Well, we’ve now, unbelievably, lived here a year! I think, although there are changes in the house, my favourite of all the work we’ve done still remains the garden. Again I’ve only really noticed the difference in the space of a month by reading back over last month’s update, which shows me why I should keep on doing it – at the risk of boring everyone else.
The air definitely has an autumnal feeling to it already and the nights are drawing in. It’s already getting dark a whole hour earlier than it was this time last month. It’s a time of year when I need to make an extra effort to keep myself happy so hopefully, although things will be slowing down, hopefully the garden will help with that.
Starting with the sadder things, the courgette and cucumber plants have now finished their amazing hard work of the summer. They were badly affected by mildew on their leaves but still carried on producing fruit/veg(?!). There is one last courgette on the plant but I don’t think it’s going to come to anything much. I wish I’d kept count of how much they had produced – will have to do that next year. We’ve also lost the clematis which looked so beautiful in my July update. It’s now a withered brown mess which is very sad.
We do have some new additions though. Linda bought me a blueberry plant for my birthday to which we’ve added a thornless blackberry bush. Both of these, I’m hoping, will be happy in containers. This is them along with a cutting from the jasmine bush which grows behind the garden shed! Carole from work has also donated some plants from her garden including lavender and a strawberry plant.
The idea behind this is that I’m hoping to start going to the local Country Market held on a Friday in town during September to, hopefully, sell some of my plants. Bit nervous about that one to say the least!
Things aren’t all rosy in the greenhouse as I’ve had an attack of the snails. The baby lettuce I had growing have all gone, the sweet peppers and hollyhocks have had a bit of munching but the chilli peppers seem fine for some reason – perhaps their leaves are as spicy as their fruit?! The herbs have just gone wild so I’m too ashamed to take their photo this month! I will get around to sorting them out though….promise! (Now it’s in writing I have to, right?!)
The sweet peppers are now so tall that I’ve had to take a shelf out of the greenhouse! Hopefully they’ll be okay as the weather gets colder?
Amongst the prettiest things in the garden at the moment are the dahlia (which will need digging up and re-housing when it’s finished I think, given that it’s “eating” the leeks before they’re even grown!) and the bucket of seeds which we had free through the post from BBC Countryfile. We didn’t know what was in there so decided to keep them all contained in one place and they’ve been a real bee haven, which in turn has helped everything else in the garden. They’re really eye catching and I’ll be sad when they’ve finished.
Staying on flowers. The sweetpeas continue to go from strength to strength – I shall just have to not tear my hair out next year if they take forever to get the idea that they’re meant to grow! The Cosmos are STILL gorgeous and seem happy to keep on flowering so long as we keep on dead heading. The rest of that side of the garden all needs dead heading too but as we’ve been away on holiday and then away for a few days this month it just hasn’t been done as much as it should have done, so just a quick photo of that side this month and hope I get away with not looking at it too closely!
Onto veg and we have a new challenge to grow some winter potatoes! One of my old school friends is having a go with us so the competition is on! We have planted them a month later than the last recommended planting date so they stand two chances! Fingers crossed.
Our second crop of lettuces, grown from plants donated by a friend my parents, is coming along well and the beans still have masses of flowers. They had to be supported, tent rope style, during the month as we had a couple of bad storms with high winds which snapped some of the poles. They’ve stood up since then though and we’re still getting lots of beans from them – yay!
We have had a massive problem with caterpillars though. After cutting down and throwing away two lots of chard and looking despairingly at our lacy cabbages, Kev decided to put across netting, which as worked to some extent. We’ve cut and eaten a couple of cabbages and cauliflowers now and they’ve been greatly improved thanks to the nets.
Excitingly, as I’ve checked under the netting this morning I’ve spotted our sprouts have started growing…exciting but does mean Christmas is looming! Our sweetcorn looks, fingers crossed, as if it will have a good crop too! The tomatoes are slowly starting to turn red (apart from the black ones which are, thankfully, black!) although they are splitting their skins. I’ve been told this is due to them not having been consistently watered. Tut, tut! They still taste lush though!
The thing I find most exciting of all though is the size of our sunflowers when I’ve measured them this morning! The one closest to the path, being the second largest, is now a mighty 3 meters (9 foot 10 inches!!) tall and its stem is a sturdy 5cm (nearly 2 inches) in circumference. How they’ve stayed standing with the wind we’ve had over the past month or so is beyond me but I’m very happy to see them – and even more so now the flowers are finally showing! I did think at one point they were just going to carry on getting taller and taller with no flower at all!
Having received a brilliant array of gardening type presents for my birthday this month, I’m all set for the next growing season already! Thanks to everyone who has contributed with such thoughtful gifts 🙂
A Good Day To Dye (Not!) 