Edinburgh Topography

 

A New Years walk along the Fife Coastal Path offered this perspective on our home town of Edinburgh across the Firth of Forth.

To the left is Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano that looks like a recumbent lion. Next to that are "The Salisbury Crags"  This escarpment was quarried for building material for neighbouring  Holyrood Palace in the 1300s. Quarrying continued until .banned by Act of Parliament 1831..

The next feature is Edinburgh Castle, only visible because of the weather conditions, highlighting it in front of the Pentland Hill massing to the right of the picture. The Castle sits atop a volcanic plug.  When the ice sheet moved across this landscape from right to left the volcanic plug persisted and left a ridge a mile long tailing off behind it: the High  Street or Royal Mile, as can be seen from this vantage point.

I have since come across a reverse view I took recently.  In this case Fife is across the water in the distance.  The Royal Mile from Castle to Holyrood is the backbone of Edinburgh Old Town.

Green Sunset?

 A whole patch of the sky went green at sunset this afternoon. By the time I stopped driving and found a vantage point it had diminished somewhat  but was still visible at the centre of the shot above.  

The phenomenon of the green flash refers to the sun going momentarily green at sunset and I guess this related as the sun's refracted light is being projected onto some clouds in addition to the red, orange and yellow light frequencies that are more usual.

 In a less analytic sense - it was pretty weird!

Festive Baking

 

Lebkuchen

Candied Peel

Chelsea Buns

What to do when the weather turns and allotment visits are off. Do keep well fuelled this Christmas!

Brassicas - Not Pretty But Productive

 

It's that time of year when the gardener gets respite from the frantic summer months.  Nothing is growing anymore - weeds included.  But beside uniformly earthy former potato patch and the skeletonised pumpkin patch there are green patches still.  This is when the brassicas come into their own!  Late cabbages, Brussel sprouts, kale and sprouting broccoli are approaching their prime.  The purple sprouting broccoli will not start producing until next March, but has plenty of leaf already.

The other green area is more of a remnant offering leaf beat, beetroot and leeks.

(Under the net is more kale and some Chinese cabbage.  Despite the net the leaves have been pockmarked by some pest).  So end of season is here but there are still harvests to look forward to.

Fffrost

 Looks like I harvested the winter squash in the nick of time as the first frost struck last night.

Willow Domes and Dead Hedges

 At the School Garden the wigloo has been given a haircut, but the willow  archway is awaiting some tonsorial attention...

...while the newly arrived 'dead hedge' has been gaining all the attention.

Who knew how adaptable willow could be?

Tops Off

 

No longer green but brown, the potatoes have been shorn of their shaws.  I do this as soon as the first sight of blight arises.  At an allotment site you will never be able to avoid blight being blown across from other plots, but cutting off the haulms ensures that the leaf blight doesn't descend to the tubers.  Commercial growers only harvest three weeks after they have cut off the tops as they say it toughens the skin.  So not a pretty sight but the crop has been secured.  (Slug damage will be the next worry if the weather turns wet before they are all lifted)