In complete contrast

I’ve now finished clearing and roughly forking over the three vegetable growing areas. Apart from hoeing off any weeds that appear they’ll now be left alone through to next year.

In complete contrast the flower patches are still full of plants and colour with pot marigolds, cosmos, sunflower, nasturtiums and nigella all flowering.  I didn’t dead-head the pot marigolds when they finished flowering the first time,  just collected seeds, and they’re now starting to flower again.

   

Providing the weather stays dry and reasonable over the coming weeks I’m hoping to empty out the compost bin.  It was a job that I wanted to do early in the year but it was too wet.  If I don’t then it can wait until late winter or early spring next year.  That’s the only major job on my to do list at present.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

It was good weather…

all last week so I made the most of it plotting every morning.

Unfortunately blight struck the tomato plants last weekend so I removed all the fruit that still looked okay then cleared the plants.  I’ve got the fruit at home in various stages of ripening, mostly the yellow Golden Sunrise,  which will be more than enough for at least the next few weeks.   The runner beans did poorly this year but thankfully both the climbing and dwarf French beans did  much better. However they’ve now all finished so I harvested all the remaining pods, cleared the plants and took down the canes during the week. I’ve started roughly forking over the ground where I grew the potatoes and , not surprisingly, I’m finding a fair few I missed the first time round.

 

A few weeks ago the mound of nasturtiums looked like they were beginning to finish as the flowers were dying and the leaves looking very pale.

However some rain the week before last and cooler temperatures revived it and it’s looking good again with plenty of colourful flowers.

 

        

The sunflowers are still the most noticeable flowers at present thanks to the numerous flowers on the tallest one.

Next week looks set to continue dry and mostly sunny, with the temperature reaching 30 C/86 F tomorrow then gradually dropping to the low 20’s C/low 70’s F towards the end of the week.

Take care, and have a good week!

Tree following, September 2020

 

Liz –  My White Oak which I’m tree following here in Lexington, Kentucky shows little change since last month but it’s good to see that it still has plenty of green leaves.

There’s also more new growth low down on the trunk which is hopefully a good sign.

 

 

 

     

 

Mike – The Plum tree I’m following likewise shows very little change apart from more leaves changing colour from green to yellow.

I noticed these interesting patterned leaves when I took a close look.

Our thanks to Pat, The Squirrelbasket, for continuing to host Tree following. If you want to know more about this please click on the link shown over on the right-hand side.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

Yesterday…

 

should have been the horticultural society’s annual show but it was sadly cancelled some months ago, like so many similar events.  In recent years I’ve entered at least a handful of entries but had it been held I would have struggled to have found enough suitable items for even a couple of entries as my vegetable growing season has been so-s0.

 

 

The society’s trading shed reopened at the end of July and I called in the first week it was open.  I donned my mask before going in and when I did I found that five people were inside, four who were committee members,  all not wearing masks and certainly not social distancing.  I wasn’t that surprised, but certainly disappointed, and needless to say my visit was a brief one. I later emailed the chairman stating what I’d seen and making it clear that I would not be going there again in the forseeable future.  Thankfully I’ve probably no need to until January when I will hopefully be able to arrange to get what I want during the week.

It looks like being reasonable plotting weather this coming week which is welcome.

Take care, and have a good week!

Early autumn

When I look at the cosmos flowers it’s usually the pink/red and white ones, like this one, that catch my eye with their numerous colour variations.   However this week it was this deep velvety red one that stood out.

       

I’m not sure of the varieties as in the spring I sowed some saved seeds along with a couple of varieties all mixed.  They should keep flowering well into autumn, especially if the weather remains fair.

Another flower that I noticed was this white California Poppy which has grown from one that self-seeded earlier in the year.   It’s probably the variety Ivory Castle, which has pure white flowers, rather than Alba, which has creamy-white ones.

Apart from today, which is damp and dull, it’s been a good week for plotting, and thankfully looks set to remain the same into next week.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

August assortment

The weather was unsettled last week with a couple of days of heavy rain and high winds but thankfully all was okay on the plot.

 

My second lot of tomato plants, two each Golden Sunrise and Outdoor Girl, are now showing lots of fruit and I’ve been picking some of the latter, here are six in a 5″/12.5 cm plant saucer to show their size.

 

I’ve been picking some small cucumbers Marketmore rather than letting them get big, and I picked the last of the sweetcorn Lark yesterday.

 

There are plenty of cosmos still flowering, and lots of buds visible as well.  This plant is rather bushy and has bright green foliage.

 

It’s been a rather cool weekend but looks like remaining dry and getting slightly warmer next week, which sounds ideal.

Take care, and have a good week!

Love-in-a-Mist

Whenever I see the picture on a packet of Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damescena) Persian Jewels showing not only the familiar blue and white flowers but pink/rose ones as well I smile as most years I sow a packet and rarely ever get any of the latter appear, however this year much to my surprise and delight I’ve had a handful.

They’re an annual that I don’t grow anywhere specific so they tend to appear in various places, especially as I generally let them self-seed rather than saving to resow.

   

According to Chiltern Seeds they can be sown as late as August with the resulting plants in bloom in early October.  They come in various shades of blue, and both single and double forms. They are wonderful  for cut flowers,  and the inflated seed pods can be dried for winter decoration.   It’s not surprising that they are some of the most well-loved and popular flowers.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

This year’s sunflowers…

have been the usual mix including the knee-high Musicbox  (right) and a few eye-catching Ring of Fire  (below) along with various unknown ones from saved seed.  They’ve grown from around 1 ft/30 cm to over 6 ft/180 cm.

I also tried a new to me variety Sonja but it didn’t do as well as expected, nor do I like the colour of the orange-yellow flowers so I’ll be looking for something else to try next year.

I’m not keen on most of the dark coloured varieties but like this one that I grew from saved seed.  I don’t know the variety so I’m calling it Sunset Shades. 

As I mentioned on Thursday I’m collecting the flower heads to save the seeds.  Most of which I’ll be sending to Toni at The Big Sunflower Project to use next year.

 

Take care, and have a good week!

A better week

Thanks to everyone who kindly commented on Sunday’s post. It’s been a better week and apart from yesterday, when it rained all day, I’ve been to the plot every morning. I’ve not done a great deal, but started to collect sunflower heads for the seeds as the parakeets have already been chomping them.

At home on the windowsill I gave up with both tomatoes as the Little Sun grew way too tall, produced lots of flowers but no fruit and the Tiny Tim didn’t even flower.  I probably won’t bother to try again.   The tiny 6″/15 cm sunflower Sonja produced five very small flower heads, but it doesn’t look like there will be any viable seeds.  The pot marigold Oopsy Daisy has been brilliant even though it grew twice as tall, around 16″/40 cm, as it should have done.  So far there has been over 20 small pale lemon yellow flowers with light-orange centres,  most of which have had darker petal tips.  I’m saving seeds from this to grow again next year.

Take care, and have a good weekend!

Summertime blues

I only went to the plot a couple of times last week as it was either way too warm or been damp and dull.

I spent some of the time looking at the new block editor here on WordPress which they are switching to soon, and according to them is an easier way to create posts.  So far I’ve found it confusing and clunky so don’t be surprised if my posts suddenly stop, albeit hopefully temporarily.  There is a free plug-in for the existing classic editor which I shall probably download and hopefully use, but it’s all such a faff.

This wasn’t the post I was going to write, and apologies for it being a rather moody one but I have a touch of the summertime blues.

Take care, and have a good week!