I harvested the Bramley Seedling cooking apples from the espalier tree in my small Lewes garden recently.  After a slice of apple pie, I thought back over the year and was glad to have watched the process that led to this classic treat sitting on my dining table. I would’ve offered you some if you’d got here before it was all eaten.

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My little apple tree has been a source of pleasure all year and this weekend its season reached its climax with an unusually large amount of bright red fruit ready for picking here in my Lewes, UK, garden.

This is a French variety of dessert apple called Croquella which is grown as a miniature tree and which works well in my small urban garden. Not only are its fruits like Christmas tree decorations from summer to autumn but the blossom is one of my favourite flowers. This is what it looked like in April this year.

In 2014 it didn’t blossom at all and there was no fruit last year so I was doubly pleased to so it in bloom this time round in the seventh year since I planted the tree as a tiny sapling.

For a moment, this weekend, I regretted that the time for picking had arrived because these little red balls have been so decorous out there in my garden.

Harvest-time has its own imperatives and I followed its orders on a lovely sunny weekend.

It always amazes me how much fruit is produced by this plucky little tree but this year has seen a bumper crop.

With the apples picked and stored, my garden has lost one of its seasonal highlights but the dahlias and heliotropes continue their autumnal starring role.

The passion flower too continues not only to flower but to fruit.

I wasn’t expecting this extra fruit harvest but the passion fruits taste delicious.

I’ve still got Bramley cooking apples ripening on the espalier tree too. So it’s been a successful season for fruitfulness.

These Croquella apples don’t just have pretty faces – they taste good too.

Juicy and sweet without being too sweet – just how you want an early season apple.

Some of these Croquella apples made it into a splendid and traditional harvest feast of roast pork on Saturday.

Some more of them are now sitting in the kitchen fruit bowl and the rest are stored in the garden shed – my harvest is definitely home.

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Yesterday, I went with some friends to see Vera Sackville-West’s  spectacular gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, about an hour’s drive from my place. I took a lot of photographs and hope to publish a blog about the day later this week. Before that though, I thought I’d show you my little Lewes garden before it gets totally upstaged by the sensational display at Sissinghurst.

As you can see, all my roses have finally made it into bloom and I rather liked it out there this morning.

As I’ve written before, all my roses are David Austin varieties and they were all planted seven years ago as small stems when I completely redesigned the garden. I think they’ve now declared my small town garden their home. If you want to find out more about them, I’ll introduce them to you by name.

It seemed a good idea to take my coffee out there to enjoy the view. Look out for the Sissinghurst photos coming later. I had a wonderful day there – you should catch the Sissinghurst roses while their at the very best.

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When I left for a week in Lisbon in mid April, my Lewes garden was mostly daffodils and budding tulips and, of course, my much loved camellia. When I returned, there had been one of those great seasonal shifts and I walked back into a garden full of blossom. My miniature flowering cherry tree, in the six years since I planted it,  has never looked so good and I was almost sorry to have spend so much time away from home.

Sunny days and cool nights have ensured that the blossom has hung around longer than usual and I’m certainly not complaining. Every morning, I pull the blind to feast on this joyful symbol of spring.

The very pale pink turns to white before they fall and looks perfect against the radiantly blue sky.

I enjoy the subtly almondy perfume too while being careful not to stick my nose where the bees want to go.

The cherry tree has to share the glory with my two apple trees again this year after they decided to blossom again after going on strike in 2014.

Apple blossom even competes with cherry blossom for my affection and, this year, this too is doing unusually well.

I love the way it changes from deep pink to pale pink as it develops.

I also enjoy the promise of apples – shiny red eaters on the little standard tree and Bramley cooking apples on the espalier.

It is difficult not to be cheerful on such a day as this.

The tulips and, at the bottom there, fritillaries, have added their colourful input too coming out just in time to bid the camellia flowers goodbye.

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My camellia is having its best year so far here in my Lewes, UK,  garden – it has stopped sulking after a repotted it three years ago and, this year, it is actually telling me that I am forgiven.

Camellias are not nearly as delicate as people assume as long as they are planted in the correct acidic soil,and their blooms kept away from the danger of frost burning in the early morning sun by avoiding an East facing wall. They do, however, hate being moved but, being happy-go-lucky kinds of plants, they do settle down in the end and, as in my garden, provide a marvellous first-taste of exotic colour in a season usually dominated by yellows and purples.

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There’s a lot of yellow out there through my window. When the sun is shining too, I’m truly convinced that my garden is wishing us all a Happy Easter with a golden burst of daffodils just as the latest tea cosy,  a wonderfully vivid yellow from my mother’s inventive brain,  goes on display in the kitchen. Yellow is definitely the colour for this weekend. So Happy Easter to all Wolfie’s readers.

So there you are, yellow. Here’s a yellow song too. Happy Easter, everyone.

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Yesterday was cold in a poncey, Southern English kind of way – you know, a slight frost in the morning, some condensation on my study window (I’ve turned off the radio in my Bonsai tree’s interest), clear skies (almost) and with just enough of a chill in the air to make me wear a scarf and wonder if I should’ve worn a t-shirt under my shirt. Yes, freezing weather indeed for us Southern English. The sunshine was most welcome as was the sight of those men in orange life-jackets up there on the Bronze Age mound that borders onto my back garden here in Lewes, UK. Brach Mound gets pretty over-grown by this time of year but it also, gives those of us who live next-door to it, a taste of open country in the middle of town.

The growth was particularly jungle-like this year and, now that the Winter sun is losing its athleticism, we need as few obstacles as we can tolerate, if we’re not going to be cast into darkness. Luckily, the men in orange, were armed with their strimmers and they worked all day giving Brach Mound its Autumn haircut. I just watched through my window.

There! Much better. Brach Mound has now got it’s seasonal crew-cut but it will all grow back and provide ample habitat for the birds, insects and other small creatures that make their homes there from Spring through to Summer.

The skeletal evening silhouettes of the trees look splendidly eerie when their surrounding undergrowth is chopped away. Now I can truly tell that the season has just changed to Winter.

They’re back this morning to finish the job – it’s a difficult job coordinating the machinery with the security ropes. It’s great to watch them from the warm indoors.

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When Hurricane Gonzalo blown down my rose trellis, my small Lewes garden became impenetrable. (See last week’s blog) I’m waiting to get a new, strong trellis erected out there but it won’t be until December so I’ve done my best to put things back together until the job is done properly.

It was yet another job for my old friend gaffer tape. Is there nothing this tape can’t do? Now, I can carry on enjoying those roses through this mildest of mild Autumns.

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We’ve been having a superb summer here in Lewes, UK and my small urban garden has repsonded appropriately with garlands of flowers and vibrant greenery.  I’ve been reduced to a bit of dead-heading, some fruit picking and the odd bit of weeding.

Otherwise,  I’ve allowed myself to sit back and enjoy it while I get on with my Kindle journey through Marcel Proust’s In Search Of Lost Time  (À la recherche du temps perdu) – I’m now half way through the punultimate volume and I too have lost track of the time.

I should have been doing my summer pruning now that my David Austin roses have finished their fist flush but it is all done with amazing speed and efficiency and now presents a fine hedge awaiting next months second batch of flowers.

This is all thanks to my danger-seeking neighbour, Harvey, who has bought himself some ferocious-looking electronic cutting gear including a hedge-strimmer which did my job in seconds. I decided that I would experiemtn with this method after reading that even David Austin says we can do it. It certainly cuts down on the several hours I usually spend cutting stem by stem with my secateurs. It was not a good idea anyway to prune the roses while I’m on anti-coagulant Warfarin tablets because my roses, love them as I do, are unforgiving with their thorns and, these days, my scratches turn into real flows of blood.

So my thanks to Harvey and I can return to my Proust – nothing like the peace and tranquility of n English garden on a hot summer afternoon.

Then, of course, well after so many weeks of sunshine and high temperatures, the inevitable happened. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Then again, that can be fun too.

I shan’t be sitting out here again today, I suspect.

Watering the garden might be unnecessary too.

Warm rain on a summer morning is pleasant enough but that lighning has to be watched.

I made a hasty retreat indoors but then it was time I went back to my computer to get on with my own writing.

I’m sure the sunshine will be back and then I shall try to resume my work alfresco.

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