26th September

I harvested 3 more courgettes today but they are getting small. They could have grown bigger but if I pick them now, there is a greater chance of any others developing to a half decent size. Back at home I folded down the swing that had become filthy with green mould and put that behind the shed. Both boys have grown out of it so it is semi-retired, on standby should we ever have another child and if we do, I hope they come armed with some good cleaning products.

 

I’ve had a few thoughts about the front garden, just planning for next year. I’m sure the transplanted fuchsias grew well and looked lovely, it’s just that we couldn’t see them for the huge saucepan lid leaves of the pumpkins. I’m thinking of a raised bed against the dividing wall with next doors’ garden and growing sweet peas, an acer in a tub, like the wooden one I’ve grown the salad leaves in this year, and some spring and maybe summer bulbs – maybe rings of different colours around the central fuchsia, with a line around the bay window wall. Perhaps some climbing plant in the far corner behind where I would put the acer in a tub. Just thoughts at the moment.

 

More than just thoughts are my thoughts for the back garden. Past the holly tree and sand pit is the lilac tree which needs continual pruning and is quite a congested area, although it does provide a dollop of shade in the summer once the sun has swung round past the holly, meaning we can still eat out without wilting. I was thinking that I could clear the ground of the lilac and plant a few young silver birch trees, and the area around can be sown with grass and under planted with bluebells. I see on ebay there is a private nursery offering 6ft birch trees for £7.99 each, or 3 for £14.99, sold as bare rooted tress, shipped out in early October. I wouldn’t want just one as it would be too bare, and the experts always say go with odd numbers when you are repeating features along a line of sight, so I would go for the 3. It would bring more light onto the lawn and help the grass to fare better where it gets the most trampling, give a feeling of more space as at person height there would just be trunks, and basically look great as I love birch trees. The only downside is the lack of shade for a year or 2 or maybe more depending on how fast they grow. Given the fact that should I buy them, they will be delivered soon, and I will have to do some major grounds clearance before that, I’ll have to make a decision fast.

 

27^th September
It was a beautifully hot day and we went to our 4 year old’s pre-school fete, although he is now at ‘big school’. After coming home mid afternoon, we had no further plans to be out and about, so it was on with the clear-up of the garden. I got a good deal of weeding done but a lot of the time was me playing with the boys and making a pretend fire with a contraption we made to dangle a cooking pot over said fire and the eldest boy cooking me an imaginary delightful and varied menu, all from one pot!

 

29^th September
The sweet peas were, I thought, trailing off in their rate of production but today I picked a good bunch for 2 vases for us, plus some for a small vase for my parents as part of a welcome home gift as they come back from nearly a month in the USA. So much for the impending autumn chill killing off the blooms. The bedding petunias have stopped, but the ones in the hanging baskets are still producing well, and not anywhere near a point where I am thinking whether to just get on and clear them. I have discovered there are actually 3 pumpkins in the front garden – it just gets better!

Next post: 3rd Oct

21st September

Well, I have done something the last week – picked a few courgettes and 2 batches of spinach, but admittedly, not a great deal. Yesterday was going to be different. I had great plans for tidying up the back garden. During the week I have been working on the concrete base for the play house and I finished it on Wednesday. Spurred on by the thought of future tidiness once the house is up and the toys are inside, I wanted to spruce up the garden and yesterday was going to be the day. My plans were a jolly good lawn mow as it has had none since we came back from holiday, a good weeding session all along the borders, a washing of the large containers, especially the ones that have had blight-ridden tomatoes growing in them, a washing of the toys that have laid out through a wet summer and are now sporting a slight green tinge of mould, a folding up and putting away (hidden behind the shed) of the children’s swing that both boys have now grown out of and various other tidy and clean-up jobs.

 

So what went wrong? Diarrhoea and vomiting. Oh wonderful. The eldest boy had it on Tuesday and went back to school on Friday just a few hours after my wife had it which in turn was 24 hours before it hit me. Saturday was spent remaining very still and lifeless with a throbbing headache and muscular aches and stiffness, adding to the ache of wanting to be out in the garden on a lovely warm, sunny and dry September day. So today, incidentally after the youngest was up 4 times in the night, not with the expected D&V but with a raging fever, I was bursting to do something outside so as said youngest got some fresh air. I cut down the Ailsa Craig tomato plant which has blight and counted 33 tomatoes that I had to throw away. Then I cut down the even more blighted cherry tomato plant with 249 tomatoes, again, all destined for the bin. On the plus side, I potted up 3 of the 4 fuchsia cuttings I took a few months ago that have rooted very well (the fourth one died), gave the pepper plants a good feed of the last of my home made nettle tea and then was able to put the nettles on the compost. I also cut a handful of sweet peas. They are still doing well, but you can tell by the amount I bring in that they are declining. I picked 3 more red peppers, but 2 of the yellow ones had rotted on the stem before ripening – perhaps I should have picked them much earlier and allowed them to ripen on the window sill.

 

 

In the front garden, the rogue tomatoes also have blight so that is absolutely nil fruit on the tomato front this year (the 1 saved from the last gathering became blighted), but I have found 2 decent sized pumpkins to add to the 6 growing at the allotment.

22^nd September

I gave the lawn a well overdue mow and a decent rake which produced a huge clump of dead grass and moss, and so I have begun the major tidy-up of the back garden.

 

23^rd September

I took the 4 year old to the allotment to harvest the pumpkins. He was quite excited by it all, especially when a train rolled past with lots of wagons. We also picked a cucumber which looks like being the last and 4 courgettes, likewise, probably the last although I live in hope. Of the pumpkins, the largest 2 were from the rogue plant from the compost whereas the others were shop bought seeds of the F1 type which should mean better yield. The 2 rogue pumpkins were 3.5 and 2 kg in weight, the rest being 1.3, 1.15, 0.8 and 0.65 kg so in all a 9.4 kg harvest, although still awaiting the 2 from the front garden. A lot of that weight will be rind and seeds though, but still, a good amount of pumpkin for roasting, pie and soup.

 

25^th September
I painted the concrete base for the playhouse with a sealant that will make it waterproof. I wouldn’t have bothered but my neighbour passed a huge can of sealant over the fence for me to use (well, as much as I needed anyway). Most of the concrete will be under cover once the house goes up.

Next post: 26th Sept

13th Sept

Well, I haven’t recorded much lately, because not much has happened, but also I have been waiting and watching the tomato plants. It became obvious a few days ago that all the turbo tomato plants had blight and the speed of withering has been surprising. Due to other things and heavy rain, it was not until this morning that I went out to fully assess the damage. One fruit was not blighted so I have put that to one side to see if it comes out. Today I counted 134 blighted tomatoes, most of them a really good size too, so that is 145 in total. Think what I could have done with 145 decent tomatoes (apart from eating them!). It is most disheartening. This is now 2 years running that I have suffered this – well, the plants suffered the blight, not me, but I trust my meaning is clear.

 
I put last year down to a one off bad summer, but the so-called climate experts say that we should expect warm wet summers as more of the norm, and shelling out £10 for 3 plants and seeing their complete harvest literally rot away on the vine is not my idea of time and money well spent. I have been thinking about the possibility of blight and what I would do in the future for a while now and have come to the conclusion that I will not bother with tomatoes next year. Without a greenhouse to protect them, it is not worth the risk. I may grow a cherry tomato plant in a hanging basket as my wife likes them, and I could just buy 1 plant from a nursery. If the summers do get drier again, and these last 2 years turn out to be a wet blip, then I will go for it again.

 
It is hardly horticulture, but I will mention that I spent a fair bit of time beginning to prepare the ground for putting a base down for a play house that the boys’ cousins have handed down to them. Although it will be a big lump in the garden, it will be a place where all their toys can be thrown into thus keeping the garden itself clear and tidy!

 
Later on I weeded the rockery and planted 2 of my lavender plants. I planted out Lavender ‘Blue Star’ towards the back on the right, and Lavender Augustifolia near the front. These two give the usual bush appearance that you see in Provence (or postcards from it in my case).

 
The sweet peas are still providing fantastic flowers. The lower leaves look worse for wear and have powdery mildew, but you wouldn’t believe that looking upwards (7 feet high in some instances), and looking at the higher leaves and the blooms you would not think that it is mid September and time to wind down. The rest of the garden is doing just that. The phlox is more powdery mildew than bloom and is ready to say ‘blow this for a game of soldiers’, the bedding petunias just look tired though not ill, and for some reason the chard which should over-winter with ease, look like annuals. The sweet peppers are still doing fine – I harvested another 3 the other day and 1 a few days before that.

 
I’m not saying that the plants in general look as though they have had a few weeks of autumn, but it just seems to me that they are on the point of turning. Maybe it is my interpretation of what I see. I feel I have come to the end of the productive part of the year. Even though I had high hopes for a good September, the rain of August has just continued on – until today when it felt like June again, so part of me is feeling like it is time to clear the ground and put down a winter mulch. I’m not willing on autumn – particularly with the increased heating costs we’ll have this year – it is simply that after seeing cauliflowers come to nothing, calabrese bolting before harvest, rocket unable to clear the launch pad, and caterpillars faring far more sumptuously on my brassicas than I will, I feel it is time to say ‘enough’, stop fighting the pests that I never had the equipment for, and clear up ready to try again next year, forewarned from having been there and suffered that, and thus being forearmed. I would love to see a swift end to the growing season of weeds so that I can clear the allotment, find enough wood to make raised beds, find money for poles and decent netting as well as a good wire mesh against the rabbits, and spend the winter in unhurried preparation for greater things next year. Raised beds will stop the surrounding weeds encroaching onto the plot, and I have a small supply of top soil from digging out the playhouse foundation, as well as from my brother-in-law who has cleared some land for a summer house.

 

This is not to say all has been lost. I have a good number of crown prince squashes and pumpkins ripening up, I am still harvesting courgettes – another 7 this week, as well as spinach, and the onions, although few and small, have been a good quality, and our 4 year olds’ cucumber plants have done him proud, and the peppers at home have been encouraging. Next year I will concentrate more on peppers than tomatoes. I also have some winter harvests to look forward to. There will be some leeks, a few Brussels sprout plants are doing OK, and I’m hoping that the sprouting broccoli will fight back a bit. So still there is hope, and I remain optimistic and know that I have learnt so much from doing and failing somewhat. Yesterday a seed catalogue came through the post with promises of great produce to work towards next year, and all of a sudden, one is thrust into a time of dreaming and planning and aspiring to succeed. Winter for the gardener is such a time.

 

Next post: 21st Sept