Now deep into autumn the acre has taken on a new look. Leaves have turned to burnished gold on beech, silvered on willow and dusky and mottled brown and yellow on chestnut. Trees are slowly casting off their foliage and retreating into their annual slumber as the temperature begins to dip and the dark hours stretch out and the dawn chorus is later each morning. Winter looms.

There is a rhythm about gardening, a near silent beat at times that we unwittingly dance to. Other times it's quite a frenzied drum and we have to work hard to keep pace with it, weeding frantically or getting bulbs in, pruning or harvesting. The rhythm is certainly beginning to slow on the acre but the drum still beats telling us there is still work to do before our mid winter feast!

Wednesday saw the volunteers bringing in their cedar baubles for our ‘alternative’ Christmas tree for the St. Andrews Church annual Christmas tree display. One of our volunteers has been carefully creating willow hoops wrapped in ivy, from which to hang the baubles, it will be truly unique - we look forward to sharing the final tree.

Another project which seems to be taking us away from the much needed task of leaf sweeping is the planning for our stall at the Farnham Christmas Market on 8 December from 10am-4pm. This year the market is taking place in Castle Street, The Borough and The Bush Hotel and we’re delighted to have a stall and preparing all we can for it. Book the event in your diary and come and pay us a visit!

We did manage to fit in some actual gardening rather than just Christmas preparations as we turned some manure we had delivered in with some mulch, we’ve created a staging area for that as it will need at least a year before it can be used on the soil. The next project is turning our growing compost pile…