Seasonal Confusion.

The art of relaxation/

It has been a very confused season temperature wise this year, just as things got growing we had late frosts which set everything back, the summer months remained cooler with a lot of overcast days, despite that it has been a very good year for the vegetables with the exception of runner beans, we managed just three meals from them. Now as we head towards winter it is mild, in fact on Sunday it was hot, 25c in the afternoon, probably the highest temperature we have had all year. Plants are confused,

Todays harvest.

we are still picking tomatoes, and the Physalis shows no sign of slowing down,

Second picking of the late French beans.

Irish grown grapes, a gift from a friend.

the second sowing of French beans paid off and we are now picking beans again as well as late peas.

Flowers are also confused,

the first of the Hellebores are in bloom, which is about right for this time of year

Wrong season.

but there is also Aquilegia in bloom, and that's not right.

Somewhat early for spring.

Better late than never.

The pampas grass has also decided to put up flower spikes, a few months later than it should.

We also have nasturtiums still happily flowering away,

I love this rose and the perfume is great.

the roses will keep on flowering until we get a heavy frost.

Love the colour of this sedum and the bees will love it as well.

It is amazing how much is still in bloom this late in the year,

Spindle, such a pretty bush and a native.

Lime. ( Tilia)

Red stemmed dogwood.

Beech.

there is also a lot of colour from the trees and hedges that we planted,

Young red oaks, we have planted five of them.

we are very pleased with the colour on the red oaks, they have grown well this year and have given a wonderful flash of red with their leaves.

I wonder how long these will take to compost?

We have collected several large bags of fallen leaves from a local woodland, these are being composted on their own, hopefully to become our seed compost for next years sowings.

Sligo coast.

We have taken advantage of the mild weather and took another trip to the coast for yet more seaweed,

the day has started out dull but by the time we reached the coast is was sunny and warm,

Even on a very calm day you can still find big waves.

we explored several small bays that we had not seen previously and met just one person, he was busy collecting mussels.

We didn't collect any this time as I'm the only one who eats them and I couldn't be bothered to prepare them just for myself, maybe on our next visit, when I'm not thinking about knitting or completing O.U courses. The courses that I'm doing are all interconnected to the Global Food Crisis, which in reality doesn't exist, and Global food Security, which is an oxymoron.
 There was a good program on BBC One last night, Hugh's War on Waste, in which he highlighted the criminal waste of food  in the UK, although it applies to all developed nations.
 It is often highlighted that the average home wastes one third of all the food that they buy, but for some reason what is not often mentioned is the part the supermarkets play in the waste of food with their unrealistic demands for produce to conform to their dictated size and or colour. The program clearly demonstrated just how much control the supermarkets have over their producers, and how they manipulate their consumers.
 I can't see that people are going to change their wasteful habits until they have to pay the real cost of food production, and supermarkets won't change until government steps in, which it won't, the lobbyists have far too much control over governments.
We will continue to grow our own fruit and veg plus poultry, what little we buy in the way of meat comes from the producer. Supermarkets can have our business for utility items, there we have no choice, but we do have choice over what we eat.