Just a quick comment – we’ve had temperatures well above 10degC over the last week, getting up to 16 even. Plenty of sunshine & not much rain.
All I’ve managed to do is to finish hedges on one side (lots of holly & brambles – I have the scars to prove it!). Plus some right at the bottom of the garden which I hadn’t managed to cut for over a year – it was over up to 15 foot high – needed a saw in some caases – still, lots of wood for bonfire night….

Sorry about the long break without a post – lots of things to do in the house and as a result the garden has been somewhat neglected apart from harvesting stuff.

Here we are in the autumn and we’ve had very little rain for the past several weeks, fortunately there is nothing left to water in the garden otherwise it would have meant being out with the hosepipe.

Anyway, most of the crops are over or just about. I picked the last few runner beans yesterday, the plants are just about hanging on though. The broccoli are mostly in flower (the guinea pig likes them) but there are a few small heads. They have been a disappointment mostly though considering the amount of ground they take up. Not sure I’ll grow any brassicas next year, unless I can divine the secret of getting a decent crop.

The sweetcorn produced laughably small cobs (see below) – but we are in the process of eating them – I harvested the whole lot a few days ago. That part of the garden is too shady for them. It’s one thing I have to tackle this winter, reducing the size of the shading trees & bushes.

pathetic sweetcorn cobs

In the same area the celery has grown ok – not very big, but now it is being blanched so we may have some to eat soon. The currant bushes close by have all been pruned right down to the base – and the two in the section where the sweetcorn was may come out altogether over the winter to help give more light – they are pretty old and I have some replacements growing elsewhere now.

The curly kale is standing pretty high, we haven’t eaten much of it so far but it should come in handy through the winter. The lettuce is all gone to seed – again I’ve only let it as the guinea pig likes the flower heads. I’ve still got some carrots and beetroot close to the greenhouse which we should eat soon.

The tomatoes are still cropping, both inside the greenhouse and outside, though the ones outside the greenhouse are looking pretty unhappy now. The ones outside the kitchen though, since they get more sun are still producing. Most have been a small orange sweet tomato, and the rest a small olive type (see pic below).

Kitchen tomatoes - ony a few days ago

In the greenhouse the one aubergine plant has produced 3 aubergines – quite successful, I may try a couple of plants next year.

Aubergine in greenhouse - early October

The sweet peppers though are way behind, only one actual pepper and that quite small, I doubt very much whether that will ripen either. Must try and get them going earlier next year. The grapes have produced a good harvest, they need picking pretty soon.

The courgettes gave up some weeks ago – thank goodness, somehow there always seem to be more produced than can be used. The cucumber – especially the ones grown in containers and growbag have produced well, I picked the last one only a couple of days ago. Interestingly, the growbag cucumber was sharing with a courgette plant – which produced no courgettes at all (a blessing in disguise I suppose).

Nothing much very exciting has happened on the wildlife front – apart from evicting a couple more squirrels and seeing a fox at the bottom of the garden – they haven’t been so obvious this year. The buddleia plant  near the house still had flowers until only about 10 days ago and we were still getting visits from red admirals. More worrying not a single tortoiseshell at all this year.

The blackbirds have begun to argue about territory in the last week or so after several quite happily coexisting on the lawn through the late summer.

I cut the lawn for the last time probably a couple of days ago and am in the middle of the last bout of hedge cutting – still a lot to do though.

Sorry for the break – hols and decorating have been keeping me from paying more than scant attention to the garden over the past 3 weeks.

The time away from home didn’t prove disastrous – although I had set up my drip feed watering system for the greenhouse plants and the hanging baskets plus tomato plants near the kitchen in case there was a heatwave. Although it seemed that it had been fairly dry while we were away it can’t have been too bad judging by the state of the plants.

It did mean some rapid harvesting sessions once we had settled back into the house – beans (runner, dwarf & climbing french), tomatoes (plenty, and harvesting every day since), broccoli (though not much – most had gone to flower) and cucumber forming the vegetable part. Then we had brambles (lots in the hedges – I need too make a pie now)) & damsens (the trees at the bottom of the garden only produce every five years or so and this year was it - they go into the freezer for jam making later.

Meanwhile, the lettuce have all gone to seed, as have all the other salad crops – still the guinea pig likes the lettuce. The courgettes didn’t really produce while we were away, but there are one or two coming on now.

The sweetcorn is in full flower- though the plants are rather dwarf compared last year – it looks like the cobs will be small – the lower light conditions in the plot has held them back I think. Still they were worth a try. The celery planted in the same are seems to be growing ok though.

In the greenhouse, the aubergine plant is flowering, but no new aubergine is being produced at the moment. The sweet pepper plants are now in flower, but the hopes of producing ripe peppers are now pretty slim. The grapevine has a good collection of grape bunches ripening up as well.

One slightly irritating point though – after renewing the guttering on the greenhouse side nearest the path a couple of months ago and resetting the water butt – I noticed it was leaking about a month ago. it had split near the base. So I emptied it, let it dry, and mended the hole with epoxy resin. Fortunately we’ve had enough rain to mean it hasn’t been crucial in any case. However, yesterday I noticed it wet below the butt – and the split seems to have spread and it is leaking again, slowly, but perceptively. So, it will have to be drained, dried and fixed again – I can’t even blame frost!

The lawn needed mowing when we returned from hols of course – which I did manage to do, but the bits of hedge that need trimmming will have to wait for now.

On the wildlife front – the robin, and at least on great tit have worked out that it is safe to go into the squirrel trap and pick up the peanuts left as bait! Which is annoying as another squirrel has been appearing during the last week or so. We also had a frog that seemed to think our kitchen was home – it promptly hopped in at least twice when the back door was opened. Also, more caterpillars on the broccoli…..hmmmm

We are now in a period of low pressure systems coming over one after another – just like spring or autumn and very untypical of summer. So we have showers, wind and occasional sun. The only positive is I don’t have to go round watering the garden. On the other hand, the weeds especially are growing like mad, not to mention the lettuce (see below).

Lettuce gone mad almost hiding courgette

 So we are still harvesting, the broad beans are just about over, a few pods left. I’ve started cutting them down and this year I’m going to experiment with leaving some stumps to see if they will sprout and flower, which apparently works sometimes. The broad beans in the picture below were podded and then the outer cases taken off and used in two dishes – a sort of risotto dish with chicken and rice, and in a kind of stew with chicken – both very nice

The dwarf and climbing french beans are still producing, and the runners are in full production. The mangetout peas are coming to an end – wish I’d planted some more now.

Harvest of beans, peas & courgettes

The courgettes are staring to produce the usual surfeit problem, I picked two large ones the other night but we’ve only managed to dispose of one (almost) in an omelette. A couple of  the cucumbers are now just about ready to be harvested so we’ll see how they are in a salad.

Broccoli is in full production, in fact some has already flowered,  but the guinea pig seems to like them so they aren’t wasted. Also, we had some of the spinach beet leaves the other night – they tasted fine. We need to try some of the curly kale soon…

Butterfly eggs under broccoli leaf

The tomatoes in the green house are in full production now (olive type) and the aubergine plant has one aubergine growing now plus other flowers. The peppers aren’t even flowering yet, so I don’t hold out much hope for them producing much.

Olive tomatoes in greenhouse

The harvesting of blackcurrants has started, and is about half-way through but weather has rather interrupted that process. Even so we have several pounds – enough to make coulis at least.

Blackcurrants

Elsewhere the buddleia is in full flower. We have 4 bushes, white, dark purple and the ‘normal’ purple type. They are of course the place to see butterflies, but as a sign of the decline I have only seen two or three species this year. Mostly cabbage white, and almost all the rest peacocks with one other brown and yellow type that I haven’t identified yet. Not a single tortoiseshell or red admiral, both of which have been frequent visitors on previous years.

Picture to be added…..

We also saw the amazing sight of ‘our’ hedgehog in the middle of the lawn during the day last week pushing the squirrel trap bodily around in order to get at the peanuts underneath it – it must really like peanuts. It’s going to be difficult to know where to put the trap to avoid getting the hedgehog if it is going to be that keen to get at peanuts.

Meanwhile, I’ve had to cut hedges at the front and lawn at the back – and still hedge at the back in real need of cutting, it’s just finding the time.

Yes it’s that time again when everything seems to be available all at once. The weather has also turned a bit like spring with showers and sun so no need to water the garden. The jet stream is too far south so we are getting the atlantic lows passing over us rather than to the north so we’re told.

The broad beans are almost all ready for picking and we’ve had several lots now – so the cookery books are being scoured for suitable recipes to make a change from just having them steamed. It’s noticeable that the ‘drarf’ variety (whichever that was) is far less productive than the much taller row – which I think are ‘the Sutton’.

The mangetout peas are also in full production with the usual problems of finding the pods in the mass of leaves, they are much the same colour making it quite tricky. Every time I search for more I find a few that have obviously been there for a while as the peas inside are getting big, and yet I hadn’t found them on previous visits I think they hide deliberately - still they are all edible. We have them both steamed (with hot meals) and raw (in salads).

The dwarf beans are also producing – with about 8 plants the are just producing enough for a decent portion every few days. fortunately the climbing beans (runner & french) are not producing yet but are in full flower.

The courgettes are doing fine – we’ve had two and there are 3 or 4 ready for picking now. The cucumbers virtually all have ‘mini’ cucumber on them, so we’ll see if they develop into decent sized ones.

The lettuce has gone completely mad – they are almost all huge plants, and as I’m only harvesting a few leaves each day it isn’t having much effect. Still plenty of leaves for the guinea pig. Some of the broccoli plants have heads big enough to harvest already. Also the spinach beet is ready to have leaves harvested.

On top of all that , the first tomato to turn reddish has just appeared in the greenhouse so they won’t be long.

Speaking of the greenhouse, as with last year something is eating holes in the leaves of the tomatoes and the peppers (no flowers yet) – I suspect caterpillars of something but haven’t caught them out yet – they are also too high I suspect for the resident toads to get at them.

Speaking of damage to leaves, I have a clematis by the kitchen window which has had great chunks taken out of a lot of the leaves, I’ve never seen that before and I’ve no idea what is doing it.

Lastly, I finally got round to planting out the rather large celery plants (they are too big to call seedlings now) in a trench near the sweetcorn plants – I did grow a few last year (seedlings from my neighbour) but they didn’t produce much we could eat (but the guinea pig liked what there was) – I’ll try to look after these a bit better.

More blackbird fledglings have appeared on the lawn recently, so I guess they had a second brood. I spotted a squirrel in the hedge the other day – looks like anther eviction will have to happen soon.

It’s all going to fall apart at the weekend apparently but right now we are having temperatures of over 30degC and not dropping much below 20 at night – I bet air-conditioner sales are rocketing.

Of course this means long watering sessions in the evening, if I get the time, and so far no water restrictions but given a bit longer without rain we could be in trouble.

This means the plants are growing pretty well – and it has got the courgettes and cucumbers going properly now (see below) - although one cucumber plant is still struggling.

Courgette in flower

The mangetout peas (see below) and broad beans are well into production so we are eating some most nights, either in salad or cooked. The runners and french/dwarf beans won’t be far behind as they are flowering like mad now.

Mangetout Peas

The broad beans are suffering blackfly attacks though not really badly as yet.

Blackfly on Broad Bean Plant

The salad crops are a bit of a mixed bag, the lettuce are fine – far too many really, but it does mean instead of harvesting whole plants I just cut leaves from a selection of plants for our salads. The rocket and mustard have just about had now but the replacements aren’t really yet, so I’ve added a bit of flavour to the salads with nasturtium leaves (at least those not badly infested with blackfly).

I noticed the other day that one of the broccoli plants had produced the beginning of a flower head – so maybe they’ll be a bit more successful than previous attempts.

Broccolli plant

Inside the greenhouse the tomato plants are going to have ripening fruit soon I think and there seems to be plenty being produced. The peppers are slowly getting bigger as is the aubergine plant, no sign of flowers yet.

I’ll include a recent picture of ‘our’ hedgehog here – haven’t seen it again since last week but I’m sure it’s still around. I have a short movie as well which I’ll put up if I can sort out how to do it…

Hedgehog out for a walk during the day

We’re still getting visit from goldfinches and the other ‘regular’s are pretty busy. Noticed a squirrel in one of the trees at the bottom of the garden this morning – looks like the trap will be going out again…
One worrying thing, I spotted two ladybirds the other day, about the only ones I have seen so far this year, and they were both ‘harlequins’ I think – they really do seem to have taken over. They’ll have to revise all the pictures used in children’s books at this rate – they won’t ever see the classic ‘2 spot’ or ‘6 spot’ types in the wild.

We’ve had good weather now for over a week and the weather forecast is for temperatures reaching 30deg C next week. As a gardener of course I’m now going to complain about the lack of rain…

So I’ve had to water outside with the hosepipe over the last week and it looks as if I’m going to be out there next week as well.

Mind, one of the uses of the hose has been to remove blackfly from the broad beans – not a bad attack yet but enough – I’ve removed the tops from some of the plants already and the rest will have to be taken out soon. We’ve had more beans – small ones in salads and I think we’ll have big enough beans for cooking next week.

The mangetout peas are also producing now – again they’ve been used cut up in salads so far. The main problem with the peas is always spotting them I find as they tend to be identical in colour to the rest of the plant so there are probably a lot more ready than I realise.

The rocket and mustard rows are fully in flower now (good fo the bees) but I’ve still been able to find a few leaves for salads. The newer rows are still a week away from being ready to harvest though. The lettuce outside are all big and there’s no way we can eat them all, so I’m already feeding some of the leaves to the guinea pig. Still the concentration of plants seem to be providing a haven for the frogs as it’s damp under the leaves.

The kale and spinach beet are coming along nicely (see photo below). The kale is a variety that can be harveseted from the autumn onwards so it’s got a lot more growing to do.

Nearby, the broccoli are now sturdy plants. I’ve been feeding them regularly – they are probably too close together so we’ll see if that affects them. I’ll need to start checking for cabbage white caterpillars soon…

The sweetcorn seem to be doing ok, but may be held back by the shading in section B, it’s noticeable that the salad crops planted there aren’t growing as fast as elsewhere. Nothing much I can do about it until the winter when I can give the hedge and pear tree good trims.

The courgettes are well into flower and one plant has produced a rather weedy courgette, but it won’t be long before we are into a surfeit of courgettes. The cucumber plants are still looking a bit sad, but maybe the sunny weather next week will get them going.

The runner beans are in flower now – but the climbing french beans are not yet in flower, however the dwarf beans are just starting to flower.

On the wildlife front – another two squirrels have been evicted, and that leaves the area clear for now I think. The hedgehog has continued acting strangely, walking across the lawn up to the kitchen window in broad daylight the other day, and has been seen in daylight a couple of other times as well – curious.

Yes, a first harvest of broad beans – I managed to find just enough on Sunday to mean we were able to have some whole pods steamed with our dinner. There seem to be quited a few pods coming along so the broad bean season is well and truly started.

Broad Bean HarvestThe pen in the picture is for scale only....Broad bean Pods

The picture above shows some of the growing pods

We’ve had sunny weather for a few days which has helped get things moving in the garden, which has meant watering for the laast couple of days. Today we’ve had a helpful shower to save me from having to water – and a thunderstorm is rumbling around at the moment.

Elsewhere, the extra peas are now planted – in between the existing peas and the broad beans, and they seem to be happy enough.

I’ve planted  a short row of red mustard as the existing row is close to flowering, and they are through already.

All the outside tomatoes look pretty good now, some in flower and even the ‘runt’ in front of the kitchen has grown into a real plant.

Everything else is doing well apart from the salad rows in sections B & C which aren’t really all that good. See the broccoli plants below – coming on well.

Row of Broccoli

In the greenhouse, the tomatoes are almost up to the roof, and tiny tomatoes are growing fast (see below).

Baby Tomatoes

The pepper plants in a growbag  have got over the initial shock of replanting and are coming on (see below)

I’ve pricked out some of the celery seedlings into pots and they seem to have survived ok. The basil and coriander now have recognisable leaves. I’ve added some more seed to the top of the pot that had seed in which hasn’t made a show – so maybe that will get some growing.

I’ve even done some weeding – especially round the beans and peas.

Wildlife – well another squirrel has been evicted, I saw a hedgehog ambling down the path in daylight the other day and toads have taken up residence in the greenhouse growbags as usual – just 2 so far (see below).

Toad in growbag

The blackbirds are being very noisy, alarm calls in the morning and evening probably for the cat next door. The male still comes down often to investigate what I am doing in the garden – gets disappointed though as I’m not digging. We still got goldfinches turning up from time to time on the nyjer seed, and the ’sparrow gang’ is pretty active.

Yes we had over a week of sunny weather, including amazingly, one weekend (we actually attended an outdoor meal and event in the sun!). Then, during last week it all fell apart again and topped by a very wet weekend, plus wind of course. Temperatures tumbled from over 20degC to less than 10degC last night – almost put the central heating back on!

However, some progress in the garden. All the french beans are in now, though some of those planted earlier are struggling to get going partly as a result of the weather I think, and partly as a result of pigeon attack.

The only things left to plant outside at the moment are the dozen peas – and I’m struggling to find where to put them, not to mention the weather (though it is fine today it is still windy, mostly cloudy and more rain predicted for late today & tomorrow) plus celery.

The climbing beans are now well up the fence, and the broad beans now have one or two baby pods (the row of dwarf type furthest from the fence) so maybe we’ll be eating a few in a week or so. The peas have started to flower, but as mentioned above, the french beans are disappointing – only one has really got to be full size and isn’t flowering yet.

The rocket and red mustard were being harvested while it was sunny and ’salad weather’, and the new row of rocket is just appearing but I still need to plant more to follow on (the rocket is already trying to flower). The weather will have to buck up before we will feel like eating more salad.

The sweetcorn seems to be coming along ok, but one or two plants are still lagging in size. The salad rows in the same plot are slowly coming through. 

On the plot A the broccoli are now looking pretty strong, apart from one at the end of the row that has been got at by pigeons I think.  The curly kale looks ok as well, the the nearby spinach plantlets are still recovering from their earlier pigeon damage. The courgettes and cucumbers both in the plot and in pots & growbag all look ok, but have been held back by the weather. I’ve been harvesting the lettuce already in plot A, as well as those inside the greenhouse. The short row of carrots is still looking very sparse, but the beetroot, turnip and radish are looking a bit better.

The growbag tomatoes by the greenhouse and outside the kithen are looking a lot more healthy now, even the tiny ‘runt’ one near the kitchen.

Inside the greenhouse the peppers are at last in a growbag – four of them so they will need to get growing fast. The tomatoes are now almost at roof  level with plenty of flowers, some of them set now I think. The basil and coriander planted in pots are now seedlings, but the lettuce planted in a pot haven’t shown at all – looks like I’ll have to plant some more asap as the pot of grown lettuce is now just about harvested out. The celery seedlings are coming on – slowly, it will still be a week or so before they can be planted out.

So that’s about it – the only other plants growing well are the weeds of course and the recent rain will only have made that worse – and I’m not the most enthusiastic weeder so the rows of beans and peas are well infested with weeds underneath.

Apart from the visits of feral pigeons, which continue though the ‘CD scarers’ seem to have put them off the crops mostly, I have managed to evict the latest squirrel intruder.

Now of course the lawn needs mowing (but it is wet) and the hedges…..

I’ll add photos if I get chance.

Just when you think the weather is getting better – along comes another depression bringing wind and rain (starting yesterday). At least this time the wind is from the west so isn’t as cold, but nevertheless it’s not doing my beans any good. I’ve had to do more stringing to support the tall broad beans, and some of the french beans are being blown around so much I’ve considered staking them.  The only plus is the rain is saving me watering the plants outside.

So just when the tomatoes and courgettes etc. were thinking about getting a move on they are being held back again. We had temperatures of 24 degC on Monday and now it’s just about managing 10 degC – that’s British weather for you. It isn’t a surprise that the weather is such an important topic of conversation when you live through it…

Anyway, I’ve got the last courgette and cucumber into a growbag outside the greenhouse now, so that’s pretty much all the first lot of plants out now apart from one french bean.

Speaking of beans – the climbing beans are doing fairly well, but something has been giving their lower leaves a real going over – I suspect slugs but fortunately it isn’t too damaging to the plants as they are producing plenty of leaves further up.

Inside the greenhouse, the pots of basil are both showing seedlings now and it looks as if one pea is just appearing. I’ll have to get some more lettuce sown soon to make sure we have a continuous supply.

I forgot to mention that I’d planted some short rows of salad crops in section B, some rocket, lettuce and lambs lettuce so I’ll have to put some pigeon protection over them in the next few days before they start popping up. The sweetcorn close by are mostly thriving, apart from one which had been knocked over by something but I’ve staked it and it seems to be surviving.

Still, the weather is supposed to improve Friday and the weekend so we’ll see…

On the wildlife front – well too many pigeons attempting to infiltrate the garden but the CD scarers do seem to keep them away from the vital plants. No sign of the squirrel recently so I haven’t reset the trap yet. ‘Our’ male blackbird (or should it be ‘I am his human’ – it is his territory) is convinced that I am the source of food – whenever I work in the garden and move away from one area, he is down withing seconds to investigate the area I have just left – an takes little notice now if I walk near him. The blackbird chicks have fully fledged now (it looks as if only 2 survived) and still are hanging around annoying their parents and trying to be fed, though I suspect they will be encouraged to leave the area soon.

This is my 100th post (so the stats say)- amazing, and it’s proved useful to have the history of the last 3 years to look back on and check relative progress etc. So the discipline of blogging works for me as well as for my readers (over 20,000 views now).