The cosmos looks really good – lots of flowers. They’ve even managed to stay fairly upright having been staked last week.

I did some clearing up around the pond. Cutting back nettles and grass revealed a small log pile, so I’ve added more small logs to that. I took the last paddlestone off the toad hole right by the pond and re-covered that shelter with more logs. I’ve moved the paddlestone to the front ofthe pond and tried to glue it in place with molehill mud. Hopefully it’ll sit and settle.

The hornwort has sunk now, but the forget me not seems like it has started to expand again. I’ve taken out a little of the duckweed that’s growing very slowly.

I feel like the callicarpa has never really taken off – and there is no sign of berries this year. They like normal to acidic soil, so I took ⅔ bucket of oak leaves and chopped them up and mulched the plant. I dug them in a little, but didn’t want to disturb the roots.

I’ve finally mended the hedgehog house. I taped up the pecked holes, move some logs around and then covered house with the rest of the black bag of oak leaves. They were a bit wet and stuck together, so I’m hoping they might have some strength that way. I pinned some apple stick over the top as a vague deterrent for the birds who will no doubt pull the whole thing apart again. If I had some bendable chicken wire, that would be the answer.

I’ve put the last of the bark from the bag under the apple tree. What’s left in the bucket will have to go on the fern bed when the weeding is done, as a lot of that has disappeared. Happily, the weaker ferns (Dryopteris erythrosora) have started to grow again and the second in particular is showing new copper-coloured growth.

Another job that’s been on my list for ages: planting the allium bulbs from the front bed. I made a start on putting them into Bed 3 before the rain finally started later than forecast.

I did a mow on 3 and was very wet. I travel with a bucket to empty the bottom of the mower when it’s like this.

I cleared Bed 5 of the cucumbers and the wigwams. I uncovered a few little cucumbers, none of which were saving. I’ve left the nasturtiums to keep flowering.

The sunflowers in Bed 11 have gone now, so just nasturtiums and marigolds remain.

Bed 6 was the next to be cleared out and I took out weeds, candytuft and finished sunflowers. The garlic now has more room to grow in the spring.

The anise hyssop in Bed 6 are fairly healthy looking plants. The ones I had left in pots forever at home and then at the plot were still alive, but  completely pot bound. They do have small leaves coming at the base of the stalks though.    I managed to rip them apart to put some into Bed 6 and 3 into a big white pot.

I had a good variety of birds: goldfinch, long-tailed tit, dunnock, robin, great tit and magpie.

We picked all the apples off the tree this morning, not least to stop the destructive pecking from the birds.

Although the compost gourd hadn’t started to die off, the stalks were just starting to yellow, so I took the opportunity to clear the plant off the heap. They’re now in the grow house to ripen off a bit more, as some of the stalks were weeping a bit.

I finished off clearing the tomatoes, diggung up the roots and weeding around the marigolds. The soil was absolutely perfect for weeding, so I made sure I went back in the afternoon to do more. I cleared the weeds and sweetcorn stalks from Bed 11 and cleared the weeds from the empty half of Bed 7.   

 

It was very windy today and when I turned up at the plot I could see from a distance that the tomatoes must be done – they looked quite bare and yellow. I saved a few red Romas and then picked a couple of handfuls of green Red Alerts and Romas, before cutting up the plants for the council bin.

I uncovered this hairy caterpillar among the leaves – a pale tussock moth caterpillar.

The lupin by the pond is having a great second life. The little antirrhinum has also flowered too – not exactly the ground cover plant I was aiming for.

WhatsApp pinged as soon as I arrived and while I was reading the message the spitfire came over and did a roll, then a flock of honking geese flew over the shed.

I finally mowed the grass mohawk on 3,   which has helped the look an amount, though of course the edges have already grown. It’s a bit annoying how much time and energy this and deadheading takes, when I’d like to be doing some proper sit down weeding and clearing.

Blight is definitely around, but I’m still harvesting some Romas and one Red Alert. There are a bunch of green Red Alert, so we’ll see if they have time to ripen.

I cleared up the windfalls and continued my slow start on tidying up, pulling up candytufts and spreading their seed in the borders. I’ve taken the runner bean roots out of Bed 7, but there’s lots of weeding yet to do. Bed 11 feels like it could be cleared, but when you look at it you realise how busy the nasturtiums and marigolds still are.

I strimmed the whole plot, which was quite a job as the edges were very thick. It now has its mohawk look, so I need to mow it soon. Early on I heard some incessant bird song, which turned out to be long-tailed tits, though I didn’t see them.

A couple of surprise bulbs have appeared in Bed 3. They’re peacock orchids, which I planted in March 2024, in groups of four across the bed.

I dismantled the runner beans and chopped up the vines for the compost heap. I’ve got a bucket of enormous bean pods to chop up next time. When I was about to take this photo a bird flew in front of me and sat in the sunflowers for a moment before realising I was there and flying off again. I think it was a goldfinch.

There were a few tomatoes to harvest, but I don’t entirely trust that the plants are still good. They might just be on the cusp of blight. I’ve picked the one and only sweetcorn that has any promise, so that bed will be cleared soon.

I took the day off work to make up for a missed weekend. Despite my good work mowing, the grass had shot back up again and needs another go.

The pond is completely clear and all the hornwort has sunk to the bottom. There was the skin of what I think was a damselfly larva floating on the surface.

I did the deadheading and started picking up dead leaves. The runner beans are shedding, so the wigwam needs to come down soon. I tidied up all the apples, splitting them between home and the compost heap.

I harvested all the gourds from Bed 11 and put the vines on the compost heap. That bed will be empty soon and I think I’ll empty and mix the leaf bins. My marigolds are going to be providing colour for a while though, as we have pretty warm weather.

One of the hyssops is flowering and magically all the ones in little pots have magically survived thanks to the rain. I still can’t decide whether to plant them out into a nursery bed, or put them in the front border.

The mole is back and after tidying up my gate slabs in the morning, it had been back over lunchtime to make more mess.

While collecting seed from the candytufts, I spotted garlic coming up in Bed 6. It never occurred to me that they would be back, I thought they’d rotted. I’ll mulch them when the bed is clearer and we’ll see if they make it over the winter.

I weeded the front border and took out some of the creeping helianthus root. I collected cerinthe, corn marigold, candytuft, poppy, Sweet William and cornflower seed, as well as a few sunflower seeds, and cast it around the bed. There are some big cerinthes already growing and as more seed loosens in Bed 1, I’ll see if I can get some more to cast in the front border.

To add to the unexpected vegetables, I also found a random carrot growing in Bed 1.

The cosmos are doing quite nicely, but I’ve not staked them, which means that some limbs are growing along the ground. My annual bad habit of not staking properly / at all.

Just had to get my lovely successful rudbeckia on the record.

Ahead of some more days of rain and scattered showers, I managed to get down to the plot after work to mow. I did a 3 and then 2. The edges need strimming now too. The whole plot has a very autumnal look to it, with fading plants, but still a fair amount of orange and yellow flowers.

A few mole hills are appearing here and there again, in the car park and in the plot. There’s one in Bed 1 now, among the multiple new seedlings and the rudbeckia that have worked this year.

There are loads of seedlings in the front border all of a sudden too. I have no idea what they are – probably nigella. I can see candytuft and cerinthe too. Since I’m still not quite set on what to do here, they can stay for at least a while. It might be that I just fill the area with seed to overwinter, put in some anise hyssop and call it done.

The big red and yellow sunflower had fallen over when I got to the plot. I propped it up three times before it seemed to take. More flowers are coming, so it’s worth trying to save. I cut off some small damaged seed heads and hung them on the old sweet pea strings. I think the little birds should manage to cling on to get the seeds.

It seemed like the season had changed in the plot. Things are dying back and finishing. There are some runner beans left, but they’re very big, so I’m leaving them. One gourd has finished and I’ll be harvesting some of them soon. The teasels have dried out, but I don’t see any sign of seeds yet.

There are now lots of Jack Be Littles because as soon as I trim the plant, it grows another branch. I’ve trimmed it more and there are now fruit growing everywhere. So much for removing the plant if it turned out not to be a pumpkin. There was a chrysalis on one of the leaves I cut off, so I put it on the compost heap.

I did lots of deadheading through the day and cut back more tomato foliage to keep the Roma plants healthy. The trimming also revealed another tomato I’d missed in the morning. A bucket and a half of weeding was done, but I’m still not doing proper weeding among the plants, so nettles are just snapping off when I pull them.

What is clearly an antirrhinum is nearly flowering on the pond ledge. The chaenorhinum seed has somehow turned into antirrhinum.

While going round the beds, I uncovered the top of one of the parsnips and it’s looking a reasonable size. I think most of them needed a bit more thinning, but I’ll probably get a good collection of relatively small roots. Note to self: sow more rows and thin them further apart next time.

I harvested one sweetcorn cob, which turned out to be quite small, so we’ll see how it’s done for development when we cook it. There’s one larger cob left, which I’m hoping the crows will keep ignoring meanwhile.

  

The pond was quite full after all the rain we’ve had.

The compost gourd is definitely a Jack Be Little plant, but they’re fun, so never mind.

I got caught in the rain, probably because I’d taken my raincoat out of my car. It was worth the visit though, because I heard a bird call, which Merlin identified as the red linnet – and looking up I saw a little flock of them fly over me.

I picked tomatoes and one of the Romas was caught in the cage and was a bit tricky to get out.