You smell autumn long before you see it at Clumber Park Walled Kitchen Garden, that mix of woodsmoke and rain-soaked leaves and then come the colours, rich and deliberate. Crimson, auburn and rusty red all at once.
October has its own particular quiet. The air feels thicker, softer, like the world’s wrapped itself in something gentle. When I got to Clumber Park this morning, the mist sat low, almost brushing the top of the gateposts. You could hear gravel crunching underfoot long before you saw anyone. It was ethereal, fog caught in the canopy like the morning hadn’t quite woken up yet.
The Walk to Clumber Park Walled Kitchen Garden
The path through the Clumber Park walled kitchen garden looked half-asleep when I arrived that autumn morning, edges blurred by mist, everything muted except the dahlias. They were still going strong, all coral and amber and unapologetically alive.
Their petals hung heavy with dew, a bit battered by the season, but still showing up. Something about them made me pause. Maybe it’s that stubbornness – still blooming when everything else has already started winding down, when summer’s abundance has given way to autumn’s quieter rhythms.
Inside the glasshouse, the air shifted completely. Warmer, earthier, thick with that apple smell that sits somewhere between honey and damp soil. Strings of chillies hung from the rafters alongside bundles of lavender, all drying in what can only be described as tidy chaos. And there, right in the middle of it all, pumpkins stacked in every shade of autumn you could imagine.
Big ones, small ones, knobbly misshapen ones that looked like they’d grown with personality. The whole scene looked like a still life painting waiting to happen – or maybe one that was already happening, and I’d just walked into the frame. Either way, it’s fair to say this display is enough to make anyone stop in their tracks.
There was a blackboard propped against a wooden crate, Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. I found myself mouthing the words, couldn’t help it – they just belonged there, in that moment, surrounded by the exact mists and fruitfulness he’d been writing about. Whoever thought to put those words in that space understood something about Autumn that deserves wholesome recognition.
I took more photos than I needed. Kept trying to catch that particular in-between light that only exists for about five minutes before the world shifts again. Half of them won’t be sharp – my fingers were too cold to hold the camera properly steady – but I wanted them anyway. Sometimes it’s less about the perfect shot and more about having proof you were present for something.
Autumn Apples from the Garden
The apple crates stopped me completely. Three old wooden boxes filled with the kind of fruit supermarkets would never stock – small, odd-shaped, bruised and imperfect. But the colours. Butter yellow fading into rose pink, scattered with freckles and sun spots like they’d earned them. You could almost taste the sharp-sweet just from looking.
In the Clumber Park walled kitchen garden, the apples feel like old friends — dependable, quietly beautiful, turning up every autumn as they always have. Something about that rhythm grounds you. No matter what else shifts and changes, October still brings apples. There’s real comfort in that kind of steadiness.
Further along, the chilli plants were still clinging on in the greenhouse – half green, half withered, bright bursts of red and yellow fruit hanging against tired leaves. Maybe that’s what draws me to this season most. Everything exists in that space between thriving and surrendering, and somehow both states feel equally right – like the garden’s showing you it’s okay to be in-between things.
I stayed by the glasshouse longer than I’d meant to, thinking about all the hands that must have tended this garden over the centuries, working with the same mist, the same earth, the same ancient rhythm of harvest and rest. There’s something about certain places that makes time feel thin, like you’re standing in all the seasons at once. I could’ve stayed there all morning, happily lost in that feeling.
Eventually I wandered back outside and followed the path behind the glasshouse where the espaliered apple trees grow flat against old brick. There was one labelled “Schoolmaster,” which made me smile, something wonderfully proper about it. The branches were trained so precisely they looked almost drawn on, every apple positioned just so.
Nature agreeing to follow the rules, at least for a little while.
By then the fog had thickened properly. You could barely see beyond a few metres, and everything felt wrapped up in a blanket of mist. The kind of atmosphere where it’s just you, your breath visible in the cold air, and the soft sound of wet leaves underfoot.
I stopped to look at the pumpkins still sitting in the soil, some bright and firm, others pale and softening, a few collapsed entirely into themselves. That’s what I love most about gardens at this time of year, they stop performing.
The perfection’s gone, and what’s left feels honest. Slightly tired, slightly undone, but still beautiful in that way. It reminded me of my kitchen after a long afternoon of cooking , chaotic but alive, the good kind of mess that comes from actually living.
The Season of Slow Food
Which got me thinking about how I’ve been cooking lately. Slower, more instinctive. Soups that simmer for hours. Vegetables roasted until their edges catch. Food that doesn’t demand precision, just presence. I’ve been throwing whatever needs using into roasting trays, tossing it with olive oil and calling it dinner. Maybe it’s seasonal laziness. Or maybe it’s autumn teaching me that simple can be more than “enough.”
I’m already thinking about what I’ll do with apples when I get home. Probably a crumble, the kind where the topping’s more butter than anything else. Or maybe stewed down with cinnamon and brown sugar, spooned warm over morning porridge.
Leaving the Walled Garden
By the time I reached the edge of the garden, the cold had crept right through my coat. The fog was thicker now, turning everything beyond the wall into a soft blur. I walked back towards the car park, shoes heavy with damp earth, the smell of woodsmoke drifting from somewhere I couldn’t see.
The day ahead was waiting, the emails, the noise, the ordinary, but none of it felt urgent. Just there, like it always would be. What I’d just left behind felt different though. Lighter. Calmer. Like a reset I didn’t know I needed.
Back Home, Still There
Now I’m home. The kettle’s just boiled, and there’s an apple from the garden sitting on the counter, small, imperfect, still cool from the morning air. The house has that late-afternoon quiet, the kind that softens everything.
I should probably think about dinner, but I’m just standing here by the window, tea cooling in my hands, watching the light slip away. Those words from the blackboard keep looping in my head. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
Maybe that’s what days like this are really for… letting autumn teach you, slowly, what it means to be both abundant and still. The kind of lesson best followed with something warm from the kitchen, like Maple, Pear & Pecan Porridge on a cold and misty morning. Honestly, nothing beats it!
Autumn teaches us softly – that abundance and stillness can indeed exist in the same breath.
If you fancy seeing it for yourself, Clumber Park’s walled kitchen garden is part of the National Trust – a place where autumn feels like it’s been kept perfectly in time.
