She's a' blowin'

It's coming.
I can smell it and I can feel it.
The early mornings now are veiled in that amazing low level mist. I can't even photograph its beauty it's so raw and fragile. When I open the curtains and look over the allotment, a shroud of white, wispy mist that is not even as high as some of the plants, levitates until the day begins to warm.

That first fall of early leaves has begun.
The ancient horse chestnut next to the well in the village has huge fruit on its branches. I wonder if we'll see any this year or if everyone else will beat us to it.

We're starting the beginning of fall clear up. We were granted our allotment last week which we are thrilled with, however, as with most allotments that become available, it is neglected and in need of some tlc. Mr Beehive spent most of today upcycling some pallets to make a three bin composter down there and we began some of the clearing of the plastic and beer cans that seemed to have made their way into this long lost plot.
Our next task will be to have the area sprayed - yes, not exactly the organic start we hoped for but unfortunately the ground is too overloaded with those persistent weeds such as bindweed and stingers and, it's a rule that the allotment society seem to have, that they spray before the next owner moves in.
Once the round up has been applied and has done its job, ours will be to dig, dig, dig.
I'm trying to resist (and failing) looking at seed catalogues just yet as we have so much groundwork to do, however, I also don't want to miss the boat and find that I'm then behind in the greenhouse because I didn't think about the early spring soon enough.

In case you're wondering what we're going to do with the veggie plot at home, we are going to turn it over to herbs and more fruit bushes. We found this year that, for the first time, we had a good crop of raspberries and redcurrants. We didn't have too many blackcurrants as we haven't put so many in, nor blueberries. However, now we've been gifted more space at the allotment, we can use the space at home to put in more of these to enable us to have a realistic crop that we can actually do something with.

Here at home I'm drying peppers and chillis from the greenhouse to then preserve in oil I think, although I need to look up a good recipe after having been put off preserving things in oil on reading about garlic preservation and the risk of botulism. This pdf file is a good read to ensure, if like me, you have a glut of garlic this year, you harvest and preserve safely.

We've also lit the woodburner in the sitting room for the first time since winter even though we don't 'really' need it, there is a slight chill in the air these evenings and there is nothing nicer than watching the glow of flames through a nicely spring cleaned woodburner.

How is your early fall/autumn?