The plot was freshly strimmed (Thursday), mown (Friday) and watered (last night) when I arrived, which was perfect.

I completely deadheaded the orange geum, taking off all the stalks, which took forever. There was lots of grass to pull out of the fence too and while I was head down in the bed I picked up all the bee sticks that had been thrown out by the woodpecker.

With the elodea gone, the hornwort has really taken off, so I took some out to make room. The pickerel weed has a flower bud now, which is exciting. Mum reached over and trimmed the veronica in the corner for me. There are a few new leaves on the thyme, so it may yet come back to life. I’m leaving it to see. I also saw a sparrow in the bird bowl for a moment before it took fright.
We propped up the front and right everlasting peas as best we could. Next year I’m determined to catch them before they take off with some willow fencing.

I’ve tied up the runner beans higher up now. Two of them are quite high. I also gave the direct sown cucumbers a loose string to guide them to the canes.


The zinnias from home have all been moved to the plot now. I never potted them on to the big black pots, which means that they rather used up all the nutrients and the few that are flowering just have little flowers. Three have gone into spaces in Bed 3 and five have gone into Bed 1. I did buckets of weeding in Bed 1, pulling up all the creeping weeds in the first couple of feet around the edge of the bed, revealing a panic sowing of poppies, like I found in Bed 6 recently. There are some weeds left in the middle, but I wouldn’t be able to reach to plant/deadhead anyway.
I cleared some space in Bed 3 among the bulbs for the zinnias. I also found what looks like a hellebore seedling. Good to know that the birds destroy the main plant, then crap it out 12″ away.


Bed 6 has enough cosmos for Bed 4 when the onions, so they can be moved when the time comes. The idiotic bendy ones at home are staying there. The nursery row of zinnias needs to be spread out a bit and I’ll find some other space in Bed 6, maybe Bed 9 too if a space if left among all the big nasturtiums, candytuft and sunflowers 🙂

The calendula has done well this year and makes me think I should do more next year to fill the spaces for bold colour. One of them has a mad flower head where the centre flower has done, but other buds are growing directly around it, not on the stalk.


The teasel has lots of greenfly, but it doesn’t seem to care. It’s difficult to try and rub them off, because it’s covered it hooked spines. More importantly, it has four flower heads now.

Bed 11 isn’t much, though the plants have grown since planting. A couple of the gourds have had flowers. Tomorrow everything is going to be fed, so let’s see if that helps.
