At this
time of the year, while the weather still remains fine, there is just so much
to do in the garden. Here Zissis is busy pruning
the hedge while I rake up the leaves
and branches to be burned in the back field later. Leaves from the trees are
bagged for the time being. Later on, the decomposing materials will be dug into
the garden as natural fertilizer.
The
night-flowers begin to look straggly and are more seed -head than flower, so they need to be uprooted while the plumbago
can be pruned back as well.
The major
chore, however, at this time is harvesting
the olives. This year our yield has been reasonably good, with trees which
don’t often produce offering up a fair
supply.
All
the bending and stretching entailed in reaching the olives higher in the trees,
in beating them off the brances then stooping to collect them is exceptionally good exercise – as is lugging
these heavy crates into the car and then off–loading them at the olive press.
And then there’s that glorious moment when
you see your very own first-press virgin olive oil beginning to pour. Next it’s
decanted into oil cans and set down in the basement as part of our store of supplies for the
winter.
So
that now leaves our pomegranates to
be collected, cleaned and the seeds put in the freezer. They are great when
added to winter salads – they add festive colour and a real burst of flavour. With
the garden looking a lot tidier, perhaps we can spend more time sitting on the
balcony, enjoying the view.
Uh oh – spoke too soon! A kindly neighbor has
just delivered a crate full of quince
and fast-ripening lotus fruit for us. Thinking cap on – what can we do with
those??!!
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