I haven’t been making much progress on digging for the planned plum tree. Somehow there’s always something else that I’d rather do. But today I did some digging instead of my lunchtime workout.

“Deadlift” in Swedish is called marklyft, “ground lift”. There was plenty of that here.

Next time I’ll have to start removing all those big rocks.

I’ve hit bedrock at the bottom. Again. But this time the hole is at least knee-deep, which should be enough for a plum tree.

Autumn colours are starting to come in. Some maples in the neighbourhood are fully red; others still green. The cherry trees are green, but the aronia and weigela bushes are bright red. These birchleaf spiraea are just on the cusp.

I did not go to the photo meetup. Too unappealing.

Instead I picked the Japanese quince bush clean from all fruit. There was more than ever on the largest of the three bushes; some branches were chock-full. The others barely had any. I guess they are still young.

Not that we need much more quince than the 4 litres I picked! I spent two hours chopping and de-seeding and cleaning them. They’re small, and hard. And there are so. Many. Seeds. Everywhere. I actually gave up before I’d cleaned all the fruit and threw the smallest ones away.

Eric will be turning some of the fruit into marmalade. I love quince marmalade – it has been my favourite since I was a child (along with cherry jam).

The rest I asked him to candy. I bought some candied quince at the airport in Riga some years ago and both Adrian and I swooned over them until we ran out. Hopefully now we can recreate that treat.

The hydrangeas are going purple all over now – not just the flowers but the leaves as well. It looks quite cool. I’m not sure if they’re normally supposed to do that, but they look healthy otherwise so I assume all is well.

I’m enjoying the season’s plums that I buy daily from the vegetable stand at Spånga torg. I am so pleased that they exist! (Both the plums and the veggie seller.) I think the plums and some of the apples they sell must be local – the plums are so juicy and ripe that it’s hard to imagine them surviving any kind of long distance transportation.

The inside of a plum looks almost like I imagine the inside of a body, with its fleshy surface threaded through with veins.

I’m determined to plant a plum tree of my own this year. I started digging today in the spot I had planned for the tree, where the kids’ playhouse used to stand. Cleared away the brush and weeds, started digging down… and hit a flat rock almost immediately, less than a spade’s depth down. Shifted to one side and then to the other and realized that the rock extends in all directions. Not a boulder but bedrock, then.

There are large bushes and trees growing on all sides of this spot. I dug closer and closer to the stump of an old dead damson tree, thinking that surely if this tree could grow here then there must be deeper soil here – but no. The same flat bedrock all the way. I guess the nearby trees are all lucky survivors that have managed to put down their roots in crevices in the bedrock and managed to hold on there. Or not, given that the damson tree was actually more or less dead when we moved in.

I’m giving up on this spot and will have to find a plan B.

You’d think that in a garden of 1000 m² there should be plenty of space for a little plum tree. But with all the things already growing here, and the space taken up by the house, and the ever-present bedrock, and the shade from all the large trees in the neighbours’ gardens, there really isn’t.

The first leaves are turning red.

The cherry tomatoes are all ripening. The golden ones are my favourites – juicy and bursting with sweetness. The red ones are a bit bland, but the dark ones have a deep, rich flavour.

It looks like summer outside, but is beginning to feel like autumn. Mornings are cool. Noontime is warmish rather than hot; I put on an extra layer when I have lunch outside.

The summer flowers are still going strong, even sending out new buds still. I’ve never been home all summer, with no trips or hikes, and never been able to take such good care of my flowers. They’ve always started to die on mye some time in August. Look at what diligent watering can do!

Earlier in the summer, the bushy sunflower was always the first one to start wilting and showing signs of needing water. Now the African daisy has taken over that role.

Our windows got cleaned today. With more money than time, we pay a company to do it for us.

The plants on the windowsill in my office corner are the ones that I brought with me from the tretton37 office when we switched to remote working back in March.

They’ve all grown a lot in this half-year. The crassula is 50% taller, and is beginning to send out branches. The dracaena and the ficus both have twice as many leaves now.

And just look at that thing with purple and gray leaves! It’s twenty times the size it was back in spring. I’m going to have to find a new place for it pretty soon. It’s getting squeezed between the window and the blackout blinds, which is starting to squish the leaves on one side.

Here’s what they looked like in February:

Adrian discovered a dead thrush in the garden. He found it a bit icky. My first thought was “I must get the camera”.

I’ve seen dead birds before; they’ve all looked very clean, soft and lovely – quite the opposite of icky. I often wish I could touch them, but with all the diseases they can spread, I’m going to follow recommendations and use gloves to put it in a plastic bag for disposal.

I didn’t see any flies around the bird, but wasps seemed to like it.