November

 It has been unseasonably hot for a while now, but the weather has turned much colder now, more like we would expect in November,

Night time temperatures are dropping to 2 or 3 degrees and day temperatures are not often in double figures. We have had 54 mm rainfall in November!

Some of the plants are so confused, have we just had spring? what happened to winter? or dear hear it comes!

In the garden we have a nice clematis growing over an arch, Sunset, it usually flowers in May and June. Most of the foliage has died off for the winter and now we have a flower!

Other plants that seem a bit confused because of the really warm weather we have had in October and early November are:

                                                    Campanula

                                                    Rudbeckia

                                                        Echinacea

                                                        Echinops, all the flowers had turned into attractive seed heads many                                                         weeks ago and then another flower spike came up!

                                                           This flowers in the summer!

November Figs!!

We have a large fig tree trained against a south facing wall and I have taken a cutting from this which is now against the east facing wall in the fruit cage. I believe it is Brown Turkey.

The fig has 2 crops each year but rarely does the second crop ripen in this country.

In 2020 we had a fantastic crop 462 figs. They start to ripen in July with the bulk being picked in August and an odd few in September and early October.

This tree was getting out of hand, even blocking the door of a nearby greenhouse. So in the winter 2020/21 We gave it quite a drastic prune.

As a result we only picked 29 figs in 2021, most in September.

In 2022 we have picked 97 figs, 22 in October and amazingly 3 in November.

These were certainly from the second crop, they are usually hard green and small, they have to be removed over winter to stop the tree using energy in the Spring to try and ripen them.

The effects of a very hot and exceptionally long summer/autumn.

You can see here the small green second crop at the end of October and one has ripened. When ripe they swell and  turn dark brown droop downwards and are soft to touch. All the leaves have already fallen off.

A fig in November ready to eat.