Again I’m late! Yesterday, Thursday it rained from 8.30 in the morning through until 5 in the afternoon; and not just rain, but thunder rattled around for most of that time by which time I had other commitments and couldn’t get outside to take any photographs, today I went outside at about 9 to take these images; amazingly the sun was shining and the day became positively hot (about 24°C). The day of rain was a surprise as the weather had been exceptional; warm, sunny, and no wind since last Thursday.
Today we began harvesting the olives, T-shirts were the order of the day and I really needed sun block as well as sunglasses!
Another difficulty in getting the post up today was the fact that we had no electricity from about 9.15 am until about 1pm, NO electricity means NO internet, NO lights and because we have a deep well that requires 2 pumps one to bring the water up and another to pump it around the house, there was NO water either. Lucky then that we didn’t need water for the harvest and the trays the olives are put into ready to go to the mill had already been washed. when we phoned to enquire why there was no power we were told that ‘work’ was being done and it would probably be finished by 2.30. This is an unlikely time as any Italian workman will be home having lunch at that time so it would either be back on by 1, in time for him (them) to go home or we would have to hope he (they) would return after lunch.
The usual view, not much changed from last week
Looking up from the gate
Buddleja ‘Silver Anniversay’, is much more satisfactory on the slope when I only notice it when it is looking good and can ignore it when the flowers are brown – I’m really glad I decided to move it.
Bedraggled Pennisetum not dried out from yesterday’s drenching!
Californian poppies seedlings, Eschscholzia californica, have grown noticeably since last week, and are forming a thick mat over the soil. I think I will have to pull some out or they will be too congested to produce healthy plants. Perhaps I can interest some friends to come and take some for their own gardens.
Californian poppies seedlings, Eschscholzia californica covering most of the soil!
Californian poppies seedlings, Eschscholzia californica
Prostrate Rosemary
Tulbaghia violacea with bright red Salvia
This persmimon isn’t quite ripe yet.
Persimon, I won’t get to enjoy this one, the flies have got there first
Tulbaghia violacea is the star of the slope in more ways than one.
Tulbaghia violacea
Tulbaghia violacea, all the clumps are flowering better now than all this summer
Tulbaghia violacea
Tulbaghia violacea, lovely star shaped flowers
Tulbaghia violacea
A butterfly is enjoying some nectar on Tulbaghia violacea, but when I took the photograph I didn’t notice not one but two snails also enjoying a meal on the petals!
What’s the weather doing in your part of the world? Is it typical for the season? Is there a plant that is suddenly doing well in your garden like the Tulbaghia in mine?
Best of luck to you with the olive harvest. Having to deal with no water/power is certainly a distraction. I love the star flowers of your Tulbaghia violacea.
Tonight is our freeze warning with lows upper 20s-lower 30s. It seems to come at about the normal time.
Sorry you are getting such cold nights, I suppose it must be helping with the autumn colour, or is it just making everything lose their leaves?
The color is supposed to be quite good this year but haven’t seen much yet.
Things are really shutting down around here, and we had frost this morning for the second time this year. Almost all the annuals have died back. Those California poppies are going to be fabulous, but you are probably right about thinning them. And I love your Tulbaghia, that is a plant I am entirely unfamiliar with.
Tulbaghia is a great plant from South Africa, it does well in very dry conditions, its only drawback is if it is planted in shade the smell of garlic is overwhelming.
I was also going to say, how wonderful that you get to harvest your own olives! How many olive trees do you have? How do you pick them? Please post photos!
I have posted about the process in the past but I’ll report on this harvest next week.
The looking up from the gate shot is exquisite!!! So much form and lushness!
Thank you Nicole, you are very kind.
It’s great that you were able to work around your power problems. I’m hoping that my garden will show improvement if we get some rain – a 20% chance is in the forecast for next week so I have my fingers crossed. We got our 1st smidgen of rain a few weeks ago but it was too little to have much effect.
I hope you get the rain you need. Rain is everything!
The Tulbaghia really is a beautiful flower Christina. We have had some hazy days where the sun struggles to get through, but some stormy days are forecast here too.
We have awoken to another glorious day, perfect (or maybe even a bit warm) for the olive harvest.
And I thought our Autumn was mild – I certainly don’t need sunblock! Hope you have an excellent olive harvest. It’s the Anthemis tinctoria that is amazing me at the moment, I didn’t expect it to flower again, but one of the three plants has burst into new growth and is flowering it’s socks off, glorious. I’ll just have to hope the other two are merely taking a rest and will be back next year.
Today it feels even warmer!
So strange seeing Tulbaghias in flower so late in the year. This buddleja is a fine-looking specimen. I saw another called “Butz” recently which is worth checking out. Good luck with your harvesting operation 🙂
It sounds as if you’re taking all the distractions in stride and keeping things moving along! Your plants all seem to be enjoying the return of wetter weather and the tulbaghia look beautiful.
Frank
Weather here is a bit colder than normal and very wet…not much gardening but I have so much work to still do….still loving the slope and it subtle colors.
Your view may not change much, but the light is a little bit different in each photo you post, so it always seems fresh. The thinning of the Calif. poppies sounds like a wonderful excuse for a garden work party, with take-aways for your friends.
In answer to the question you posed in my blog comments (in case you didn’t come back to read my reply there…and thanks for visiting). I used to bookmark the blogs I liked, but that meant that I needed to check them to see if there was something new. Then I heard about readers. I use Bloglovin. It isn’t perfect, but it does let me know when the blogs I follow post something new, with a link to the post. There are other readers out there, like Feedly, so you should be able to find one that works for you. Since my comments here go through Facebook, there’s no tracking back to my blog like there is when there’s a NAME/URL option.
Having been busy this weekend I hadn’t been back to your blog yet so thank you for putting it here. I’m surprised that there isn’t a NAME/URL option, as I see other commenter’s links both for wordpress and blogger. I usually follow other blogs by email link which works for me.
I love those dense california poppy seedlings – would that they grew like that here! Your olive-harvesting sunshine is a far cry from our intermittent rain and high winds at the minute: a large storm is forecast across most of the UK so we wait with bated breath (and everything in the garden tethered down where possible).
We have had such a wondeful 10 days or so except for one day of torrential rain last Thuursday. My brother in law was here to help with the olives and he was worried about the flight home being delayed becaue of the bad weather in the UK. I do hope the worst of the storm passed you by and tht nothing was damaged in your house or garden.
Your slope is still so pretty! I can’t wait to see all those California poppies in bloom. They will be magnificent! I had to convert your 24 degree Celsius to see what it would be here: 75 degree Fahrenheit, which I consider pleasantly cool! In fact, that was our high temp today, and I wore a light sweater all day!
Temperature is always relative. 24°C was the official temperature, that is the temperature in the shade, it felt a lot warmer actually in the sun!