Harvesting Apples in October!

October is a time when fruit is plentiful in our garden.  Apples are never in short supply, and our sole humble apple tree produces more than enough fruit for the two of us.  It is a special feeling to be picking home-grown fruit straight off the tree or from the ground and it never ceases to amaze me just how many large lovely apples there are.

The challenge is trying to find clever ways of preserving the fruit so that none of it goes to waste.  We are storing boxes of apples in our rather cold garage - the old saying about "one bad apple" springs to mind so I am making sure that no apple touches another to ensure longevity.  Easier said that done, when there are four boxes full of apples and limited space in our garage.

Colourful Chilli Harvest - Apache, Cheyenne and Gusto!

Apache, Cheyenne and Gusto Chillies

We are growing three varieties of chillies in our garden, Apache, Cheyenne and Gusto.  The fruits are a variety of sizes and are different colours upon maturing - creating a lovely composition of greens, oranges, reds and purple.

The Apache chillies are small and red but hot and fiery and by far, the hottest of the three. The Cheyenne chillies are a milder tasting chilli of medium heat that ripen into a bright orange.  And the Gusto chillies, we have picked green or purple-green but they are really meant to be a lovely deep purple. 

Delightful Sweet Peppers from the Garden!

The month of September is a time when chillis and peppers are all in abundance in the garden.  From growing bell peppers (also called sweet peppers, capsicum), I recently discovered something that I rather embarassingly, did not know.  In the past, whenever I have bought a tri-coloured pack of peppers from the supermarket, I always assumed they were different varieties of pepper. But, in fact, the green and red peppers are really all from the same plant - they have simply been picked at different stages.  So, the green ones are actually "unripe", and the red ones are the ripe versions of the green ones.