I thought I had finished my harvesting in September 2021. However, I cast my eyes upwards today and this squash had decided to make use of a 10 foot tall Scotch thistle for support . It is now safely in my crop box, and I can sense a winter season of soup making in the process.

  • Can you see the squash !?

These images are from my garden. If you choose your plants wisely, you really can be provided with great flowers , architectural stems and seed heads to create a great autumnal garden.

  • wild mignonette and Persicaria
  • Selinum wallichianum and Verbena hastata
  • A great blast of autumnal colour.
  • Dahlia merckii
  • Bidens aurea ‘Hannays Lemon Drop’

In previous years ,Crocosmia Lucifer had flowered incredibly well in a customers garden. However by not renovating them regularly, the result was several dense and large blocks of congested plants and practically no flowers. They have now been dug up, and several years worth of the spent flowering corms have been removed. They have now been replanted at about 25cm spacing. This should hopefully go somewhere to recreate this image from a few years ago.

  • Time to renovate those congested clumps.
  • Removing the spent corms leaves you with a single fresh corm to replant.

Now is the perfect time to sow broad beans and plant garlic. They have not been planted directly into the ground, as I am having a major re- think on where I would like to grow my veg next year. As you can see they were planted into small containers, and will be kept in a cold frame whilst they germinate and grow on.

They will be planted out, when I have formulated my plan.

  • and planted.

So why a veg growing rethink ? its not that 2021 was a disaster , infact it has been a good productive year, and we really have enjoyed good crops of salad, potatoes, and various legumes. In all honesty, my love for growing and filling my garden with flowers is my preference. It all becomes a bit too busy, with french beans amongst my towering dahlias, sugar snap peas growing behind asters. Basically it becomes difficult to reach them to crop them.

One of my customers has a veg garden that I would quite like to help them look after on my weekends, it really is just a case of asking. I’m hoping for a ” What a brilliant idea Sally, of course you can ”

I think a whole blog series on veg grown in my chosen No Dig . method, might be next years new blog idea.

Enjoy October, and keep on enjoying your gardens.