Covering the past 3 weeks I guess….
Harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers began. The tomatoes are lovely, and the first cucumbers had such flavour. Picking the tomatoes seems to be encouraging further growth and flowers, as well as new fruits which is mad!
I harvested another batch of spring onions, and planted more seeds to have some more in autumn, in the hope they will grow/appear. Hopefully there will be enough warmth, as the volume of daylight is reducing.
The sunflowers are done, and have been taken down this year. This was the worst year for sunflowers – every other year they have been magnificent, and huge. I guess the heat and lack of water has affected their growth.
After months without rain, we saw heavy downpours for a few days running. This has kick started the dahlias into flowering, after a summer of minimal activity.
Many of the marigolds I sowed are coming to an end, so I have been collecting marigold seeds for next years sowing/plants. My folks were very jealous of our marigolds when they visited.
I bought some perennial sweet pea seeds, and sowed 1 pack in autumn, as lots of people suggest sowing them in autumn to give them a head start. We will see if this is effective… scientifically I kept a separate pack (in case they autumn ones all die off in winter) to sow in spring.
Related to the above comment on the rain affecting the dahlias, I noticed the digitalis plant I planted out in spring suddenly has new growth and flower buds appearing since it rained. Again it appeared to struggle much of the year.
I also have noticed that (again since the rain) the lilies are trying to regrow, yet were dying off.
I painted a fence I repaired, and was out the other morning giving it a 5th coat (don’t ask!) and a nearby tree and bush were full of blue tits, and they weren’t frightened off by me being there. It was lovely pausing and watching them for a while.
I was going to split our Asian lilies, but only split one, and potted a few up into bigger pots instead, thinking I will split them next year instead.
I spotted 3 more pumpkins which have appeared and are growing.
Another odd event – where I moved the hostas to, one of the hostas is trying to flower now.
I ended up taking most of the cucumbers off the plants the weekend just gone, to encourage the plants to put all their efforts into the remaining fruits. Definitely a really good crop of these this year!
Have spent the past week harvesting apples. We have LOADS! Eating as many as possibly, but we are also stewing and freezing a lot of them. Crumble ahoy!
The tomatoes continue apace, but I am loving how, so far, we only have a few available at a time, and they are ripening gradually, so we’re not overwhelmed with tomatoes. That’ll happen next month I reckon!
I moved a load of Gladioli that were exposed by me taking down a fence. They’d finished flowering, and hopefully they will come good in their new spot next year.