Hazels, courgettes and damson jam...

We've lived in Hazel Cottage for a year now.  Much of the first few months was filled with painting and sanding and cleaning, but in the last nine months since the snow and ice we have been preparing, planting, harvesting, and turning that harvest into something edible.  We've done well for our first year here - we have grown and harvested broad beans, beetroot, radishes, salad leaves, apples, carrots, courgettes, silver beet, garlic, tomatoes, and cabbages, leeks, onions, and squashes are still growing.  I have established a culinary herb garden and look after the flowers and shrubs whilst he looks after our veg patch.

It has been a very creative time, I've got interested in baking cakes and preserving and even stretched my sewing talents to make some bunting.  We both love cooking interesting things and finding antique items for our home in car boot sales and antique shops and ebay.

It is starting to feel like autumn is creeping in now that hazelnuts are pouring off our hazel tree in their thousands and spiders have taken over every nook and cranny.  I've made chutney and damson jam and am planning to do several things with the ton of apples we helped to scrump (with permission!) recently. 

The advent of autumn makes us both very happy, with its promise of darker evenings and frost and the smell of apples and gently rotting leaves.  Our squirrel has appeared in the garden looking for hazelnuts and it wont be too long before the swifts disappear and the robin starts watching our gardening efforts again.