Month: August 2021

Six On Saturday: Harvesting fruit and flowers

/ n20gardener / 28 Comments

While it has not been a glorious year on my veg patch, we are enjoying some homegrown produce. Sadly the potatoes are all eaten and I need to consider growing more next year. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are ripening at a steady pace now, courgettes and cucumbers keep coming and the rather erratic strawberries seem to have finally found their fruiting time, clearly they are late risers. The figs are huge and too many for us to eat fresh, so I should be making jam, but I think the squirrels may get in first. I’ll gloss over the failures and enjoy the successes. This is the time of year for basil and tomato combinations: tarts, sauces and salads which are wonderful. But I should mention the excessive amount of whitefly in the greenhouse this year and give a nod to encarsia wasp cards as a bio control. I was late getting these going but they are in place and hopefully doing a grand job. Roses continue to do the heavy lifting for late summer here, ably supported by zinnias and a sprinkle of dahlias. Here’s my chosen six for this week.

One

Although I have sworn not to grow dahlias again, I confess that I am enjoying the cacti mix dahlias grown from seed for a cutting patch and so far, untouched by the slugs.

Two

I present this as a success but of course that’s only half the story, I should I say one twentieth of the story. Twenty tiny seeds of nicotiana ‘Whisper’ sown, three germinated and grown on, only one so far flowering in the garden. But it’s pretty!

Three

The autumn fruiting raspberries are just beginning to fruit. It doesn’t feel like as bountiful a crop as last year but they taste good.

Four

These are, I think, cox’s pippin apples. These don’t seem to have been affected by brown rot – long may that last. In a few weeks all the apples will be picked and taken off to be juiced. Last year’s juice ran out a little while ago and we are back buying supermarket juice which is so sweet in comparison.

Five

The scented leaf pellies were slow out of the blocks this year and this one ‘Pink Capitatum’ is only just putting on a good show. I grow them in pots, overwintered in the greenhouse. This year I took a few cuttings of this variety and they have really grown on well and are also in flower now. I use the pellies instead of buying in summer bedding for pots.

Six

My long struggle with the grapevine continues. I am always behind with the pruning and this year I discovered that I should be pruning back the long lengths from May onwards. I am usually thinking about doing this around July time, when they start to descend towards the ground. This year is the first year that some of the grapes look as though they might amount to something which given the amount of rain we have had this summer might suggest that I have underwatered in previous years. A crime I will readily confess to. The vine’s main duty is to provide some shade over the pergola so in truth I don’t worry about the grapes too much.

Forthcoming projects are bubbling away, some tweaking in the long border and the plan for the back border is coming together. There is always that moment when the grand scheme in the mind hits the reality of the limited space there actually is and everything gets scaled down. My plan is to buy the plants in the next couple of weeks so all will be revealed soon! More revelations will be found, as usual, on The Propagator’s site where he hosts the links to the SOS meme. I have plenty of reading to catch up with due to a spate of of dashing around with the family, which can’t be bad in the circumstances. For those in the UK, enjoy the long weekend!

Six on Saturday: The year is moving on

/ n20gardener / 10 Comments

The apples are filling out and the hollyhocks are going to seed. There is definitely a feel of autumn in the air. I lifted the last of the potatoes this week and finally accepted that the onions are not going to get any bigger. They are pretty small in spite of the rain that we have had. But then it doesn’t feel like there has been enough sunshine. I am just keeping up with eating the courgettes but the cucumbers are out running me. The first pickings of the outside tomatoes have come through this week just as I bought some seed for next year. I also bought green manure seed which has been sown in the bare ground left by the potatoes. And so it all begins again. Meanwhile there are a few more months of flowers to enjoy. Here’s this week’s six.

One

It has been day lily time for a few weeks and every week I aimed to show my favourite white one ‘Gentle Shepherd’ but the rain turned each transient flower to a soggy mess. These ones, ‘Golden Chimes ‘ seem more resilient and do manage to put on a show despite their more shady location.

Two

I don’t usually see a second flowering from the weigela but this year’s weather seems to have suited it and I’m not going to object.

Three

This is very much a tale of two pots. Last year’s bulbs of gladiolus murielae were left in their pots and overwintered in the greenhouse. Wow, I thought, what a lovely show I will get from all these green leaves and what a shame that the other pot hasn’t done so well. But the reverse is true, not one flower stem is hidden amongst those leaves while the other pot has at least managed to flower.

Four

Something started for next year’s flowering. These are eurybia divaricata, or wood aster, sown from seed supplied by The Propagator himself. I have planted about half a dozen out in the garden already and I am planning to donate these to a local Horticultural Society Plant Sale. Always a satisfying part of gardening when you can pass on the good turn. Thanks Prop.

Five

The roses work so hard in this garden and although some have really suffered from black spot this year, ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ is holding strong.

Six

I am also enjoying the second, very generous, flush of ‘Blush Noisette’ growing along the wall. The gloomier days mean that the pink tinge stays a little longer. In bright sunshine they fade all too quickly to white. Every cloud has a silver lining!

My gardening jobs for this weekend will be to cut down the hollyhocks before they self seed too vigorously. And I’m planning out a new planting area for the very back border. It’s a difficult spot I think. Not enough sun to support my dream of an asparagus bed but, tantalising, it does seem to get a good amount of late afternoon sun. I want to grow tall grasses to hide the end of garden fence and so, throwing caution to the wind, that is what I am going to do. More to come on this one. More from other SOS gardens can be found at The Propagator’s site. Enjoy.

Six on Saturday: catching up, looking forward and enjoying the present

/ n20gardener / 17 Comments

I had some time to do a catch up in the garden and rather later than usual I have cut back the last of the delphiniums. I was showered with seeds as the stems were cut back. I doubt they’ll come to anything but it would be fun if they did! Having completed the cut back I can see that there are way too many astrantias, which do self seed very well. There has been some pulling up but there is more to be done. The garden has a scruffy feel at this time of the year but the roses are coming through again which helps hold things together. Here’s this week’s six.

One

The cutting patch is just beginning to deliver the goods. I planted half with seed tray sown plants and half was direct sown in May. The May sown seeds unfortunately had to compete with the verbena bonariensis seeds that came through in the home made compost. The verbena won hands down and so that half was dug over and given to some lettuce plants and some very late sown cosmos. These are the China Asters which I really do like. Now I just have to cut them, which of course I won’t as they look so much better here.

Two

The other side of the asters is a patch of dahlias grown from seed. This was ‘cactus mix’ and there does seem to be a good variety of shapes and colours. The bees like this yellow one.

Three

I have several large pots of deciduous agapanthus, the ones that need to be fleeced over winter. They flower on much longer stems and look fabulous at this time of year. I have a record nine stems in one pot this year and I try to remember to feed them once a week with a seaweed feed.

Four

All the apple trees were summer pruned for the first time this year. About three years ago I took the decision to bring in a specialist to prune the trees back to a good shape and I planned to take over again once that had been achieved. How weak am I? He makes such a brilliant job of it that I have decided to use him every year. And this year he did the plum tree as well.

Five

I could fill the late summer borders with this rudbeckia, it spreads that quickly. But I reign it in every other year. It does cheer the eye on a cloudy day though. It’s ‘Goldsturm’. This I would cut for the house as it is so floriferous.

Six

Yes, the roses are back so I am featuring Jaqueline du Pre again. So very pretty.

I have many plans to move plants around this autumn and will have to add some things in to take the place of some of the astrantias. I’ve made a start by, late again, dividing some bearded irises and there has been much reviewing of the wish list and checking of prices on the internet. I’m really trying to resist the sprawlers and go for more vertical height. Much more research to be done.

If you are also seeking inspiration then there’s nothing better than reading a few of the #SixOnSaturday posts. The links are hosted by The Propagator, who has got a very fab gladioli this week. Enjoy the weekend.

Six on Saturday: Harvest thoughts

/ n20gardener / 10 Comments

Is it too early to call time on the veg plot for this year? I dug some more potatoes and the result was not wonderful. This year’s rotation finds the potatoes in the space under one the apple trees and there is a bit of a rain shadow there. I would have thought that the torrential rain we have had would have found a way through. Damn, I wasn’t going to mention the weather this week. The onions are just about still growing and don’t look too bad. Shallots harvested, French beans are coming through so slowly and the courgettes are being well behaved, always ready to deliver a good sized courgette when needed. The best deliverers this year are the cucumbers and the sweet peppers. Tomatoes might just come good if the ripening continues. Since the cucumbers have done so well they get to be first in this week’s six.

One

I grew ‘Burpless Tasty Green’ this year. A variety I have grown before and previously they have produced long cucumbers. This year I have had a steady supply of short cucumbers. I don’t mind that, in fact it suits me better but why, I ask myself? I have one plant in the greenhouse and one plant outside. If I leave them a little longer before picking they grow fatter but not longer. Curious, but not a problem.

Two

My last hurrah with dahlias. I lifted two dahlia clumps last year and overwintered them wrapped in newspapers. I don’t usually lift dahlias but I wanted the space for tulips. I didn’t have a space for the dahlias when the time came to replant so, as is the way here, they went to veg plot end of the garden, underneath another apple tree. Amazingly this seems to be the space for them, untouched by slugs they are flowering quite happily. Now I have a quandary. To leave them, to lift them again, to throw them out?

Three

The erigeron karvinskianus that suffered so badly over last winter has bounced back and nature has decreed that it should be more forward growing than before and nature is absolutely right, giving me the opportunity to fill the middle ground with new plants.

Four

I have to show the flower of ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ rose growing on the new arch. I took a cutting from the one growing over the back fence and a year later planted it at the base of the new arch. I am, of course, completely mad to be growing such a vigorous rose over an arch but I am going to be ruthless with the pruning. Fingers crossed.

Five

This veronicastrum ‘alba’ was subject to some moving in spring. Half the group went off to a sunnier spot and this group was moved a little closer to the front of the border. This group have done the best, remaining upright in all the wind and rain. Still not the impact I was looking for but I’ll leave them and see if they get settled in.

Six

Lastly, hosta ‘Francee’, growing in a pot and for the moment moved from its usual place by the back fence. There are plans for the back fence area, more of which later. In the meantime ‘Francee’ adds beauty to the scruffy greenhouse entrance.

Thanks go as always to The Propagator who hosts #SixOnSaturday and to everyone who takes part, sharing, commenting and liking. I’m off to inspect the newly developing bog garden if there’s a dry spell!