Flighty's plot

have been damp and dull, with plenty of rain and windy at times, but thankfully the stormy weather didn’t affect here much.

 

My visit to the plot today was the first since last Wednesday.  It was dry and sunny, and the ground was nowhere near as soggy as I expected it to be.

 

 

 

Not surprisingly the weather has just about finished off the last of the annual flowers with only a few cosmos and sunflowers not looking past their best.

 

 

 

A good indication that we’re now well into autumn is the colour of the leaves on the cornus (dogwood).

As you see the bottom half is still green whilst the top has changed to a deep brownish-red.

 

The week ahead is looking quite reasonable weatherwise so I look forward to doing some autumn plotting.

Have a good week, and take care!

I only have one compost bin which at this time of year is generally full. That makes if difficult to completely dig out all the compost over the coming months as I want to do.  However I’ve borrowed this old unused plastic compost bin into which I’ll put any uncomposted material from my bin along with anything I would normally be adding to it.

I’ll only digging  out, and sieving, one barrowload at a time when the weather is okay so it’ll take a while over the coming weeks.  I’ll be putting most directly on the vegetables patches but some will go under the blackberry bush, to the right in the picture, for use when planting and sowing next spring. Once my compost bin has been cleared I will empty the contents of the plastic bin back into it to give me a good start for next year.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

It was wet and windy for much of Thursday and Friday, and although it’s been dry and sunny since then it has was noticeably colder this morning with the temperature early on only a couple of degrees C above zero.

I finished clearing the main flower patch this morning which was mostly pot marigolds. These have a tap root so they generally don’t pull out of the ground without loosening with a hand fork.

The weather over the past few days has finished off the remaining sunflowers but there are still plenty of cosmos, mostly white ones,  and the white asters continue to twinkle.

I’m surprised at how much the comfrey has grown since I last cut it and I’ll be doing that again in a week or so, for the fourth time this year.

 

Looking round there are lots of self-seeded flower seedlings appearing including these collomia grandiflora.

This year’s robin has been a constant companion over the past week or so, approaching to within arm’s length at times and he even had a look in the shed one morning.

Have a good week, and take care!

I’ve now cleared the long grass and weeds from around the plot pond so that it’s visible again. The white primrose alongside has certainly grown and I had been thinking about moving it but will leave it be, at least for now.

All the plants in cosmos corner are no more than 3 ft/1 mt tall except this one which is twice that height, and has only started to flower in the past few days.

 

I really like the pure white ones. There’s one plant with white flowers which have a very slight blush of pink which are only really noticeable in the sunshine.  They remind me of mother of pearl.  I took some photos but it doesn’t show up in them.

There have also been a lot of various bi-coloured ones which are certainly eye catching.

Have a good week, and take care!

has been ideal this week to work on the plot having been cool, mostly dry and sunny at times.

I’ve  partly cut back the blackberry bush and cleared the ground under it of enough compost from last year to put two bucketfuls over the rhubarb patch and with some left over.  I’ve done this to give me space to stockpile any compost which I dig out of the heap over the coming months which I don’t immediately spread out on the plot.  The compost heap is noticeably warm at present which is a good indication. I’m planning on completely emptying it over the winter, weather permitting, which is something I’ve not done for a few years.

There’s been a robin around  finding plenty of tasty morsels where I’ve been clearing, weeding then hoeing.  On Tuesday I went to the plot after lunch rather than in the morning. I’m glad I did as at one point I stood and watched a red kite lazily circling very low overhead for several minutes.  Later I was over by the fence-line by some flowering ivy which was absolutely buzzing with bees and this Red Admiral butterfly.

It’s going to get surprisingly warm over the weekend and early next week with the temperature reaching 24 C/75 F  on Sunday.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

This morning I made  a tentative start on clearing the flower patches, which will probably take at least a couple of weeks as the cosmos and sunflowers are still flowering, and both have done really well this year.

 

I’ve not mentioned the pot marigolds Flighty’s Favourites much this year and shown few photos.  They flowered back during May and June but I didn’t dead-head them as I should have done so they’ve not flowered much since then. I’ll be doing a post about these favourite flowers later in the month.

Another of my favourite plot flowers are the asters/Michaelmas daisies which I call Twinkling Stars, although the proper name is Monte Cassino.  It has masses of tiny white flowers and is a welcome sight, especially at this time of year.

Have a good week, and take care!

as far as my vegetable growing season for this year is concerned.

The tomatoes finally succumbed to blight this week, having done better for longer than I expected.

I picked plenty that were still okay and now have about twenty of each Gardener’s Delight and Golden Sunrise at home.

 

I’ve now cleared all three of the vegetable patches apart from a short double row of carrots Short n Sweet, which I’m stll lifting as and when required.

I’ve roughly forked over two of these patches and will do the other one during next week.  I’ll then leave them until late winter or early spring apart from hoeing off any weeds that appear, and spreading any compost I dig out from the heap over the coming months.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

My only visit to the plot so far this week was on Tuesday morning when it was overcast, very windy and occasionally spitting with rain.  Apart from some sunflowers laying on the ground all was okay but I didn’t linger and went home for a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.  Yesterday was even wetter and windier so when I get there tomorrow I won’t be surprised to see that more sunflowers, along with some sweet corn, and maybe even the runner beans, have toppled.

I hope that this sunflower will still be standing as it was another surprise last weekend, being the only non-yellow one  this year.  It’s less than 3 feet/ 1 metre tall with a single flower.  I hope to save some seeds from it for next year.

 

This week, whilst armchair gardening, I ordered a small quantity of flower and vegetable seeds for next year. I’ll be doing a seperate post about these.

Have a good weekend, and take care!