Autumn is the “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” according to the poet John Keats. Writing this in mid November autumn 2023 is turning out to be yet another odd season. There has been no mist and no frost here yet so tender summer plants are still flowering and deciduous foliage is still standing. The autumn coloured leaves are looking good but struggling not to be blown off in the high winds. Once frost arrives leaves and stems will blacken and colour will be drained from the garden. It will then become apparent, as every year, that there is not enough structure from evergreens and a season of replanning and speculation will begin.

With less leaf cover on the boundary trees the garden feels larger as the effect of borrowed landscape is enhanced so neighbouring trees feel part of the garden.

Plenty of mellow fruitfulness was picked from the apple trees which have been generous with their crop this year, unlike the pear trees which have been less generous. The ornamental Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) has been magnificent, its little strawberry like globes of fruit in colours ranging from green through yellow to red, all present on the tree at the same times as the flowers that will give next year’s fruit. The epithet ‘unedo’ is said to have come from a quote by Pliny the Elder ‘unum tantum edo’ which is the Latin for ‘I only eat one’ possibly because the raw fruit is edible but has an unpleasant texture. Carl Linnaeus, known as the father of classifying organisms, abbreviated the phrase and named the plant Arbutus unedo in’ Species Plantarum’ published in 1753. The fruit of the strawberry tree can be made into jam but other fruits like currants, damsons or sea buckthorn make a much better jam. Interestingly, the coat of arms for the city of Madrid shows a bear browsing from a strawberry tree. I have picked the last physalis (groundcherry) from the vegetable garden and the last aubergines from the greenhouse.

Fruits of the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo)

The heavy clay here is become saturated from the recurring heavy rainfall. The consistent wetness has made it impossible to cut the grass while the mild weather has allowed it to continue growing. Fallen leaves are now embedded in the unruly thatch of uncut grass. I only clear or top lawn of leaves and let nature do the rest. This is partly to look tidy but more importantly to remove dropped leaves from the pear tree which suffers mildly from pear rust fungus. All the collected leaves are piled around my young Rhodoendron sinofalconieri to produce a layer of leafmould to mulch the ground to keep it permanently moist.

It was touch and go whether our annual November 5th bonfire would burn at all, so wet were all the prunings, but it succeeded and continued to blaze in the rain long after we had retreated indoors. It took a few days for the precious wood ash to be cool enough to sieve around fruit trees and bushes to give them some potash and help make the clay less sticky.

Mushrooms are popping up everywhere. The Prince (Agaricus augustus) is starting a good colony on the bank above the stream in the northwest corner of the garden. They are classified as good eating but have a subtle bitter almond taste (like Amaretto or marzipan) which we find unpleasant. Clouded agaric (Clitocybe nebularis) grow well in the softwood bark mulch. They are said to be edible but make 1 in 5 people ill so we will not be playing mushroom Russian roulette and leave them well alone.

Clouded Agaric mushrooms (Clitocybe nebularis) growing on softwood bark mulch


Mosses and lichens continue their colonisation of damp wood and are growing well on some of our garden furniture.


The heavy rain caused the stream to flood and spread mud over the paths when the water levels dropped.

Time is running out to eat the Italian chicories before heavy frosts come. The black buckets used to blanch the endives will offer some protection but their primary purpose is to remove some of the bitterness by excluding light, which stops photosynthesis and the production of chlorophyll. This reduction in chlorophyll has an associated reduction in the class of bitter compounds known as sesquiterpene lactones. These compounds also occur in globe artichokes, lettuce, sunflowers and spinach. ’Blanch’ comes from the French word for white as the process reduces or eliminates the green colour from the leaves leaving a bleached white look.These autumn salads lack the sweetness of lettuce but can be blanched (the same word for a different process) in boiling water or griddled. A salad dressing made with honey or orange juice or a sprinkling of dried fruit balances the bitterness.


https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rhododendron/rhododendron-sinofalconeri/
https://www.wildfooduk.com/mushroom-guide/prince/
https://www.wildfooduk.com/mushroom-guide/clouded-agaric/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Madrid#
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_Plantarum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus

Tags: Produce