My Garden - October 2025

Dear Gentle Reader

October is the 2nd Brrrr month of the year, and came in with rain, and chilling days. Although the sunny spells between showers are always nice. October is the tenth month of the Gregorian year and has 31 days. It was originally the eighth month in the Roman calendar, derived from the Latin word octo for "eight," but became the tenth month after January and February were added to the calendar. In the Northern Hemisphere, October marks the arrival of fall, bringing in colorful foliage. It is also associated with holiday like Halloween. Boo👻🎃🦇🍬🍂🕸️🕷️😜😁

Just a taster of the scary stuff in the Range 😁👻💀☠️👻🦴

On my way to work I couldn't not stop and snap a few pics that made me think of Monet and Van Gogh paintings. It was like I'm stepping in a world of colors and hues, emotions and feelings. For an artist Autumn is a timeless subject. It's said that nature is the best artist, creating canvases of eternal beauty in nature. I'm an autumn child too, was born in autumn and I love wearing autumnal colours and looking at this palette of colors I could only smile. I always liked Autumn with all it's tantrums, bounty and beauty.

Wild clouds are gathering above my garden, storm yellow warning is issued. It's very windy, raining outside already, my poor trees are bending in the wind like reeds, but I'm sure they won't snap, I'm hoping they won't. It's mad weather outside. The garden and footpath is covered by a rich colorful carpet of leaves, randomly piled up at the street corners. Some alleys were covered by debris and fallen trees. I just hope and pray everyone will be safe and sound. Rain and wind continued the next day too but not as wild as yesterday. Even the sun occasionally peeked out announcing a calmer, warmish day.

"In the hush of October, the world holds its breath in color" - how true the person who said this was. Looking at the landscape as days go by, colors like a caleidoscope was over trees, bushes and hedges creating their own Autumnal Symphony. It's like every deciduous tree in the forest got on fire, figuratively speaking of course. 

Today (the 7th) is the day when the last bits of yummie I grow in the big greenhouse will be harvested. Tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers, aubergines and grapes gave me a late crop. Although I have lots of green tomatoes, that will ripen inside tucked away between newspaper prelonging the delights of summer.

Although I discovered tiny aubergines are still growing, I'll water them and feed them tomorrow and hopefully I'll have a few more before the frost kills them. I had 2 huge bunches of grapes sweet and juicy. Also tomorrow I'm planning to sew some winter lettuce, spinach, that will give me fresh leaves all through winter (more about it here). Weather permitting I also  need to clear the greenhouses, plant onion and garlic sets. Right now we were chased in by the rain that wasn't in the weather charts....oh well, tomorrow is another day :) 

Yesterday and the day before yesterday ( the 8th and the 9th) I was out planting my garlic and onion sets. Read all about it here. 

Look at that huge clove of garlic! That's the Elephant Garlic, I put a hardneck garlic clove next to it for comparison. I also got to harvest my only Honey Crisp apple which was huge, so brought it in, and shared with my family. Everyone got a 1/4 and some. I must say it was oh so juicy, with a bit of sharpness, but not like the Granny Smith Apple. It was lovely. I hope I'll get a decent crop before I get to push up the daisies 😜😂. The celery and green kale keeps giving still. 

Sunny, warm days slowly step out of the picture leaving place for the gloomy, damp, wet, cold autumnal days. Today outside is coldish, drizzly rain, however I guess even these days have some sort of a charm in them. I do love the light, the texture that of this dove feather peppered with raindrops. 

Yesterday I went shopping with hubs and I caught that dramatical landscape in Tesco's Carpark. If the buzzard could sing I'm sure it would sing "Somewhere over the rainbow...." 😜😁😂. However in my garden the red crabapple got even redder since the last time I saw them, it's colorful leaves randomly carpeting the lawn around the tree, as the cheeky wind keeps plucking on it's autumnal canopy "dress". It's raining today (30th), the raindrops tap dancing on the window creating their own music, while the wind is chiming in adding its own tune to the orchestra. It's cold and gloomy outside, I just hope the weather will turn a bit kinder for all the halloweeners gone trick or treating outside. 

Unfortunately the end of the month didn't have a happy ending. My family has lost an icon in my father-in-law, he was a good parent to my hubby and sister-in law, a great grandfather to his grankids, a gentleman among gentlemen, an excellent musician and an amazing carpenter. He will be very much missed, but never forgotten. Rest in peace, fly high dear man 😥