Eight more courgettes from the allotment and today I
also picked 2 cobs of sweetcorn which I blanched and froze.
5th September
After the family inspected the allotment plot we went
over to my parents where Dad has allowed me to dry off my onions in his
greenhouse. I peeled off the outer, flaking and dirty skins and filled a bag of
these for my compost bin but 3 bags full of onions, and I also have a load back
home as well making a total of 151. Great!
7th September
Only 2 courgettes today but another 2 sweetcorn cobs.
This time, we had them for dinner. My wife has never had them this fresh before
and she was amazed at how different they taste. A satisfied customer!
9th September
Yesterday the weather suddenly picked up and felt like
summer – that’s at least the second time this year! There has been talk of an
Indian summer – there always is when we’ve had a poor one, I think it is
people’s wishful thinking for some compensation before winter - well, we had an
afternoon of it anyway, and today was quite warm and sunny too so maybe autumn
has been postponed although leaves are changing colour.
This afternoon I finally started to wash the flower
pots and trays. I took an old bowl of soapy water and one of clean water out to
the garden and set about the task. I got quite a few cleaned up as well as
sorting out what plastic items have to go in the bin and which ones I can recycle
– they needed cleaning as well. So there were many yoghurt pots and plastic
cups to wash as I can take them to a local plastics recycling plant (our
council doesn’t take all types of plastic). I even washed out the compost bags
as they can be recycled too. Basically this place I’ve found will take any
plastic as long as you can positively identify what type of plastic it is. They
all have a number 1-6 (7 can’t be recycled) according to the specific type. A
lot of plastic these days has a triangular recycle symbol on it with either the
number in question of the initials of the type so that you can identify it. We
keep a large black bin bag in the conservatory and put all our plastics in
there that we can identify and when I’ve got too many of these bags knocking
about in the shed I get out 6 boxes, label them for my 5 year old and I pull
out the items from the bin bags and read the number, give it to him and he runs
off and puts it in the box. He loves it. Then I bag up, label and take them to
the plant. A good thing is that I can take supermarket carrier bags there so
although we now have these bags for life, I don’t have any guilt if I ever go
shopping without one as I can take a normal carrier bag and know I will be
recycling it when it is not needed anymore.
Back to the garden. I really want to get it tidied
before winter this year including all pots and baskets and trays cleaned,
sorted and stored where they will not be in my way. I need to tidy the shed
again and burn off some of the wood I have stored as I keep collecting but
still don’t have a wood burning stove – alas! I want to whitewash the front
wall to the left of the front garden and make a small raised bed in front of it
to grow poppies and/or cornflowers next year which will be set off well against
the wall. It was white once but needs re-doing. I also want to implement the
idea I had last year of planting 3 silver birch trees where the lilac stands
now. I had the plan just too late last year to have the time to clear the old
tree and prepare the ground but made a mental note that this September I would
do that, so I have to cut down and grub up the tree, and its roots, and prepare
3 holes for delivery in October. In planting bulbs for the spring I will
transfer bluebell bulbs to around the birch trees as they will be better there
I think. I already have quite a few bluebells on that left side but I could
really make a good show of it if I concentrated them there.
Next post: 14th Sept
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