The morning glories are finally putting on a bit of a show. They’ve done very little to cover my fences (most didn’t show up) so that plan didn’t work. I’ve concluded that they need to wrap around things, which they can’t really do on the fence. But a range of canes might be a good way to make a screen.

Bed 3 has been looking a mess since the yarrow fell over weeks ago. Today was finally the day to tackle it, as I had noticed that there was a pad of new growth at the bottom of the plants. I sat between them and the mint, cutting the stalks for the compost and was accompanied by lots of bees and a butterfly on the mint flowers.

With the bulk of the tidying done, this already looks so much better. But there’s a bunch more to do yet. I haven’t seen most of my boundaries in so long. I really want to cut those back as part of tidying this up.

In the afternoon I moved on to making a start on doing other tidying to try and keep tackling what’s annoying me around the place. I’ve done the deadheading and made the lupin in the front bed look much better. The big old stalks have gone and an amount of the outside grass has been pulled up.

Over on the ledge, I did lots of everlasting pea tidying, cut down sweet williams to the new growth and general fought the weeds that have made their home there. Lots more to do, but a small patch was won.

I also went round all plants, including the veg such as courgettes and pumpkins, looking for any dead leaves to cut off, to make the general colour more green than yellow/brown. I’ve also taken all the spent tops off the borage. Some of them look like they have new buds lower down.

It’s been an odd summer of growth, but I am noticing that some of my flower beds are overcrowded, or have too many tall things in my effort to hide my neighbours. As such, they have a bit of tendency to flop all over themselves, especially if weeds from next door give them a push.

There are gladioli all over the place – it would be nice if they multiply, as they’re good late summer colour. This is my favourite, over by Mr B’s gate.

In an effort to get things going again, I’ve fed everything in the plot – tomato food for flowering and fruiting veg, and general feed for everything else, including the borders.

I’ve made a start on attacking the parts that have been bugging me by looking scraggy and untidy. I’ve cut back bits of the lupin which had been cut before and half died and half grown new leaves. Along with some deadheading, this corner is now looking a bit more pleasing on my way in and out.

I’ve started doing similar tidying in the front bed: cutting back, pulling up etc. I’ve also tied up all the gladioli, which mostly fell over as soon as they appeared – in part because everything else had already laid down. There’s a gladiolus that’s gone through the fence to Mr B’s path, so that will probably be a cut flower so I get to see it.

I’ve done some tidying of the everlasting peas too, particularly on the right boundary, where the pea fell down long ago in the wind. I’ve cut down all the flop. I don’t expect further growth, but it looks better know. The hyssop never has the chance to stand upright, so probably needs to be moved to where it can.

The chard sunflower is now open and beaming down at me. It at least has the good manners to be facing into the plot, unlike so many of my flowers.

A visit to the plot for a little harvest elicited the year’s first sweet corn. The broccoli is coming alive now too.  I’ve harvested the two rubbish-looking cucumbers. Hopefully the plants will turn the corner soon.

I finished weeding below the beans and turned up the soil a little, sprinkling in a little sulphate of potash – two scant scoops for what is roughly a square metre. I’ve pulled off more dead foliage and we keep picking beans, so I hope they’ll turn a corner soon.

While the uchiki kuri looks like it’s bust its way through the netting, doing some weeding showed that another junior pumpkin has been injured. It’s now on the compost heap. It looks like I have 4 good pumpkins though.

The tallest sunflower is now open – and seemed to have a bee on it the entire time I was there.

After some more weeding, I added in some filler bedding plants. They’re little yellow zinnias, all planted with a sprinkle of Miracle Gro.

I’ve put a couple of little zinnias in the chard bed. There’s only really room for one, but I figure there’s not much left of their growing season anyway.

I took a day off to try and catch up on the gardening that I keep missing due to the weather. It worked well – I got about 6 hours in, plus a quick trip to the garden centre to pick up some little zinnias to fill the holes I made.

Mum came down and cut the grass, and gave the compost heap a bit of a turn over before adding the grass cuttings. There doesn’t seem to be any animal nest inside it and I’ve put a temporary bit of fencing inside the front gate, so hopefully that will stop the occasional digging that happens.

I’ve taken all the tomatoes out now and cut them up into the rubbish. I’ll fill the holes with some yellow zinnias, but the marigolds are really big and beautiful. I must remember to grow enough to count as standard bedding next year too. They clearly like the conditions I can give them.

 

The next two cucumbers have evidently suffered in the weird weather. They’re by no means as beautiful as the first two. Hopefully future ones will be back to normal though.

I harvested the first head of broccoli. Only one plant has a central head at the moment and it already has little side stalks coming along.

These are the biggest sunflowers I’ve ever grown – and they’re volunteers. The tallest was doing very well at remaining upright until today, so now it has a stake, which it will probably overpower in two seconds.

I tested the sweetcorn with the brownest tassel, but it was very pale and not ready to eat yet.

I reckon I’ll end up with 3 uchiki kuri and about 3 pumpkins. Someone had attacked this one and it fell off the vine.

I’ve finally cleared the radish out of the bed. I need to do a little more weeding and then more of my garden centre flowers can go in here to brighten things up. The chard is still producing and the one that had been chopped right down is about ready for harvesting again.

I filled two buckets from deadheading the white everlasting pea – and there are still a few bits I couldn’t reach. It needs standing up, but I’m not sure that will particularly work – unless it feels like cooperating with my one remaining cane.

A good harvest today 🙂

I thought it would be a good idea to check on the runner beans again, but happily they were still pretty vertical. Still looking rather poorly though.

The tomatoes are completely done for though and will be coming out soon. I picked a blushed blighted tomato and a couple of clear-looking tomatoes to take home and ripen in two bags, just to see if there’s anything to save. Pretty sure that won’t work though.

On the way out of the plot we suddenly noticed these new gladioli. These didn’t flower last year, and then we noticed some more in the beds. They’re all falling over as everything is this year, but it looks like I’ll get some new splashes of colour.

We had some mad rain earlier in the day, but I hadn’t really noticed how breezy it had been. So I perhaps should have expected the runner beans to be bent over again. The wind and weight of the frame had pulled the guy rope stakes through the wet ground. I’ve hammered everything back in and tried to stuff the enlarged holes with more canes.

The plants don’t look to happy, some dead leaves and a lot of droopy yellow ones. The cucumber leaves were yellow too, which I’m taking simply as all the rain having washed away all the nutrients. So I fed everything with tomato food, hoping that they’ll cheer up.

A couple of Jack Be Littles have now appeared, with more female flowers on the way.

Some more compost had been dragged out, so I took the front off the heap and scraped up what I could. At the moment I can’t see an obvious way in to the centre, so I’m hoping that there isn’t a nest in there, it’s just idle mess-making. I want to attach some of the fencing to the back of the pallet so there’s no longer an easy way in though.

I thought the gladioli were all going to be blind again, but I’ve noticed a couple of flower stems by the apple tree. I’ll have to keep an eye out for others around the place.

The evening after I went down on the 1st, the stream came running through the garden again, so I didn’t worry about going down to the allotment yesterday as it was sure to be too wet. I met C at the allotment tonight, he told me he’d been in his plot yesterday, baling water out of his raised beds. My grass was just a little squelchy here and there, nothing more.

The blight hadn’t progressed too much more, so I pulled up the cherry tomatoes to get them out of the way. The bed doesn’t look bad without them. The courgettes, nasturtium and marigolds are already filling the holes pretty well. I picked off a bad Ferline, and did another bucket of foliage removal from them and the Roma, but nothing more drastic.

The tomatoes may be on their way out, but the nasturtiums and the marigolds in particular are doing really well. The flowers on the marigolds are lasting so long that I’ve only deadheaded a couple of blooms so far.

This beautiful pumpkin is doing really well too. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it up, so I’m not sure how green it still is underneath.

I took Suzy down to the plot for a viewing before I start pulling up the tomatoes soon. I think the cherry tomatoes will be going any minute, as they’ve turned quite black.

I’ve had a big clear up at home and added all kinds of mad dried food to the heap. Something else had been busy at the compost heap before I got there and had kicked out a bunch of compost. I’ve shovelled that up to keep it safe. I need to do two things: dig out more compost and keep it safe somehow; get the spare wire fencing attached to the back of the front panel so that’s no longer an easy way into heap.

I did some good tidying up in the garden, as I’ve felt that the boundaries have been looking a bit scraggy recently now that a number of the flowers have gone over. I even discovered a blooming malope in Plum Corner. I cut down the foxglove spikes and seed went everywhere.

Over by the trellis I cut the purple loosestrife down to new flower buds, so that looks much nicer. I’ve also weeded and done pull up edging here, at the front and around all sorts of edges. There’s still more to do, but the place looks better already.

The blight has unfortunately definitely reached the Ferlines 🙁 Affected foliage and fruit is going straight in the rubbish, with the hope that I might just buy enough time for some tomatoes to ripen.

The borlotto beans are really taking off now. There are lots of pods and lots of great colour among the huge leaves.

The Canterbury bells are having their second flush of flowering thanks to having deadheaded them properly. What a win! The donated flowers in the front bed are just starting to get flower buds too.

I hid from one lot of rain in the shed, before getting to work round the back of the compost bin. I have cleared out buckets of nettles and bindweed. There’s still work to be done to get done the side of the shed. Hopefully, I can get to that before the first lot has grown back again. By this point it was pouring with rain, so I had to head home without pausing to do a panorama.