A beautiful bounty

Have you noticed all the wonderful signs of autumn appearing everywhere you look? Isabella and I took a walk in the lanes and fields above Falmouth Bay on a rather dull grey afternoon to see what could be foraged. Unfoprtunately this picture is all I have left to admire as my little one ate every single berry we picked - well, with just a little help from her mama of course.



I so love the rich colours of autumn fruit: the mix of glossy berries as the light glances off each perfect, tiny globe makes me almost sigh with the need to translate it somehow onto paper or fabric or any medium at all, hence the fact that my camera is rarely away from my side. The following weeks will see me scribbling ideas into my notebook like a squirrel foraging its bounty away for a time of less colour and overburdened hedgerows, and when the light becomes that leaden tone of deepest winter I shall at least have these to cheer me until the spring arrives once more.



All this fruitfulness also heralds the start of wine making in the Poltiskofarm household with bowls full of blackberries, rosehips and sloes lined up on the worktops waiting to be turned into sloe gin or wine or cordials. The children are all past masters at knowing which fruits are worth the picking and how to judge the best time for gathering sloes (we don't wait for frost in Cornwall as it is too mild and the birds will have had the lot by the end of September). They also know how important it is not to strip plants bare, understanding that wildlife benefit from these important crops too.



We are lucky in that all the children from 25 year old Tom who really can hardly be called a child to 2 year old Isabella have a real love of this time of gathering, and quite willingly join in on the walks and the subsequent frenzy of making that inevitably follows. I love seeing them all sitting around the kitchen table pricking the hard, dusky sloes before bottling them with gin and sugar for one of the best drinks of all.



All our apple trees have done well this year and will provide the basis for crumbles and tarte tatin with its gloriously sticky, buttery juices...mmm. Yes, all we need is a little (!) sun to help things along with that beautiful, mellow autumn light and I will be a happy Pip sewing away a little autumn goodness of my own with a glass of the good stuff keeping me company.

Time flying by.

Where is the time going? I can't seem to keep up with the children, the seasons, the world....ah well, let's have a glass of something nice and let it all flow past. Here is me and my nose (sigh) enjoying a glass of elderflower champagne on the wet and windy day that was the solstice.





Our champagne has a slight problem this year in that it is making so much fizz it disperses almost as soon as it is poured into the glass leaving a faint tinge of disappointment. It starts well as can be seen in the picture below, but just doesn't last - such a shame as the taste is just unbelievable: nothing like the elderflower cordial (still time to make some people and our recipe is here), it's a different, deeper, just beautiful flavour that fills the mouth with gorgeousness. Oh I can't explain it but it is just the best. Well, apart from the disappearing bubbles which are so violent that they burst our pressurised beer barrel - we don't make anything in small amounts here and had to fill a couple of kegs with the stuff! We will work out the problem and how to resolve it and in the meantime just sip away.






The weather this weekend was appalling: rain, dull, grey and dull again. The sun did make an appearance on Sunday for a while, but I was glued to the sewing machine and was unable to take advantage of it unlike Mr Dave and the children who popped off to the allotment. The grass there was rather long and so Dave tackled that while Elias and Lucy sowed seeds of various vegetables which they forgot to write the names of - they'll have great fun guessing what they are as they grow. I, meanwhile, felt a great sense of satisfaction at boxing up this little lot of lovelies before starting work on the next wholesale order...phew!





The garden is going through a change with agapanthus flowers just beginning to break, loosestrife and margeurites vying for attention and hot pink lychnis peeping in and out of the greenery. The posy at the top is composed of chive flowers, alchemilla mollis, yellow loosestrife and feverfew; not the best photo as the light was so poor, but a burst of colour nonetheless. The redcurrants are ready for picking - in fact I think I have missed some already - and look just wonderful; I like to use them on pavlovas or on top of cakes as a decoration, but I might freeze some to use with berries later on in the autumn in a mixed berry cordial.





That's it for today. Have a lovely rest of Wednesday everyone xx