Yesterday we felt the true chill of autumn, which means these flowers in the huerta will not amount to much. It is a sad fact of life that here, 500m above sea level, the growing season is shorter than down on the coast. 
The aubergine flowers [above] are my favourite, they remind me of the fairy’s hats in that lovely children’s book Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker [below: the dog violet fairy]
![[photo: prints.encore-editions.com]](https://notesonaspanishvalley.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/the-dog-violet-fairy-photo-prints-encore-editions-com-13-10-13.jpg)
[photo: prints.encore-editions.com]
The only thing we still have plenty of are green peppers [below].
5 to remember
ayer – yesterday
verdadero/a – true
que significa – which means
la hada – fairy
el sombrero – hat
‘Flower Fairies’ by Cicely Mary Barker
Notes on a Spanish Valley 
What a pretty flower on the aubergines!
Our veggies are getting towards the end now. It’s been a good year 🙂
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It turned out better than we thought after such a poor spring. Poor for melons though. SD
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Not thought until now about the 500m above sea level v shorter growing season. Our newly-planted herb garden could be doomed!
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Well I chopped back our basil severely and it is re-growing. Depends what herbs you planted, shrubby ones will be okay. How high are you? SD
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It’s easy to image an aubergine flower fairy hiding in your garden 🙂
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This is the first comment I read this morning, and it made me smile. Thx. SD
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Ah, autumn… We planted some tomatoes and sunflowers very late, but better late than never – for the benefit of our little one. Due to a lovely summer, they did really well and the tomatoes even turned very tomato-like. Resulting in a couple even ending up in the kitchen 🙂 Sadly, the sunflowers didn’t fair so well and we never did get our seeds for next year.
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Our tomatoes have been more green than red this year, though. SD
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Our veggie patch consisted of a tiny tomato plant that grew about 12 teeny tiny tomatoes, apparently planted by our granddaughter who spit out a seed or dropped a tomato – at 5, she isn’t sure. We aren’t really gardeners and the eucalyptus trees make the ground impossible to support a real garden. Not enough sunshine, too many rocks, leaves, and foraging rats – ugh!
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And I meant to add how lovely is your garden, so sweet to see your success.
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We have to give thanks to Pablo for our vegetable patch, he really does all the hard work. We just reap the benefits! SD
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