It’s been a busy time in the garden.

31 March
I harvested all of the almonds and hazelnuts from all trees.  We have 2 of each.

I know that this isn’t garden related, but I also cleaned out the oven.  Now I don’t want to use it again!!!  It looks so nice…

1 April
I cut back the pumpkin vines to let pumpkins ripen more quickly.  I need to pick them all before we go away in case there is a frost while we are gone.  Unfortunately, I always cut off a few unripe pumpkins when cutting back the vines.  It’s so hard to tell where the vines are going!  The cut off leaves and vines filled compost bin 1.

2 April
Issi helped me in the garden.  We cutback the comfrey and put it in compost bin 2.  We also pulled all of the bush and climbing beans and removed all of the pods.  There are still broad beans growing that have self-seeded.  They are covered in flowers and I picked a few pods from them.

I’m going to have to do some work in the compost bins soon.  The loose green material (pumpkin vines, bean vines, comfrey leaves) need to come off the top of Bins 1 & 2.  Bin 3 will be emptied on to the garden, Bin 2 into Bin 3, Bin 1 into Bin 2, loose green material into Bin 1.

3 April
I sorted the apples and pears that Paul picked yesterday.  We now have a fridge bin of apples and another of pears.  There are also some of each in a bowl in the fridge for immediate eating.
Paul is slicing and drying the rest of the apples and pears.  It’ll take most of the week.

I podded all of the beans.  Some of each were kept to dry for seed.  The remainder were bagged and put in freezer for cooking over winter.  The following quantities were frozen (undried beans):
1.66kg peans, 1.73kg scarlet runner, 400g black and 530g gila Indian.