Flighty's plot

I’ve always grown onions Sturon on the plot and generally done well with them.  This year they’re a bit so-so as many are rather small, being only golfball size at best (the middle one in the picture).

It’s not that surprising as there have been four periods of very warm weather and no significant rainfall for months.  Also I should have watered them more often than I did. By the beginning of this month all the foliage had already completely died back and since then I’ve been lifting, cleaning  and storing them.  I generally have enough to last me through to Easter but this year they’ll probably only last early into the new year.

This is the plot sunflower I mentioned in my previous post.  It’s only  30 in / 75 cm tall with a single small dark centred yellow flower 3 in /7.5  cm  across. I’m hoping to save some seeds  to sow next spring.

Have a good week, and take care!

I’ve got twenty main crop potato Desiree  plants on the plot which I haven’t touched yet as I’m waiting for the foliage to die back. They’ve had plenty of water, and I’ve weeded round a few times.  This week the foliage of one of them has died completely back so this morning I thought I have a dig round and was pleased to find a handful of good size, undamaged potatoes.  This is the biggest one.

I’ve only got three runner bean Moonlight plants but they’ve been providing me with more than enough slim,  6 in / 15 cm or so, pods for some weeks now with plenty more to come.  There’s been no hint of stringiness so far which is a definite bonus.  I have to say that they’ve been excellent, probably the best I’ve grown, so I’ll be saving some seeds to grow again next year.

I was wrong when I did a recent where I said that there were no sunflowers on the plot this year.  Earlier in the week I noticed this one nestling almost under the cornus/dogwood where it’s partially hidden.  It’s not even 3 feet/ 1 metre tall, looks like it has a dark centre with yellow petals, and should be fully open by the weekend.

Have a good Bank Holiday weekend, and take care!

It’s been a poor year for summer flowers on the plot.  As I mentioned recently there were no sunflowers, the pot marigolds came and went very quickly and various seeds simply never appeared.

However looking round yesterday morning there was some summer colour.  There are plenty of nasturtium flowers, mostly zingy orange  which I have to say I’m not keen on along with a few of these creamy-yellow ones.

Thankfully the cosmos are flowering reasonably well with the usual mix of pink, red, white and some bi-colours.

They should keep going until well into the autumn.

I nearly overlooked this very small nigella/love-in-a-mist as it’s barely 3 inches/7.5 cm tall.  As you can see it’s had two flowers and now got two more.

At home the white rose Iceberg is flowering again.  I took this picture yesterday and posted it on Bluesky (where it’s got 100 likes), Facebook, Mastodon and X (formerly Twitter).

Have a good weekend, and take care!

Today was the fifth consecutive morning I’ve spent on the plot doing more than just pottering.

I’ve started lifting the onions Sturon and second early potatoes Charlotte, picking runner beans Moonlight and red tomatoes Outdoor Girl along with some blackberries.

I’ve been removing the seeds heads from the finished love-in-mist Persian Jewels and pot marigolds Flighty’s Favourites  as I don’t want them self-seeding all over the place.

I watered all round yesterday morning, and each day I’ve been doing some weeding through the flower patches. Despite the ground being dry and hard I’ve managed to very roughly fork over several small areas on the vegetable patches. I’d like to get more done before the weather turns damp as I’d rather any rain soaks into the soil rather than mostly runs off.

Flowering at the moment are self-seeded cosmos and pot marigolds, along with the  bright orange-red crocosmia flowers.

It won’t be long before the asters and the sedums start flowering.

It looks like it’s going to get warm again, with the temperatures up to the high 20’s C / low 80’s F by Monday, so I’ll be back to pottering for a few days at least.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

I spent a couple of hours on the plot this morning for the first time since Tuesday, and looking at the weather forecast for the week ahead it looks I’ll be doing the same most days. I hope so as I really want to get back into the routine of going there even if it’s just to potter.

The red tomatoes Outdoor Girl are doing well, and here are ten in a 6.5 in /16.5 cm plant pot saucer.

There’s no sign yet of any of the Yellow Perfection ones even starting to ripen.

The Candytuft Fairy Mix (Iberis umbellata) was another of the annual seeds I sowed which didn’t appear but looking round this morning there are now a few plants flowering.  I’ll be trying again next year when hopefully they’ll do better.  The picture shows some from July 2019.

Have a good week, and take care!

It’s now the end of July and I would normally be enjoying the plot sunflowers but this year there aren’t any.  I sowed plenty of seeds back in the spring but none germinated and grew.  I think that it’s the first year there’s been none, and I really miss them as they’re one of my favourite flowers.

I’ve grown various varieties over the years but I prefer the dark-centred, yellow  flowers up to around 4 feet / 1.2 metres.   The variety I grow every year nowadays is the dwarf MusicBox, at 30 inches / 75 cm, which comes in a range of colours from cream to mahogany via yellow including some bi-colours.

Hopefully next year will be a good year and make up for a year of no sunflowers. The pictures are from the archives and show some of the sunflowers I’ve grown on the plot over the years.

Have a good weekend, and take care!

I’d not been to the plot for a few days so the first thing I did yesterday was check the water in the two ponds.  As I went to top up the plant saucer mini pond by the shed something small seemed to junp away from it.  Taking a closer look I found that it was a brown grasshopper which I’ve not seen before, although I do see the bright green ones occasionally.  I even managed to take a picture of it, and was pleased to identify it as a Common Field Grasshopper once I got home and looked in one of my reference books.

I picked the first of the runner beans Moonlight, which as you can see range in length and shape, but how they taste is more important.  The longest are around 10 in /20cm and I hope these aren’t stringy.

I collected some Pot Marigold Flighty’s Favourites seed heads to take home where I’ll check then sort them to keep for sowing next spring.  The picture below is from July 2016.

Have a good week, and take care!

On Monday and Tuesday mornings I was pleased to spend a few hours plotting again, which certainly made a welcome change.

I  roughly forked over the area where I’d grown the first early potatoes Foremost and wasn’t surprised to find enough for at least three of four meals.  I’ll now leave that area alone, apart from hoeing off any weeds which appear, to let the weather break down the large clumps into workable soil. I’ll probably be growing carrots there next year.

I picked the first smallish tomato Outdoor Girl, and there are some bigger ones starting to ripen.

The reason I haven’t mentioned sweetcorn is because for one reason and another I’m not growing any, although I was certainly going to.

I’ve collected the seed pods off most of the love-in-mist (nigella damascena), and have already started to check and sort the seeds at home.  Here’s some white flowers from June 2012.

There’s been no rain since last weekend and there’s none forecast through into next week, when the temperature looks like being around 27 C/80 C.

Have a good weekend, and take care!