As regular readers will know, Jackie is queen of the veg patch while I am to be found foraging for fruits or whatever I can find in the hinterland. Some things like the plum trees are scattered around the garden while others I find on my daily walk with the dogs. This year’s harvest has been a mixed one, as it always is.

It started off with the non appearance of the plums. A few desultory yellow ones as ever but very few from the half dozen or so other varieties we have in the garden. Our huge cherry tree as always, produced a few very small cherries.

That was basically in June and July,  since then things have looked up. We have a few peach trees which were here before us and have never produced much but this year a bountiful harvest! Well a couple of dozen at least.

The almond tree did the usual – half a dozen, which were so paltry, Jackie mistook them for something else and they ended in the compost. A mixed bag from the apples: lots of small but tasty ones from the big tree, one large solitary apple from the small tree. The pears which were fantastic last year, this year: nowt.

Surprisingly, given our hot dry summers, blackberries do really well round here. We don’t need a fence round our garden as over the years we have developed a very large and impregnable hedge of brambles. Of course blackberry and apple crumble is a perennial favourite.

And now as we enter October we are approaching the end. It’s been another good year for the figs. We have a few tiny trees but there are plenty of big bountiful trees on our morning walk and so lately I have been coming back to the house with a plastic bag full of them ready for Jackie to make chutney, jam and also bottling a few.

Also it looks like the prickly pears have done a good job, it just remains to be a bit careful when picking them. Eaten fresh they are delicious and last year we made a very nice syrup.

Although I’ve mentioned a number of fruits, the locals are only really interested in two. The grapes which have been rather disappointing this year and the biggest harvest of them all: the olives which don’t look too bad at the moment, but I don’t think we’ll be bringing ours in until at least mid November.

Meanwhile after the hottest September on record for Portugal and an equally unseasonably hot start to October, as I write this blog it seems we are in for some welcome rain. After a miserable start to the summer we haven’t actually had any since the start of July.