15th - 31st October

15^th October

I have painted the front wall and its brightness is startling. I have also half filled up a wooden box pallet with soil to be a large container for hopefully a Japanese maple to grow there. I think the stunning red leaves will look good. I have also make a raised bed edging out of pallet wood that goes from the far end of our bay window, in front of this box, along in front of the newly white wall and along the front wall. I’ll fill this with compost and soil and it will be for sowing poppies and cornflowers next spring. What with the fuchsias and grasses already there, the front garden will still be a small area but one that is full of plants and colour.

21^st October

The rain stopped after the last entry and we have continued to enjoy mild and dry weather. Sadly, the courgettes have finished. I managed to pick about a dozen in the last week that were about finger size but now the plants are shrivelled up, damaged by cold nights. Now that the plants have shrivelled I have found another butternut squash plant weighing about a pound – it’s always good to have these little bonuses. In the garden, I have harvested a couple of small portions of rocket and the hanging baskets are still managing to provide a display of colour from the purple surfinas plus the salvias are still in bloom and they make a good impact against the silvery cinerarias.

31^st October

Yesterday we returned from a family holiday to just south of Bude in Cornwall, not that far from where we were last year. It had a wood burning stove in the lounge so we took 2 large bags of logs from the garden that I split here one evening and that proved to be a roaring success. We also paid another visit to the Eden Project – again it was a delight and an inspiration. The boys were surprised to see a display of cotton plants and a cotton harvest in the Mediterranean biome. One said ‘It doesn’t really come from the plants does it Daddy?’ That kind of comment is fine from a 5 year old but when my wife let it out that she never realised it ‘grew on trees’ my eyes rolled in their sockets!

So today we took a trip to the allotment where I pulled some leeks and harvested all the carrots. A lot were damaged by carrot root fly but we still managed a pretty impressive haul considering I did nothing more than sow the seeds and watered a little. One carrot was 13 oz in weight. The calabrese plants are still producing side shoots and I cut off well over a large head’s worth. The sweet peas are still flowering and my 10 headed sunflower had all heads in bloom. It was magnificent to see such a bright yellow ball of sunshine on the last day of October amid so much end of season deadness. Before the holiday I took a couple of photos of the sunflower and I will enter them into next year’s show if they repeat the photograph category. On that note I really need to plan a time to come down and do an autumn clean up.

Back home after the holiday it seems that the salvias have come out even more.

Next post: 27th Nov

1st - 7th October

1^st October

I’ve lost track of exactly what I’ve done and when but today I picked 1 large and 2 fist sized butternut squashes as well as 4 small courgettes and 1 small red pepper from the allotment. On Tuesday I picked 9 courgettes – still going well late in September! I also picked another decent posy sized bunch of sweet peas. It makes it all the more sad as I could have been picking sweet peas at home were it not for lack of watering while we were away.

At home I have made no progress on clearing away the lilac tree which my wife is in favour of, nor of the purchasing the 3 silver birches, which she is not in favour of! One birch tree would be a good compromise but where can I buy just one? The good priced ones on the internet come in multiple batches and singular trees from nurseries are pricey – and large.

3^rd October

Today was the first autumnal weather day. The Indian summer has gone and rain threatened all day although it merely stayed dull. My 5 year old had a birthday party to go to this afternoon so we had no trips or outings planned which meant I could tackle the job of tidying the shed. Before that I mowed the lawn and then it was the main event of the day. Out came everything, some of it got put in a rubbish sack, then the remainder went in again in a neater manner. All this was achieved with the help of the 2 year old who had a great time ‘painting’ things with a small paintbrush I found. I had time at the end to cut back the fennel and saved some seed heads to harvest the seed, as well as the stems which are partly hollow and will make a good overwintering place for solitary bees. Filled with the satisfaction of a good days’ work, I planned to put white masonry paint on the front wall that divides us from our neighbour as a good background for poppies and/or cornflowers in the front garden next year. I’ll try to make some edging too for a small level raised bed.

 5^th October

The autumnal weather continues, now with light continuous rain reaching heavy at times. So I decided that the butternut squashes weren’t going to ripen anymore let alone grow any larger so I harvested them. I now have 3 large ones and about half a dozen small ones the size of my fist weighing a total of 7.8kgs. I also found a large cauliflower that must have dramatically increased in size whilst my back was turned, 3 small red peppers, so small I think they might be chillies (a few years ago there were reports of nurseries mislabelling chillies as peppers) and 1 small courgette. It won’t be long before all summer vegetables have finished and it will be onto the carrots and leeks then later the sprouts and broccoli.

Another rain-fuelled decision was that I would not be able to paint the wall!

7^th October

Today was our third day of rain and it got heavier than yesterday at times. The gardens definitely need it. My lawn looks worse than at any time in the summer and the vegetables require a really good drink. I just long to get out and cut down that lilac tree, make those raised beds and paint that wall.

Next post: 15th Oct