A disturbing sight in the garden today: autumn has arrived. We’re barely a week through August and already the cherry tree has its first red leaf.

In fairness, the poor tree has suffered somewhat from being planted in a large terracotta pot. It’s supposed to be: it’s a patio tree, but it’s never really been happy there and I think that at the end of the season I’m going to transplant it into a bed somewhere.

All of its fruits dried up before we could pick them, probably because the roots were getting baked by the hot sun that warmed up the pot. The pot then retained all of the heat, of course, but as it was bought as a patio plant it’s not a very impressive performance.

Either way, whatever the reason, the first red leaf of the year is already here.

Shudder.

Related posts:

1. How to preserve greengages
2. Dropped apricots
3. Picking wild-foraged apples