THE equinox has passed and it has marked a dramatic shift in the seasons; the late summer balminess seemingly giving way overnight to a chill in the air and a nip in the breeze.

The Lavender Garden has finished for this year and as a final adiós to the summer, Siddington Farm will have the season’s last strawberries this week. The cooler weather should bring on the chrysanthemums that have been waiting for the shortening days to bloom and Julian Harvard predicts this will begin now. He has “huge volumes” he said, so cut flowers should be in abundance for a few weeks yet.

It has been a great year for sweet peppers. I love sweet peppers. I love them raw, fried, stuffed, in sauces, in salads, in sticks and even grated for a wet coleslaw. Down at Coleshill Organic they have a crop of peppers every year of several varieties, including chilli peppers. There has been a good crop the last few years with an improvement on a year-on-year basis, culminating in this year’s crop which is large and set to go on for some time and, especially exciting, the peppers are actually turning red! There is a slight sweetening of the taste and the skin is slightly thinner and vitamin C content is higher on a fully reddened pepper, so for fans like myself this is a very happy time.

Over at Days Cottage the apple season is in full swing. They and their team are picking, sorting, crushing and juicing a huge amount of fruit at this time of year and this means fresh, unpasteurised juice is available on the stall (delicious!) and a wide range of pick and mix traditional fruit varieties. - no Granny Smiths here! On the stall this week they will have what they describe as “many people’s favourite apple”, the Pimarston Pineapple. (I’ve never even heard of this one!) they also have Sunset (a Cox cross) and Egremont Russett amongst a wide range of others. You may wish to put in your diary that we will have Apple Day 2016 at the market on October 15.