Shading to autumn

[bunn]

There are still loads of largish figs on the fig tree, but it's been a few weeks now since any of them turned purple and went soft, so I think the fig season may be over. The pumpkin only produced one fruit in the end ( I think I was too lazy about watering in that hot period) but it's a bit of a whopper, and is just starting to turn orange.

4 Spaghetti Squashes so far, but there are a whole batch still on the vine.

I had a whole bunch of nice orange peppers, but (alas!) couldn't summon up the energy to eat most of them.

The grape vine is burgeoning and finely empurpled. I wish Dornfelder didn't have *quite* such large pips.

I really must get on and make some chutney before the drunken blackbirds reel over to the trees and fell the last of the apples.



It's been an excellent year for hazelnuts: I've been having them for breakfast most days while I walk the dogs. In fact, there have been so many that my Hazelnut Hypothesis has been tested and found wanting.

The Hazel Hypothesis:

If a hazelnut is on the ground, even if it looks perfectly ripe, unmarked, perfect and indeed if you actually knocked it from the tree yourself - it has something like a 95%* chance of either having that nasty fungus that makes the nut bitter, or be shrivelled and nasty, or (worst of all) have a worm in it.

If the hazelnut passes directly from the tree to your hand without touching the floor, it is almost always quite perfect.

There have been so many hazelnuts about this year that I've been able to check this, and although the Hazel Hypothesis holds good for the early part of the season, now that most of the nuts have achieved that perfect brown bloom but most of them still have a hint of green, even the nuts you knock onto the ground are good. I can't remember this happening before.

*figure plucked randomly from the air. I wasn't really counting.



Edit: I've just realise that LJ is celebrating 'Talk like a Pirate day'
My submit button has become 'update captain's log, and the little user icon has an eyepatch! Cool!