Through the Garden Gate--September

The garden is beginning to look more autumnal now. Leaf colours are changing, leaves are falling, flowers are going over. Autumn colour seems to be earlier this year, perhaps it's due to the hot summer we had. It's just over a year since we started work on our garden and I'm keen to see what it will look like through the autumn. This time last year we had only planted the trees and shrubs, but now the beds are packed full of plants so there should be much more colour.

The leaves on the witch hazel have been gradually turning red through September and the hostas are starting to go yellow.

The sweet peas have done well, but their growth started to slow down so I decided it was time to cut them down. The flower bed looks a little empty now without them.

We've had some very strong winds recently which have blown leaves from the big trees down beyond our garden all over the lawn. I've grown some massive sunflowers this year and their yellow and brown heads have been peeping over the fence. They have been much admired by neighbours. Unfortunately one of them became a casualty to the high winds and fell down onto the flower bed. I'm wondering how long the others will stay upright for.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post

Clear up time

The last couple of weeks  has brought some extreme weather to our area--high winds and very heavy rain.

When we got to the allotment last week, we found one of the climbing bean wigwams had toppled over onto the path. For a few weeks now it has been leaning precariously and did fall over once before but Richard managed to hoist it back up into place. But this time I decided it was trying to tell me something--that it has had enough and was time to clear it away. There were very few beans left on it so it was cut back and thrown on the compost heap. The other beans still in the ground are slowing down so I'm sure it won't be long before they join their friend on the heap. The sunflowers which were growing in the same bed as the beans were leaning over too so those have been cut down.

 I cut the flowers off and those which were looking good are now in a vase at home. The rest of them have been left to dry out and provide a tasty treat for the birds.

Looking around the plot, there is a lot of clearing up to be done now that autumn is here. Although I am still harvesting some vegetables, there are others which have finished and can now be got rid of. Our job on the last couple of visits has been to clear some big weeds from around the plot boundaries. This weeding gets neglected a lot of the time when we are busy with other jobs, but I was determined to get them cleared. As areas were weeded we mulched them with shredded bark. A big pile of bark has been left for the allotment holders to help themselves to. There seems to have been only us using it, but we have found it really useful--and cheap of course! It has been hard work all that weeding and spreading bark, but it looks much better now and should keep the weeds away for a little while.

On the next visit to the plot this weekend I was intending to start weeding the veg beds, but there were lots more vegetables to be harvested and cleared away. The courgettes are slowing down now, I picked a few little ones and pulled up some of the plants. We also picked sweet corn and climbing beans and I found several cucumbers hiding under their leaves in the greenhouse.   I now have a big bag of cucumbers in the fridge. I finally managed to get more of the veg beds weeded. We're starting to see bare soil again.

The apples are looking lovely and will soon be ready for picking which means I need to find boxes to store them in. They will soon be all over the shed.

 There is no end to the jobs at the moment, but we are off on holiday soon and want to get as much as we can done before we go.

Cape gooseberries

It's always nice to grow something new especially when you don't know how the plant is going to develop. Earlier this year an allotment neighbour gave me a small plant which she said was a cape gooseberry. I have never grown this before so didn't know how to look after it. I repotted it into a larger pot, put it in the greenhouse, watered it regularly and watched it grow.

It grew and grew and then papery fruit cases appeared on the plant. The fruit cases start off green then turn a pale straw colour as the fruit ripens. I wasn't sure when would be the right time to pick them but the plant helped me decide as they kept dropping off. As the plant grew there were more and more fruit which dropped off all over the greenhouse staging and onto the floor.

I collected them up and tasted them. They look like tiny baby tomatoes and are a pale yellow/orange colour. They have a sweet taste but there was no enthusiasm from my family for them, so I just continue to admire the plant. The fruit in their papery cases are in a little bowl in the kitchen and I dip into it from time to time, but like my family, I too am not that impressed with them.

Through the Garden gate-- August

I'm very late doing this post, I don't know where the time went, but as have I taken photos I'll show you how our our garden has been in the last few weeks. Click on the photos to get a larger image.

It's seems like summer has gone now. But that hot weather was just a bit too much at times, so the rain was very welcome. And the threatened hose pipe ban was lifted before it even started. It was such a relief not to have to keep watering.

The newly planted raised beds around our seating area have been lovely all summer and just as I thought they had come to an end--whoosh along came some beautiful autumn colour. We can't see this part of the garden from the house or the patio so it is quite a surprise sometimes to come round the corner and be faced with all that colour.

These are a lovely crocosmia with a dark red centre and look lovely with the blue veronica, and salvia.

Geranium 'Roxanne' and Perovskia. The geranium has been flowering all summer. I think I'm going to have to move it though to the front of the border. At the back you can just see a pink climbing rose 'Zephirine Drouhin' which was new this year. It flowered early on and I was pleased to see it has put on another show.

This Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' is beautiful. I planted it last autumn and it has really taken off this year.

Erigeron planted in a pot, still going strong.

I don't know what this flower is, I found it growing in a pot of grass which someone gave me. It's like a small gladioli.

Thanks to Sarah at 'Down by the Sea' for hosting this monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.

Harvesting, planting and weeding on the allotment

sweetcorn

We've had some welcome rain at last and the water butts on the plot are full again. The temperatures have cooled down too making it so much easier to get our gardening work done. The plot is looking good.

A couple of  weeks ago I  planted kale, purple sprouting broccoli  and calabrese. These are later than I normally plant them, but I didn't want to miss out on them, they are good winter veg.

the brassica bed covered with netting

There are an awful lot of cabbage white butterflies around at the moment so all our brassicas are well covered with netting although they are clever creatures and seem to be able to find the tiniest gap to get in and lay eggs.  The brassica bed is now full and there's no space left for anything more to be planted. At one end of the bed are the young kale and broccoli plants whilst at the other end are the cabbages I planted in the spring. We ate the first of these last week and it was really good. It was as good looking as any you find in the shops and tasted so much better.

the onion bed cleared and a row of late peas coming through

Onions now drying out in the greenhouse

I have been running out of planting space in other beds too. Last weekend I started planting out the leeks and had to search around for suitable places to plant them. The onion bed is now empty but I didn't want to plant the leeks there because they are part of the onion family and  disease could spread. So I spent some time time weeding and hoeing in other places to prepare the ground for the leeks. Leeks are one of our favourite winter vegetables and I have an awful lot of them to get in the ground.

leeks ready for planting

This hot summer has been good for some vegetables, but not for others. The climbing beans have gone mad. I have frozen some and given lots away to friends and neighbours and we have been eating lots of them. There are plenty of courgettes too. I planted more plants than I would need in case any got eaten by slugs. there are two varieties--'Black Beauty' and  'Tondo Di Piacenza' which is a round variety. In past years I have never had good crops of courgettes, so of course this year when I planted too many I have loads. What do you do with so many courgettes? I have made soup and used them in several recipes. They go well with tomatoes, make a good risotto with prawns or bacon or another veg such as beans. This week I may try making courgette burgers.

too many courgettes

Earlier in the year we moved the blueberry plants to a place where they would have more space and Richard made a fruit frame to cover them. We have had a good crop of them for the first time. The sunflowers both at the allotment and at home in the garden have grown to a magnificent height. I don't think I have ever grown any so tall before.

sunflowers

As I work through my jobs list, it's good to cross things off. But I never get to the end of the list because other jobs get added all the time. One of the jobs which always gets left to the end is weeding. The plot boundaries and the pond are in need of a really good weeding but never seem to get done. Each year I think I will make a bigger effort, but something else always takes precedence.  There are two corners of the plot which are getting taken over with bindweed and I really must try to get rid of it. Perhaps when I've got the rest of the leeks planted I'll be able to do it.

Our new garden project 7--another path and an arch

The next stage of our garden project was to continue with the path work. The bottom of the garden was now looking good, but needed linking to the house where the flagged area was. I had always wanted an arch to grow climbers up and could just picture one at the end of the patio leading out onto the garden. So our next plan was to complete the path from the seating area up to the patio through the arch and have a small flower bed each side of the archway. Holly the cat loves being in the garden with us and follows us around as we work.

After all that had been completed so far in the garden, this was a much smaller project and was finished in no time. As usual Richard was the builder and I was the designer and planter. The arch was put in place first and then the sleepers for the raised beds either side. The same system for building the path was used again with gravel and topped with slate chippings.

 I decided to delay the planting up of the two beds as we were going to have some rendering work done on the back wall of the house and I didn't want anything getting in the way of the builders or being damaged by them. The plants in pots which you can see in the photos are herbs which had been on the patio and were moved there to be out of the way of the builders.

In the meantime I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted to put in these two small beds. We visit a lot of gardens open to the public which gives me lots of ideas for my own garden. I like to be able to look at a garden and not see the whole of it in one go. So my idea is to have the arch covered in climbers and plants either side which will provide a bit of screening when we are sitting on the patio. I'm so looking forward to the scaffolding being taken down so that we can get on with the next phase of our garden on the flagged area.

Through the Garden Gate--July

We were pleased when the rain finally arrived and in great deluges. It has helped us to ease up on the watering, although there are still big cracks in the ground. I think it will be some time before the ground recovers from all the dryness. The reservoirs are drying up and at the end of this week there will be a hose pipe ban in force here.

The garden is still looking colourful and we can't help but be amazed at how different it looks now after only a year since starting work on making our new garden. The raised beds next to the seating area have been full of bees buzzing away. It's good to know that we are doing something to help the wildlife.

The late summer colour is now emerging--crocosmia, perovskia, rudbekia, phlox and monarda

  

I'm pleased to see that the hydrangea  'limelight' has survived the winter and is coming into flower. This was one of the first shrubs I bought last autumn when we were starting on our new garden.

I have two lots of sweet peas, one frame at the allotment and a wigwam in the garden and they are both flowering their socks off. The garden wigwam is behind the seating area where we get their beautiful scent wafting over to us. I am cutting them every two days and even though they only last a couple of days once cut it is worth it to have a constant supply of flowers in the house.

I am linking this post to Sarah's monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' blog at 'Down by the Sea'
http://downbytheseadorset.blogspot.com/2018/07/through-garden-gate-july-2018.html