Flowers, mushrooms and colorful leaves

During this past week, the birches have turned all yellow. Yesterday was a very beautiful, very warm autumn day, today was a bit cooler, though mostly sunny. Yesterday we went hiking through some forests for a few hours, today our dogs were tired, so we only went walking around here a few times. Despite the autumn pushing, there's still flowers blooming here and there - yesterday we walked past a meadow full of flowers - with bees and other insects buzzing around. Mushrooms are popping up and climbing ivy on the balcony railing of our neighbor looks fantastic in its magentas and purples.

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Colors of Autumn

Our autumn this year has been a rather warm one so far. Still, the dropping night temperatures have slowly but surely started to turn nature into autumny colors. On Sunday we went outing in Nuuksio National Park, where there were still some blueberries (bilberries, really) in the bushes. Streets and trails are covered in fallen leaves - even though the trees still look pretty green. Aronia (chokeberry) is of the most beautiful autumn sights, with its leaves turning bright red and mauve, in contrast with the near black berries.

Sunflower, bees and butterflies

One, yes one, of the sunflowers I planted has grown to be a beautiful tall one. At least now I know where to plant them next year. This one is growing right next to our overgrown garden, which is really loved by bees and butterflies. They talk about mass deaths of bees, but there's plenty in our yard! As for the butterflies, I saw the first ones this year in August.

Wild raspberries

I thought we had a couple raspberry bushes in the little forest patch behind the house. I was so wrong! There are huge bushes full of wild raspberries, way more berries than I could ever manage to pick even if I had all the patience in the world. Which I don't have, so 1,5l (770g) was all I managed to bring home and freeze.

Potatoes, onions and berries

Starting to be harvest time. Yesterday I dug some new potatoes and onions from our garden. I did try to get a few radishes too, but they don't seem to like that clay soil much. Berry bushes are heavy with berries. I never had th patience to pick more of those red currants myself, so we had a neighbor pick them for herself. I am determined to go and do some gooseberry and raspberry picking today though. We'll see how that goes ;) 

Unfortunately there's not much else to be harvested from our garden this year. The poor summer, poor dirt, all the other projects etc. sort of took over and ate the motivation. Apples we will have, though a whole lot of them are already rotting into the tree and falling off - not because of being over ripe yet, but because the locusts destroyed the tree a lot in the early summer. The other tree does not bear too much fruit this summer, but those few apples there are looking quite delicious already, though not ripe yet.

Busy lizzies are finally blooming, in two colors: fuchsia and orange.

From our yard

The yard that never stops giving. Gooseberries are ripening fast, red currants already mostly are nice and red, and the bush is heavy with them. I picked a couple liters of them today. The black currant bush in not making too much fruit, they often are a bit less fruitful than the red ones. Marigold is finally starting to bloom.

Garden and flowers

On Sunday I finally got around to doing some bigger pot planting. The summer having been so poor, the motivation for gardening is real low. On Sunday, anyway, I planted some basil, parsley cucumber, pepper, aubergine and courgettes into slightly bigger pots. The size of pots that can be taken inside, come autumn. None of those will be producing anything during this summer. 

The potatoes and onions are doing quite ok, radishes not so much even though they have grown huge leaves; the ground is too tough for them to grow properly with all the clay. We'll get a lot of apples, despite the locusts in the trees, I'm sure, and wild strawberries are growing wildly.

Despite the weather, flowers in our yard seem to be doing quite well.

Yesterday I visited my grandma at our summerplace. It was a rainy day, but I enjoyed being there. The huge rhododendron there is at the end of its blooming, most flowers have wilted already, some are still looking nice.