Harvest time

I love this time of year, but parts of it are so fleeting. Like the period of spring when the blossom trees bloom and for a short time pink petals turn trees in to candy floss clouds and sprinkle the pavements with nature's confetti. Autumn also has it's fleeting beauty, apple trees weighed down with fruit, conker collecting, catching the best of the autumn colours as the leaves turn and fall. They all happen so quickly that sometimes I'm scared I'll miss it all. There is always something so stop and appreciate at this time of year. And right now for me it's the harvesting phase.

I used to do so much with my little garden. I was having a good old trip down memory lane the other night reading old blog posts and I found this photo of me sitting at the bottom of the garden, feeling very sick and sorry for myself while pregnant with Alessi. But look at the garden!

There's not much in the way of lawn. The majority of the garden was dedicated to the chickens and my vegetable patch. Fast forward four years and the landscape has changed dramatically. The chicken run has gone, the vegetable patch has been pushed back and the garden is almost entirely lawn again. And this is exactly as it should be. The garden is and will continue to be for years to come, Alessi's domain. Also, since she was born and even more so since I started the business, gardening has been right on the bottom of any to do lists, if included at all.

So it's with some pride that this year, despite not having spent much time out there and the slugs and snails eating the shit out of my sunflowers, I still have a healthy, albeit small, garden harvest of apples, sunflower seeds and strawberries from the hanging baskets. Which FYI, is a brilliant way to grow strawberries if you're pushed for space, as well as making it a lot easier to keep slimy critters off the fruit!

And although I've never tried it before, I harvested the seeds from one of the strawberries too. Fingers crossed these will grow in to lots of little strawberry babies next spring because I have another project in mind involving a pallet. My husband is THRILLED. 

So we are in full autumn mode here in Casa Bliss and I'm loving these moments of calm because in all other areas, things are pretty chaotic! We have one more week of Alessi's settling in hours (her school does them for a whole month) and the lack of a consistent routine has been challenging for all of us. Autumn has been our consistent and steady anchor.