Monday, September 7, 2009

Ripe for harvest

Autumn has arrived.

Temperatures this week barely scratched 20ºC and goes to about 12ºC in the night time. Skies were overcast and showers come down every other day. My potted plants are practically flooded.

The most significant difference is the daylight hours - the sun rises after 6 am and sets at around 8 pm. This timetable feels like the regular routine in the tropics where there are even amounts of day and night. Very soon, the balance will be tipping (more like lunging) towards darkness.

Now that rainy season has come, it's the time to pick mushrooms. Yellow chanterelles are apparently tasty and expensive, and easy to identify. Others look similar to familiar ones like button mushrooms (champignons) but are actually deadly. In this tough economic climate, it seems that more people are foraging in the woods to look for food. Tragically, some lives are paid in exchange for free food.

Our landlord is a gardener so we have a wide variety of plants in our little garden. We've had some tiny but sweet strawberries. Over the past weeks, the apples on our trees have turned red and today, we harvested some more.


Yummy apples from our own backyard. Gorgeous.



6 comments:

  1. Yeah!! mushrooms!!! Organic apples!
    It's rainy season in Finland at the moment but It's raining all year round here in Ireland...

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  2. Also used rosemary from the garden for beef stew : )

    How much longer are you in Ireland? Stay warm and dry!

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  3. Love your story Mui! Love your blog! and OMG your kids are SO cute! :)

    Greetings.

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  4. I'm staying here two more weeks....and back to London. fresh rosemary....lovely... I'm enjoying tasty soda bread almost everyday. This is the best meal I can have here.

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  5. Come back to Helsinki, Memi! It's getting cold outside but at least, inside is warm and cosy.

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  6. Wow, picking apples from trees. Did that once in NZ and it was great. Fresh apples and strawberries... Yummy!

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