The Clematis is Flowering. It’s Pumpkin Competition Time.

The Winter Clematis is out. It’s time to launch into a frenzy of preparation for the pumpkin competition. Hopefully the other entrants are all small children so I am in with a chance.

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How to Carve a Pumpkin Properly

A lonely pumpkin lurks amongst cauliflowers. It is hard growing cauliflowers and getting any sense out of them. You get flowers but no caulis. This Pumpkin is the main player. It will be carved, illuminated and sent out to ensure that every evil spirit of bad luck unpleasantness will take one look and go ‘OH NO it’s a pumpkin with a candle in it, I will go and dump bad luck on somebody else, can’t possibly enter that place’. Here comes Halloween.

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Fungi, Foraging and Underground Life

Found these in a hedge. They might be called ‘Chicken of the Woods’. If that’s true they are edible. Or they could be ‘Aggressive Honeyfungus’ less edible for some of us. If you are hungry and come across something like this, don’t eat them all at once, just try one or two for starters and see how it goes.

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Virginia Creeper and Ways to Process Grief

When the world looks troubled, go find a Virginia Creeper, a slow firework to calm the mind. Over summer, while apple trees were fainting in the heat, the creeper was busy, going all out to engulf the greenhouse, vegetables and whatever else it could get its leaves on. Now it is queen of the month.

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Ivy flowers and the Creatures who Love them

If you are an insect the main flower right now is ivy. Pale green and packed with nectar, providing a late supper for everybody getting ready to hibernate.

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