Time for the tree following link again on 7th September

Linking in with Lucy at Loose and Leafy blog.
Here is my pink flowered Horse Chestnut as we head into Autumn

The leaves are starting to turn brown, we've had very little rain here for several weeks and the few conkers are still hanging on. They are completely different to conker shells on a common Horse Chestnut, being smooth and golden rather than green and prickly.
We've a lot of tidying to do later in the year, there are some small maple and ash trees growing up again after being cut to ground level a few years ago. They need cutting right back again to let more light/moisture into the fruit cage.

Still no email from inquisitive1ady re winning the draw for the self sufficiency books. I'm not sure what I should do if I don't get a reply, how long do I wait? I've never done a giveaway before and assumed that anyone who had entered would look to see if they had won and reply straightaway.

Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday about Lakeland. I think they are good value for some things but not for their chocolate, food and Christmas stuff. I suppose SOMEBODY must buy it? Our local Lakeland shop in Ipswich is in one of the oldest buildings in the town, The Ancient House and is all small rooms and stairs up and down. There is a small courtyard, lots of plaster pargetting and beams and one room has a display of things found in the house when it was last renovated. It's one of the places people visiting the town always stop to photograph.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

My Tree in August and not much else.

A very quiet day here on the smallholding. We had sunshine then rain and then sunshine again. C worked at our neighbours- more hedge trimming, here doing various odd jobs and also went to collect feed. I just pootled around here, housework, scotch eggs and trying to get a book finished before the library van comes tomorrow. The only excitement was finding a cauliflower ready!

Here's the pink Horse Chestnut in August. It's leaves are darker green, one or two brown patches on some leaves probably due to lack of rain over the last few weeks. As I said last month very few of the lovely flowers turn into conkers. I can only spy about a dozen or so over the whole tree, they're still quite small,  so you really can't call this type of Chestnut a Conker Tree and it would be very disappointing for small boys wanting to take part in a conker match.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Joining in with Loose and Leafy; Following a tree through the year

Tree Link up + Forgotten little red jewels.

It's the 7th of the month so time for linking up with Loose and Leafy for following a tree through the year.
My tree is our Horse Chestnut, not the one with white flowers but a

Ruby Horse Chestnut tree is a particularly choice clone of a hybrid horse chestnut, resulting from a cross between the European horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) with white flowers and an eastern North American native (the shrubby Aesculus pavia) with red ones. It is a better landscape plant than either of its parents and should be planted more widely. 'Briotii' originated in 1858 from seed grown at the Trianon in France

The flowers are long gone and  have started to grow into the cases that hold the conkers. There are never as many as there would be on the common Horse Chestnut.

 We are not really sure how old the tree is, maybe 50 years?, this give some idea of height compared to  a  6 foot fence.

With the branches coming right down to the ground, under the tree is shady, here's a closer look at the trunk texture.

And what are the forgotten little red jewels?
 Redcurrants!
I'm  sure I've not mentioned them before. Did I sell any last year? I can't remember. I know I put lots of bags in the freezer because several are still there. But this year our 6 bushes are loaded with  little bunches hanging down, and now most are ready to pick and sell. So I went on the supermarket comparison site to find a price and none of the supermarkets had any for sale. We could corner the market!
I  picked several and decided to sell them in the 250g punnets at £1 a punnet, which is probably cheap but they are not as useful as raspberries and I would rather sell them for £1 than NOT sell them for £2.

 I popped the blackboard out and before long the first four punnets had gone. So I picked some more and they soon sold too. Maybe £1 was cheap!
In between all this, 2 loaves and some bread rolls were made and C was laying the small paver stones outside the new shed door.
Before all the above we had picked and packed all the other things that were ready to sell today. Look what happens when you have two wet mornings and forget to harvest the courgettes!

Back tomorrow
Sue

7th of the Month Following a tree link ( a day late)

Whoops, should have done this on the 7th

This is linking up with Loose and Leafy where you will find lots of other people who are recording the progress of a tree throughout the year.

My tree is the Horse Chestnut that stands in our garden just on the left as visitors come through from the campsite to go to the front door to check in.
It has pink flowers rather than the more common white.
Now heading into summer the flowers have almost gone, changing into tiny fruit that will grow and look slightly like their conker relation but not so prickly.

The arching branches come right down to the ground so underneath is a very shady place.

 Lovely sunny Sunday here in Suffolk
Back to normal posts tomorrow
Sue

7th of the month Following a tree link + other stuff.

Joining up with Lucy at Loose and Leafy blog to follow a tree through 2014. My tree is our pink flowered  Horse Chestnut. Someone planted a conifer hedge behind the tree and it's also near the hedge boundary with some Ash trees on the third side, which have been cut back frequently because to the right of them is the fruit cage where we have raspberries, red currants and gooseberries.

Pink candles from a distance

and closer

A shady spot underneath

I think lichen shows we have lovely clean air here on the edge of Suffolk

I've decided that after I've saved up for my new Roberts Red Retro Radio, I'm starting a new fund for a digital SLR camera. I just don't get on with the little Canon digital. I'm old fashioned, I want a camera I can look through. I had a cheap Russian SLR camera way back in the 1970s and it took lovely photos until it got sand inside.

Now onto today's news
Both of us had more energy today so C started the day loosening the soil on last years Brussel sprout bed and then after an early coffee he went to our neighbours for grass cutting. I did the ironing then wheel-barrowed some compost onto the bed, ready for him to rotovate in.
We then  got 10 courgette plants out, it's quite windy today so we've put an old tyre round each plant until they get established. Wind can do them a lot of  damage - twisting the stem.

Later he prepared the bed for the climbing French beans and got some canes up ready. The beans have been moved from the conservatory to the cold-frame to harden off but we will still wind a bit of fleece round them when we plant them out in a few days time.

It's going to be a bad year for bugs, caterpillars and other nasties. I've been checking the gooseberries for sawfly caterpillars every couple of days and there are lots and greenfly too plus we've already destroyed one wasps nest this year and it's only May. If you have gooseberry bushes it really is worth looking for any half eaten leaves which will usually have a caterpillar underneath. Varying from the size of a dash like this - to about a centimetre long they can eat their way through the leaves on a bush in next to no time  I usually squash them by folding the leaf around them and squishing.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Following a tree through the year

I've just signed up to follow a tree! That sounds as if a tree got up and walked and I snuck along behind!
As usual when it comes to technical bloggy things I'm not sure what I'm doing but I think I've linked up with Loose and leafy blog  to do a post on the 7th of each month about a tree. I should have started earlier in the year and today is the 8th so I'm already too late - story of my life!

These, on the left of the photo, are the sticky buds opening on our Horse Chestnut  last week. The Horse Chestnut is the tree I will be following with photos

 I believe our tree is a
Ruby Horse Chestnut tree is a particularly choice clone of a hybrid horse chestnut, resulting from a cross between the European horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) with white flowers and an eastern North American native (the shrubby Aesculus pavia) with red ones. It is a better landscape plant than either of its parents and should be planted more widely. 'Briotii' originated in 1858 from seed grown at the Trianon in France.

I didn't know that in the States the Horse Chestnut is known as the Buckeye, so I've learned something already.
Here is our tree today

We are not sure how old it is, probably around 40 years at a guess. (This is an awful photo- must try and keep still when I click!) It was already a good size when we moved here in May 1992 and  it was a treat to find it flowering with pink flowers, taking me back to primary school days where we had a huge pink flowered Horse Chestnut in the playground.
Who ever planted this tree unfortunately put a row of Leyllandii very close. We can't remove them as they separate our garden from the campsite. I'm sure they have restricted the growth of  the Chestnut.

I completely forgot to mention that April 4th marked one year of blogging on Blogspot after my trials of using Wordpress. I've made so many blogging friends during that year. It's been brilliant. So a belated thank you to everyone who has read, commented and hopefully enjoyed reading about our quiet Suffolk life.

Back tomorrow
Sue