END OF SUMMER...

Suddenly hit with a drop in the temperature, cool nights, squalls and thunder for good measure. All this in the last few days, but we have little to complain about. After the long summer which seemed to go on forever we are reminded that winter is not too far ahead. There is plenty of dry firewood and soon enough we will be putting a match to it as we ponder over the carefree days of summer. Daylight saving ended last weekend and since putting the clocks forward the days are drawing in.

There is plenty to be getting on with in the garden with weeds sprouting up out of nowhere, oxalis in particular continues to be the bane of my life and needs spraying with Roundup before it gets any worse. Once all this dies back we can prepare the gardens for spring planting. Brassicas need to be planted, but white butterflies are still about so they will need to be covered in the meantime.

There are quite a few of these Splendour apples ripening against the fence and the Ballarats have all been used up already. It will be interesting to see how well the new apple tree with 3 varieties produces next season.

The snails are still chomping their way through the dahlias and rhubarb. There are still a few stalks left and soon enough they will die down over winter.

The last of the grapes... not sure if they will continue to ripen. This is the black variety and is really sweet.