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Yes, some of the junk has been removed from the coffee lounge - but some remains, in this shot. In the next picture you can see what awaited me in the upper closets - sigh - more garbage!

As a breather from junk, here are a few of my mini-zucchinis from the allotment. It began to get colder, so I knew they would all rot and die soon - so I picked them small and young. I actually found them yummier that way.

Looking at the bedroom - you can see I have extracted a small olde fashioned rose from the garden to naturalize and brighten up the bedroom - and my new modem, as I changed ISP.

Now...back to the coffee lounge and serious work - an antiques dealer paid me £35 for a few bits and Liz took me to the tip a few times - and I was left with some space to sweep and clean! Other than my work and paint items, little is left in the room now.

You can see it looks much nicer in the niche without great big wooden objects full of junk cluttering it up!! My imaginative mind conjures up what will go in there - a computer space - table and fruit bowl - bookshelf - make doors and use as a shed....hmm.....

My favored chore rewarded me for spring cleaning my bedroom, toilet, upper hall and stairs - reordering the pantry!

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It is a very rare occasion that there is no laundry to do - but here is proof that it has all been done - three empty laundry baskets! It was warm and windy weather and while my son was away on vacation for a week, though.

Here is my mid-October wine collective. The next major project is my coffee lounge - as you can see, I have let the room go somewhat - mostly because its the last place with junk left in the house. The below picture shows my way from kitchen to back door - and the rest of the room is basically ignored.

Liz gave me a lift to the tip - twice - and we removed some of the junk including the stereogram. This left me the chest of drawers, upper closets....and a pile of 'stuff' to sort out...

Gradually, things are getting cleared...3-4 bags of books and some bric-a-brac have now gone. There are still things to go though. The first photo below shows some of the stuff we cleared last week - along with my sons gum boots and my paints...

This is the hook secured to the inside of the kitchen door - which leads to the coffee lounge. Eventually, when the antiques guy visits this week, and Liz helps me get rid of more stuff to the tip after, I can clean the room over properly. At this point, I will remove the door between the coffee lounge and kitchen and place the hook on the pantry instead. (I need it to hang wet coats on - but I do NOT need the door)

UPDATE: The antiques guy came last night and spent £35 clearing some junk - I now have to sort out what is left, clean, paint and furnish the room...

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Here we go again - with a day's harvest of autumnal produce - a green lumpy squash, a few raspberries, 1-2 tomatoes, a 'hot lemon' chili, and a handful of runner beans. And again, have another similar selection from a different day of early September - beans, tomatoes, chilies, raspberries - and hazelnuts. The nuts are actually from someone else's yard - the gentleman I clean for once a week offered me some.

This brings me to my main October project - re-covering the poly tunnel. The first step is to cut down the weeds surrounding it - as you can see in this shot, there are tons of them. You can also spot some garden spiders with large webs that I have enjoyed observing near my kitchen window recently. In the meantime, I have been grabbing crops -

- a recent outburst of turnips and mooli are topping up the veg, along with the chilies and a few tomatoes. I have not got many tomatoes this year - as ants munched my seedlings. You can also spot a few autumnal raspberries. In the second shot, bramleys from the tree in the yard join the mooli, turnip, 2 spuds, and 6 green lumpy squashes collected on the 3rd day of the month.

And we are back to a range pf photos taken down the plot in early October - the first shows my old rhubarb and black compost bin up the far end - the neat patch beyond, before the fruit bushes, is where I have my broad beans, garlic and shallots planted. Since taking this picture last week, I have now dug out the rhubarb crown in 5-6 lumps and deposited it down the end where 'freebies' are put for other plotsters who might want it.

This shot shows the other clump of rhubarb at the other far end of the plot - the new crown. As you can see, it is doing well enough for me to have faith in it producing my crops for next year - so long as I surround it in horse muck and rhubarb leaves and remove weeds. Also in view are the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes - with raspberries beyond.

my final shot for today's blog post is of my 2 blueberry bushes, my onion patch, and some dug over/weeded ground - read to grow in 2018. My aim is to remove grass/weed paths and make them all as seen above - trodden mud.

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Uh...more crops! As raspberries thinned to the odd half dozen, blackcurrants and gooseberries filled my freezer bags on plot trots. The gooseberries are now ripe, so better eaten than stored in the freezer for cooking later on - hence gooseberry crumble was the breakfast menu for a week or two, 4-5/7.

This is the front pathway. Most local people who scream in horror and start cutting back the plants, fixing the concrete base to conformity, and then relax. I like it as it is. I cut back the brambles from the path, so it isn't prickly, but 9/10 I let other things overflow from border to path. There is no reason to cement up the path itself in my eyes either - why should it be smooth? What is wrong with bumps and dips - unless you have a wheelchair going over it, which we don't?

Another round of crops! I pulled quite a handful so I had a good selection to enter the local village show with. Pictured above, the stalks I did not enter and below my entries - for 'rhubarb' and 'longest rhubarb'. I did not win 1st, second, or third place though.

Here are another batch of crops, from August 2017. Amongst which you can see a couple of large spuds. The large white one was perfect inside and out, while the biggest spud I have as yet grown red potato was half rotten inside - the other half tasted good and was enough for one potato though!

Tomatoes are coming at around 2-4 a day at present - but I am keeping up with them so far. Finally, for today, Let me share with you 9 packets of seeds that I purchased at the local Wyevale towards the close of the month.

Wyevale have a sale where seed packs only cost 50p each annually - and alerted to this at facebook via the allotments group, I ventured out to grab my bargains for the year, arriving just after 9am on the second day. I paid £4.50 in cash - but if it were not for the sale, this group would have cost me £26.50!!!!

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Let's see how my food situation is going as of early July. Above you can see my freezer is stacked with fruit mostly - though the odd bag of chili, corn, peas and ginger are there some place. The fridge also is filled mostly with fruit.

Pie filling, fruit ready to turn into a crumble, and fresh berries line the top shelf - while a half eaten gooseberry crumble stars on the second, beside the mushrooms. Even the pantry contains plot produce - 3 jars of raspberry n rhubarb jam are stashed behind the spices, while 2 jars of pickle appear on the shelves.

Finally, is the fruit bowl full? Um...yes! Well, maybe not finally - here is the result of using some of the fruit for breakfast one Mid-July morn - blueberry, blackberry and banana rice milk shake and avocado - yum!

Here we see I have been busy in the kitchen - 'getting rid' of excess fruit in the guise of 'making jam'. I should say 'attempting' to make jam, perhaps - as this batch failed to set. It left a right old mess on the stove - so the day after my attempt at 'mixed plot fruit jam' - yet another jar or 3 of pie-filling, sigh - I was scrubbing the stove top clean again.

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Back home, this is the status of my fence-hedge area, leading from kitchen window to bird bath. A beautiful purple poppy from Liz who doesn't like them very much any more, a transferred red olde fashioned rose, and more nasturtiums star between privet and hawthorn.

In this second shot, you can also depict the purple plant Liz gave me, along with my yellow and pink rose transfers. Below is an update on the azalea - flowering well after a late start due to transfer. A right pretty sight under the kitchen window.

Bindweed readies to flower, offering happiness to bees and butterflies, cascading down with the prickly berry tree and hedgehog hotel, hidden by the privet lump. Geraniums and alpine strawberries pop into view if you look carefully.

Looking down towards the bird bath - which is almost hidden in our summertime - you can barely make out our path. Below a close up of the olde fashioned roses - white and red in view - along with Liz's purple poppy, nasturtiums, hawthorn...

Looking backwards towards the house - the same patch looks quite different - the lychnis plant and purple tall thing Liz gave me are easier to see and you can just spot the azalea below the kitchen window in floral abundance to the right. Talking of plants Liz gave me - this is the latest. I am uncertain of its title - but apparently it flowers in sunlight. I therefore popped 2 bits under the small apple tree - and one in my main bed.

It has since flowered with a bright reddish orange flower.

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This shot from the plot shows my July status of the other strawberry bed, cauliflower area, some more onions, and rather a few too many weeds - which alas have had to remain for several weeks due to having so much soft fruit to pick!

 

Here is my 2017 leeks bed - doing well - with more onions and some runner beans beyond. This shot of my salad bed shows the odd left behind radish, 3 patio tomato plants and a squash of green/acorn variety, along with a few lettuces.

This picture portrays the beans and much of what I have already shown. It also depicts how close to the car park I am - and our horse muck area. I am thankfully situated not too far from this, as I only use a metal bucket which is wearing out and no longer has a handle....

My rhubarb and smaller compost bin star in this shot, with gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries behind. My rhubarb is a jolly good plant - and I am hoping to pop a few stalks into our local village flower and produce show this year - I was toying with doing so last year, but chickened zero. The next plant I took from this is doing fairly well - though its full of stalks, they are much smaller than this established plant, so I will leave it til next year to eat them, and pick this one to the bone in August - when there is room in the freezer to store it...

This shot from the plot shows the smaller rhubarb plant, with new gooseberry and transferred blackcurrant bushes, raspberries, leading to chilies and blueberries - and the shed. My nasturtiums also appear - yet again.