The silver birches still have their leaves, though they have all turned to gold now and the sun is getting lower in the sky each day even at midday.
The Glastonbury Thorn is flowering early for a change, it flowers twice a year, traditionally it should flower on Christmas Day.
My old fatsia japonica, bought as a pot plant fifteen years ago and planted out when I moved to this house, is now an enormous flowering beast, for some reason being visited by lots of wasps. 
Verbena bonariensis has self sown everywhere and throws up its lovely purple flowers
These are almost the last of my garden vegetables, though the rainbow chard will carry on even through the snow and there are self sown leeks coming up which look promising.
And, don’t laugh, one perfect red pepper survived the rampages of the snails, the others were all devoured silently in the night.
Zeb Bakes 
I am not laughing!!! what impresses me is your chard, i still have some in the garden and was going to tear the last of it out for daisy, but i will leave it in there now and see how long it lasts, we are still eating chard/silverbeet and coriander and lettuce and other bits and pieces. Looks like you are having a good fall garden too! c
I don’t think it’s supposed to be hardy, but last year our summer chard lasted right through the snow and ice and then made new leaf once it had melted and only really gave up in around March time.Thinking about it C, it is in a raised bed, so it is probably warmer than if it is in the ground.
As usual- your garden is beautiful. Season to season- I love the photos of your garden.
That Glastonberry Thorn is lovely- can you use the hips for anything? I’d use them in a wreath if I had access to them!
The hips or haws are quite small, and I have no wreath making skills – I’d gladly send them to you. I don’t really have enough on the tree to warrant stripping it out to make haw ketchup, though I have thought about it :)
What beautiful pictures – and I wouldn’t dare laugh at the pepper because I am extraordinarily impressed by it :) I have had terrible trouble with peppers, in part due to bugs (sigh) and in part just because. I have high hopes for this year and would certainly be happy to see one the size of yours!
Brian has a thing about growing peppers and I found these little plants unloved at the back of the garden centre for a few pennies and the two chilli plants that are on the kitchen window and brought them back. They’ve been in the frame all summer, but they don’t get big or get lots of fruit.
We ate Big Red yesterday, giving it place of honour in our salad :)
I’ve never managed a pepper that big before. Very impressive! Usually mine stay quite small or get half eaten.
Can you really be coming in to winter again?
Yes, winter cometh but it is very warm still. Lots of rain today, leaves flying down with gay abandon, streams running high, Dogs with dry leafy bits in their coats, fireworks every night now until the weekend – the build up to Guy Fawkes Night on the 5th….
I think your borders are more lively than mine right now. We just had a rain storm that knocked my daisies to the ground. I’ll shake them off when the rain stops. I hate to see my borders turning to winter mud and decay but it’s all part of gardening.
Edited highlights of course, but I can post pictures of garden decay and falling leaves too. I love daisies but didn’t get any this year. They do look so sad when they are knocked over by rain don’t they? I will have to get some new plants in the Spring :)
That is a beautiful and yes, perfect, looking capsicum. Love all the details of your garden. Wish I had one just the same.
Even one that’s not very big takes a lot of work and I have been very lazy this year. I wish I was a better gardener than I am but usually need help with the heavy tasks and am prone to overenthusiastic pruning. :(
Beautiful flowers. So different from what is in our yard and gardens. WOW – the size of your pepper on a small plant. I DO NOT LAUGH IN ITS DIRECTION! I bow down to it!My waist high pepper plants survived the summer and were full of nice looking young peppers but the freeze got them all two nights ago. I won’t give up. More peppers will be seeded this Feb to give them a good head start in hopes of peppers the size of your Big Red! Emily
I saw the devastation the deer have been causing on your place and now I find all your comments have been placed unkindly by Akismet in Spam and i have been rescuing them all! Thanks for all your lovely comments Emily, I treasure each one :)
I missed this post! Your capsicum looks amazing – we’re trying to grow them indoors this year because they just couldn’t survive the fruit fly last year. Beautiful autumnal pics, and lovely harvest – tomatoes look good, and carrots look most fine…
I’m glad you saw the pics, because I put them on for you and Heidi specially, “Brave Little Capiscum” – that’s what I thought when I took its pic, do you remember the fennel last year that self seeded? We were very pleased with the carrots, straight and true, no damage to them at all. We’d never grown them so well before. They were ‘hidden’ between coriander and something else and we think the carrot fly just didn’t notice them for once.
The tomatoes were prolific and blight free, not quite as sweet and tangy as Gardeners’ Delight, which are my preferred small tomato, but still good. :)