I had planned to spend the week strimming and on my last day of this trip I finally got round to it.  Greed was a factor here. I couldn’t reach the ripe figs because the old waist high wildflower meadow was in the way.  So that was the east garden sorted.

Then with mighty strimmer attached, I prowled the rest of the garden cutting a swathe and reducing the growth to stubble. Lovely.

I have two enemies on this farm: verbascums and Spanish broom.  They self seed too, too prolifically and cannot be cut down with an ordinary sweep with the strimmer once they get established.  (And I’m allergic to the verbascums.) So you have to pause in your rhythmical work and get out the secateurs and cut away.

This is the reason for about an hour and a half’s silence in the early evening up at the top terrace.  I started with the strimmer but had to down tools to cut out a particularly stubborn broom bush. And then looked around and realised to my horror that this entire terrace was in danger of being swamped by the plant.  Off I went and I methodically worked my way along and up.  How many did I cut? Hundreds. And was so high and the light was fading so fast that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a wild boar or a deer amble out of the forest to have a look and see who was groaning and hissing on their patch of the farm.

I’m going to monitor them carefully in the spring to see if they surge back to growth and send forth their (frankly ugly) yellow flowers and start the process all over again.

Well it beats lawn care.  I’m emptying out the shed in preparation for next week’s demolition.  (Funny, it’s been October on my wish list for the new studio / potting shed for ages and suddenly it’s next week.)

Too many plastic pots and clutter.  I’m determined not to put all this back in.  Well the Floragard is the treasure, those go back in.  But anything that is made of wood will have to be scrutinised carefully. I am looking forward to having a work room that is parasite free.

But it hasn’t been all housekeeping.  I found  a lovely surprise when I went to pick some kale for dinner last night: in the middle of the bark chip path I found a little nest of germinated sweet peas.   It was on my list to sow some for next year, and nature has done it for me.  I carefully lifted them up and have potted them on.  I do like a freebie.

The sun was poised to set; the mountain’s resident raptors circled overhead for the last time; the blue tits frolicked among the sunflowers in the vegetable garden. And still I worked on.The last quadrant was the worst as I was dying to get it over and done with.  But if you are cursed with the desire to do a thorough job then this is what you get.

But now it’s done. Hurrah. The huge lawn is raked and spiked, extra grass seeds sown, all watered. I’d break out the bubbly but I don’t think I have the power to lift a heavy bottle. A three day job; who would have guessed it could take so long?

Tomorrow I promise to stay well away from anything that screams monoculture. 

It’s a bit like working in a factory: repetition and tedium. But only in the methodical toil. The day is perfectly sunny and Septemberish. And what could be better? I am outdoors all day.

All the lawn has now been raked. I didn’t even whoop for joy when I had done the very last swish and twist. But chucked the rake down and flopped.

And now comes the new tedium: spiking. I’ve managed less than a quarter.  So it looks like it might take another whole day.  But I need to get it done: rain is predicted next week, and I have sown grass seeds and moss killer and all sorts of mystery bits from the big British box of lawn care.  And who knows? It may all spring back to its glory this time next month.

Best bit?  Getting such a close up of the flowers in the potager: the two verbenas, the cosmos and the gaura. Too lovely.

Here is the 6pm lawn. I ache. And am about run the bath and try and soak the sore muscles. But it does look better; even if I am only half way there.  I have taken to marking out the lawn in a grid in an attempt to cheer myself up. You make progress down one lone line and feel rather pleased.

I took breaks to cart armfuls of flowers up to my neighbour Daniele.  I’m still cosmos-ing like mad. And I had a huge pile of nicely dried hydrangeas to give too.  They have dried perfectly (losing just half a dozen out of all the vases that Jan made up last week) and it means I have plenty to give away.

On the way back I decided to see if we had any raspberries.  The Balayns have heaps.  But a large mouthful was my harvest. Never mind. Here’s the best bit. Cabbages. Brassicas galore, and big and fat and happy.  You can’t see them easily in the low autumn light, but there are dozens here.

I took off the net now that the butterflies are no longer laying.  And managed to get a lot of the bugs that have had a blissful summer underneath.  If all goes well and the deer don’t find their way in, I’ll have a bumper harvest for the next few months.

Oof. Is this the most strenuous work I’ve done in weeks? I think so.  And it’s such an innocuous looking task. Raking the lawn.  Being a good gardener (and prompted by actually watching an episode of Gardener’s World on TV on Friday night in real time rather than on iplayer on the train) I knew it was time for Lawn Care.

Just rake up all the thatch that has accumulated, lengthwise and then crosswise. A quick mow, then aerate the entire lawn with a fork. Easy peasy.

But the lawn is vast! I haven’t measured it properly, but I think it is more than 65 metres squared.  I’ve come inside for a reviving cup of tea after two hours solid work; and I’ve only managed a quarter of the raking bit. This is going to take all day.  Sorry the pictures are so dull.

Here’s an image to gladden the heart. These are Leslie’s weeds: her invasive asters that she had been giving me all summer.  I have planted them at the worst time of year in the worst conditions. And they are flowering like mad. I love the purple and mauve ones too, which are planted right beside these white ones.  But they never come out in pictures. Leslie has warned me they are invasive, but luckily my much drier soil and harsh conditions may slow them down. And they are planted all on their own in a spare bed (note the rock pile), so they are corralled.

Will these tomatoes never cease? Back for another basket of fruit today. And I think there are yet more to come. But if they don’t ripen I may have to resort to some green tomato cooking. I read one recently where you dip sliced green tomatoes in equal quantities of parmesan and polenta and fry. Sounds divine.

But for now it’s still on with the red ripe ones.  And here are pictures of more havested goodies today: my first batch of quinces.  Heaps more on the tree, but I picked just a few as I was amazed to be able to do so.  The trees had their first radical prune last year and they are rewarding me with amazing productivity this autumn.

The figs are still going strong.  If the weather doesn’t turn too much (and it’s cool and overcast now) the rest on the tree might ripen.  But I do look forward to planting more reliable varieties this St Catherine’s Day.  That’s the date that the wonderful Cochet Nursery sells their bare root trees.  And I’ve already put in an order. Which I must modify to add a few more.

Pause. I’ve just looked at this post. It’s very orb-esque in it’s visual imagery. Here are some upright sunflowers to break up the fruit.  It’s not often I can get one huge branch of sunflowers all looking good at the same time.  They seem to go over so quickly.  But the small garden birds are happy. Lots of seeds for them.

Okay, one last orb shot before I head up to the potting shed and talk to Artur.  These are my harvest of pumpkins this year.  Very small but rather fetching.  The giant ones of my first year in the potager are but a distant memory.  We had so much rain the first year and a half I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  But reality now sinks in – this is a dry garden, with stunning moments of wetness, just not often enough.

Right – to Artur. He is so happy sleeping in a little nest of nets up at the shed I hate to wake him and actually pot seedlings.  It’s the perfect sun trap in cool weather. And he purrs like mad.

I couldn’t resist.  Here is Artur helping me sow winter lettuce seeds.  He has taken to nesting in the warm corner of my potting shed where I have piled up a heap of nets.

The first time I didn’t actually notice him. And then after about ten minutes he let out the smallest miaow to let me know he was there.  He is still shy and doesn’t stay long when I try and scratch his head and pat him. But I’m working on it.

I must remember to leave the door open when I’m away so he can enjoy this little sun trap when the weather turns cooler.

I just hope he doesn’t get attacked by all the red poultry mites the way I do.

Tis the season for gluts. Today we will be taking back kilos and kilos of tomatoes, and apples, and plums. But we leave the hydrangeas behind.  They came from La Blache, a garden where Leslie is working.

The garden is up high above Albon, about 45 minutes drive away from our mountain top.  The views of the dying ferns in the sunlight quite arresting.  But we were more arrested by the sight of all those flowers.  Going to waste!

We went over on Monday to see Leslie and give her a hand in hacking back four very overgrown hydrangea bushes.  And what to do with the flowers? Why, bring them back and use up all the vases in the house (and more from Jobbing) with a dried flower arrangement.

They might not all make it – drying them seems to be either a dark art or dumb luck – but we shall see. They are fetching with their various colours.  And when one is tired of cosmos it’s lovely to have a change.

Ah, at long last a day in the garden.  And that means picking endless tomatoes.  And dead heading cosmos. The potager looks almost normal now; not the thicket of previous flowers.  We have vases all over the place.

And I have even managed to get into the potting shed to do some seed sowing. Winter lettuce.  Cornflowers, poppies and more clary sage.  And I have potted on the cuttings from the summer: gaura, nepeta, santolina.

And for an encore I have planted out the lavender, gaura and grasses that didn’t need to be in their pots, sulking.  They aren’t in their final resting place. That’s a way off.  But I think they are better in the ground than in pots. I was lucky that the last nine days of neglect didn’t see off all my seedlings. But it wasn’t careful planning: just dumb luck.