creeping towards autumn

Above right: Looking across to Woodbury

Above left: The tool Shed

It's beginning to look a lot like autumn at PTC.  Misty mornings, tracks in the dew and glowing colours as the leaves begin to turn beneath the lowering sun.  The Sedums (below) are looking pretty - well, Bluebelle thinks so and, despite a severe haircut in spring, so is the Caryopteris

Apple Harvest

Posts on the garden blog have been a bit thin on the ground of late - due to the lack of a kitchen!  The harvest has continued around us and most of the apples in the photo have now been harvested. Good enough reason to keep drinking Bulmer's best! (which we did at Saturday's ploughing match.) Despite having to scrape off acres of wallpaper and paint ceilings of even greater acreages, garden work has continued. Hedges have has their last trim of the season and the orchard border has been cleared of its last remaining relics - ie. several misshapen, ageing and woody shrubs.  It means more light for the hedge to thrive and room to plant something showier and  more vigorous - when Bransford Nurseries have their next sale!

Except it was moved to Slatehenge!

The Cornus Contraversa variegata (alias The Wedding Cake tree) has been moved to centre stage.  Yes, the middle of the lower lawn.  Such a special specimen tree deserves  such a spot - we hope.  It put on more growth than expected and it's a good time to move it now.  Hopefully it will continue to thrive - in which case it will need plenty of room to display its tiers.  Digging out a large circle of grass followed by a deep hole in such a prominent area of lawn made us feel we should have had a silver spade and that there should have been speeches and applause - even a band.  The reality was 4 hens all heads down looking for worms!
(NB I saw one at Whitlenge Gardens 4' high for £59.99 - ours, now 2' tall, cost £12.00 when it was merely 1' high in April. What price time?)