Getting chilli

Did you see what I did there, chilli instead of chilly? I have to admit it's well and truly autumn now. I spent Sunday clearing away most of the tomato plants from my greenhouse. These are the very last ones along with the first of the chilli peppers. It's years since I had a greenhouse and I confess I'd forgotton what a long growing season they need! The plants are still in the greenhouse, I'm hopeful I will get some more.

I was late sowing everything earlier in the year. With the amount of time we spent with my parents whilst my dad was so ill, gardening got little time assigned to it. 

I've also left the three Marmande plants in the hope that the tomatoes may still ripen, they're looking promising! 

Another thing that lost me time this year was stopping the blimmin' pigeons that kept pulling up seedlings and shredding leaves. I rigged up a complicated protection cage with plastic pots on the ends of canes and netting attached to the sides of the raised beds. It looked a mess and took so long to remove and replace it, I really lost heart with weeding and sowing in the vegetable plot and just got on with the landscaping of the rest of the garden.

As a solution to the pigeons MTM has made me these really great wire mesh cloches to protect my crops. They just lift on and off .... simples! The one above is finished, and is protecting a double row of newly sown broad beans (Aquadulce). The other three below are just awaiting the mesh to be added which I can do myself do next weekend.

I am rather nifty with a stapler gun, must be all those years I spent working in offices! 

Gardening all weekend long!

The weather has been lovely for days and days here, it was great that it extended into the weekend when I was planting bulbs, these are Iris Reticulata which will flower in the Spring and hopefully look pretty with the Violas that are going in at the same time.

However it's all gone down hill today, drizzly rain here at the moment ... just in time for the arrival of the greenhouse in a couple of days time. Let's hope it cheers up again!

I also planted some dry snowdrops in this bed I cleared under the Willow tree. It was just a mess of weeds and straggly grass. I know dry snowdrops don't establish well but by the time I got it all cleared, it was way too late to buy any in the green earlier in the year.  I lost count of the number of dandilions I forked up, fortunately the soil is really good and so I was able to get out pretty much all of the roots. It is my fond hope that some of the bulbs will take and naturalise this area.

I've got some Cyclamen Coum tubers (for Spring colour) and some Cyclamen Hederifolium plants to go in there too. The Cyclamen Hederifolium plants are flowering right now so a bit of instant colour. I haven't got a big enough budget to completely plant it up, For now, nine will make a nice splash of flowering and I'm hoping if I leave them alone, they will also self seed and spread out to create a carpet of colour.

I have plans to put some shade loving herbaceous plants in too, hopefully I will be able to split clumps and take root cutting to make the most of my budget. Some will be grown from seed next year. Got several on my shopping list!

Whilst I was getting on with the nicer side of gardening, planting and dreaming of future flowers, MTM was concreting the top of the steps which is a bit of a convergence point. It joins up the steps coming down from the house, the slope coming down from the top gravel garden, the new steps going down into the bottom half of the garden and the timber decking area where the patio furniture lives. I will do photographs of that when the slabs are down.

Can you see the timber mowing edge I have added where the bed meets (what I laughingly call) my lawn. This year, the moles haven't really left me me much left to mow! DON'T get  me started on moles .... I have asked next door's cats to catch them for me, I often find decapitated mice which they thoughfully leave on the path for me. Mice do dig up cyclamen tubers so they're doing their bit on that front but the moles are far more troublesome ..... get to it kitties!

Still summertime in my kitchen

Last cut flowers from my Calendula border. The variety was Art Shades, which produced quite tall plants. After some breezy days in August, they flopped about in drunken heaps, still flowering their hearts out. I should know better, I never stake plants, I am far too lazy; next year, I shall buy a packet of a shorter growing variety.

Falling over aside, they've still been lovely but this week, the foliage started to look a bit mildewed and so, even though they were still flowering well, they've been cleared out of the way and today, I've been mainly planting Narcissi tete a tete to replace them.

Daffodils don't look pretty in the bags, but they'll be lovely in the Springtime. I had hundreds of Tete a Tete in our garden at Little Barn, these are the first I have planted in our garden here. With Camassia, Cyclamen, bare rooted Wallflowers and Snowdrops on order waiting to arrive, it's time to admit Autumn is here.

Five a day vegetable seeds

Yesterday, I sowed some vegetable seeds for the first time since 2007!

The topsoil has been shovelled into the new raised beds, a joint effort by MTM and myself though I have to say, he did do more than I. I gave it a week to settle down. Really it should have some organic matter like compost or well rotted stable manure dug in, however the time for that is Autumn through Winter.

But I'm in a hurry, I want to grow something now! It's already too late this year me to grow crops that need a long growing season like onions, parsnips and leeks. So, to increase fertility I'm relying on chemicals, albeit organic ones, a dressing of dried fish, blood and bone has been hoed into the surface and then fast maturing root crops seeds have been planted into shallow pre-watered drills, yesterday it was carrots, beetroot, radishes, turnips and kohlrabi.

Today, I'm doing peas, and three varieties of lettuce, I like to start these off in pots and then plant them out to grow on. I'm also sowing coriander micro leaves; I've only grown conventional coriander before so am interested to see how that works out.

Mustn't hang around, like I said I'm in a hurry!

Time goes by

I'm not going to make excuses about why I haven't blogged in ages, I do have quite a few but enough about that!

Here's a picture of my sun dial to remind me how time passes by without you really noticing how quickly. I don't have anywhere in this house to put it, we're only renting here (for now), one of the reasons for my absence is arranging repairs and tenancy agreement for our tenants in the house we own near Cambridge (ooops, I said I wasn't going to mention excuses!) We came here for 4 months and have been here over three years ...

Anyway, back to the sun dial, for the time being it has been left in a corner under a hedge and now the ivy has started to wend its way over it ... I don't know what it is about stone and ivy - they always look wildly romantic together don't they?!

Copper flowers

Many of the blogs I read regularly have gone all green fingered in the last couple of days and so I thought I'd join in! Here are some Rudbeckia which I sowed from seed this time last year. They're really easy to germinate. I grew them on in little two inch module pots and then they were planted out in late summer and here they are flowering away with ... yes, look ... that is rain on the petals! It looked so pretty as I stepped out of my front door. I think the droplets really bring out the coppery tones in the flowers beautifully. The best thing is these are perennials and so will flower again and again every year and cost next to nothing. :-)

We had a hot, dry and dusty Saturday on the market, we did pretty well sales wise and Sandy came along with her friends and assorted partners, we had a laugh with them on the stall, I hope they all enjoyed the rest of their day in Cambridge!