5 October 2025

The smaller fruit trees have done excellently. Four small apple trees have produced almost 8 dozen apples including this bowl of red James Grieve.  Unfortunately, the big, well-established apple tree produced only two apples this year. Extraordinary.

The pear tree was a triumph – its autumn colours last year, it’s white blossom this year and a rich harvest of around forty pears. I have poached some in a red Merlot  with cinnamon and lemon rind and frozen them in anticipation of tasting some summer fruit on Christmas Day.

Unlike our daughter-in-law who harvested enough plums to make jam, we have not been so lucky. Although Mary-Catherine grew cocktail tomatoes – yellow and red and they are still producing in October. There were several varieties but the best was Sweet Millions. Not such an understatement!

Whilst I eat Mary-Catherine’s tomatoes, she eats the autumn raspberries which I have grown at the back of the garden. They are still producing but the punnets get smaller and smaller now. She has them with her breakfast muesli.

Despite the wind, I pulled out around a hundred corncockles in one of two wildflower gardens. They were in bloom on the day of Colin’s wedding and never suffered from any wind damage. They have strong stalks and swayed back and forth without breaking in stormy weather.

A few were not empty. There were about fifty seeds in some. I harvested the small black  seeds and intend to scatter them in the newly formed wildflower garden in the chicken coop. The harvest of apples  from small  trees and  multiple seeds from  corncockle seedpods  is a glorious celebration of God’s bountiful providence.