August weather.

 Cool with some wet days, above average rainfall. Two grass frosts this month.

August vegetable garden, apples and seeds.

Alfie and Zoe love peas so we grew 3 beds of peas this year and no broad beans.

 

Purple sprouting broccoli have been slow to get going but are finally making some growth, they are staked already and will be tied in as they get taller. Most years, by the time they are fully grown in April, there will be some purple sprouting broccoli plants topping 5 feet tall!
 Leeks are growing in the bed behind.

This is the Swiss chard bed, it is full of self-sown poppies, borage, nigella, nasturtium, These will die down by the winter when the Swiss chard comes into its own.

 

Onions have grown well this year, sweet peas on the left.

 
Phacellia for bees, Nicotiana for moths and corn, in the background, for us.

 
 In a couple of the sweetcorn beds I have grown runner beans and climbing french beans. I am not really sure if it's working! It's a bit of chaos although all seem to be thriving. Leek flowers there too, for the bees.

 
Tivon and Alfie shaking poppy seeds out of the dried flower heads.


 Alfie, being a little boy, does as little boys do. He finds the wine/mead syphon and uses it to blow the seeds about!

During June/July we had a couple of weeks with the gravel covered with plants drying out on sheets in the sun to collect seed. This is the poached egg plant seed collected, more than will fit in the 5 kg molasses bucket! A couple of years supply and loads to share.

The orchard door is surrounded with blackberries and Japanese wineberries.

 
Apples,

 
and more apples.

The first apples August 16th. Looks like it will be a good year.

It is a good year for wasps too, We have a German wasp nest near the house door which we all walk past every day, and 4 common wasp nests around the garden, and counting! Wasps eat garden pests (such as greenfly) and are very good pollinators,  Live and let live!

August polytunnel.

There are Earth Star fungi in the small tunnel again.

Several earthstars are growing under the fig tree.

Another year, another years supply of tomatoes!

Alfie chopping straight from the vine into the pot.

 

This one is a triple cherry.

 

After the tomatoes simmer in the pot we make passata, Tivon loves to help with this process!

Figs, peaches and nectarines.

 
Black hamburg grapes and tomatoes. 

August Garden.

 Echinops, the flowers have such wonderful form, one has to try to forgive, or hide, the bedraggled late-season foliage. August 11th.


August 29th bees are enjoying the open Echinops flowers.

Mint in flower is fantastic for bees and butterflies.

The small pond, August 30th.

 Heron at the big pond, August 30th.

The Swamp cypress, Taxodium distichum, at the big pond is drawing my eye at the moment with its soft lush foliage.

 

The bed at the small tunnel, forget aesthetics, this is a bee feast! Sedum, Stachys, oregano, monarda, Aster...

Cosmos, Allium and poppy, the bees are happy.

I found it hard to capture this on camera. One of the Stachys byzantina, lamb's ears plants was covered with baby shield bugs.

Alfie is sitting on the picnic table with the chain saw hat on sawing, with his hand saw.

 Another day, Alfie spent half an hour dead-heading the Stachys byzantina, lamb's ears, with the utmost absorption.

He also put all the dead heads into his wheelbarrow and took them away! 

 This is the top of the Eucryphia x nymansensis, it is covered with blossom and alive with honey bees, such an uplifting sight and sound.

Magnolia grandiflora, Bull Bay, in bud. August 26th.

Magnolia grandiflora, Bull Bay a different flower open, August 26th. Not everything here is for bees and butterflies!

Alfie's apple pie.

Alfie chopping the first cooking apples of the season.

Cutting pastry to fit the tin. I rolled the base, Alfie rolled the lid.

Making holes to let the steam out.

Alfie's apple pie. Ingredients, flour, butter and water for the pastry, with egg wash on top, and apples.

... and to go with apple pie, Ice cream.... Alfie skimming the cream from the top of the churn.

No more photos but the ingredients are... Cream and milk from the top of the churn (from Kerry cow Amber), egg yolks (from the hens, I'll spare you their names), vanilla essence and honey (from the bees, as yet, unnamed!). 

August Cows.

 

 Amber. Hopefully in calf, still giving milk.

 

Heather. Amber's mother. Hopefully in calf too.
Sooty and Clover evaded the camera!