10th & 13th October

I cut all the sweet pea flowers today for 2 vases in the house, and we had loads on our hands, although the stems of many were very short. I don’t know how much longer they will last so it will be interesting to see how many flowers we get after this complete harvest of all that is there. Some of the plants have a lush green top half but a light brown withered lower half, others just look good all over.

 Today and another day previously this week, I have been weeding and clearing the borders. The weeds, died-back bedding petunias, and sweet peas that were planted around the bamboo wigwams were all tidied up, but I still have a bit to do. Just think, this was all part of my agenda for a few Saturdays ago when I was sick instead.

 

13^th October

Today was the final harvest for pumpkins. The remaining 3 in the front garden were picked by myself and my 2 young assistants, the largest one being just under 4kg (the pumpkin, not the assistant!). The haul from the front garden including that one the other Saturday is a total of 10.3kg making a total of just under 20kg for 10 pumpkins. My wife said that the supermarket was selling their pumpkins for £2.99 each last week. Size wise, 4 of my pumpkins are equivalent to 2 shop sized ones, and if I ignore the probability that my larger ones could well be larger than most shop ones, that is the equivalent of 8 pumpkins, so that is £23.92 worth of fresh, home grown organic veg. I love the winter squashes. I have 3 recipes for soups, we can roast them, make pumpkin bread and my wife makes a great pumpkin pie. A previous years’ pie was made for a Thanksgiving party held for some American friends and one guest said it was better than the ones her mother makes (or is that ‘Mom’?). Better than a home baked American pumpkin pie – what an honour!

 

Anyway, back to my garden. I cleared away the pumpkin plants for the compost bin, and in the back garden, finished my clearance of the borders. They look really good now, and the compost bin is grateful for a large quantity of fresh material. I was out today for about an hour until 5.20 just in a polo shirt. The days are just great at the moment and indoors, even later in the evening I’ve often turned off the heating. The leaves on the lawn and scattered around the borders let you know it is autumn, and some fuchsias are looking pretty bare, but temperature-wise you wouldn’t really know we are in mid October, it’s wonderful.

Next post: 16th October