Blog Archives

Late august in our garden ~ 30th August 2015

31/8/2015

Pip's memorial Magnolia Bush

The garden at home is still thriving and there is quite a lot of late coloured blooms on display. I am very impressed with the beautiful salmon-pink gladioli that is proudly standing very tall, I have supported the stems with bamboo canes and the flowers have lasted a long time as they bloom slowly from the bottom upwards.

Gladioli with more blooms to come

Two late roses are still in bloom a deep red climber that is a lasting memory of Mum as it was rescued from her garden, this climbing bush has done very well this year and there is one solitary rose left. There is also a pink rose on one of our tea rose bushes.

Mum's Memorial Rose

Our Rowan tree is full of a heavy crop of the decorative red berries, usually the blackbirds in our garden will have eaten these very quickly. Somehow our local blackbirds seem to be feasting elsewhere this year.
We have a wonderful pot of blue Agapanthus flowers that is full to bursting point with beautiful blooms. My love for this plant developed on a visit to Australia, where they grow everywhere, on the roadside and in any available piece of empty ground.

0 Comments

HARVESTING THE BENEFITS ~ 28TH AUGUST 2015

29/8/2015

0 Comments

Harvesting the produce is the number one satisfaction of the gardening year. Often the sweet-tasting fruit of our success comes in quantities that are very hard to deal with and a lot the surplus is handed out to various friends and acquaintances.

Always, when our hard laboured hands touch and feel the newly harvested vegetables, the lift to the spirits is almost indescribable.
Sadly as soon as our produce is ready and ripe for eating, there is a glut of theses type of fruit and vegetables in the supermarket, available at very cheap prices.

The incredible natural taste of home-grown food and the many other benefits of managing an allotment, is the draw that keeps the committed "allotmenteer" hard at work, and coming back for more of the same, year after year.

0 Comments

After the glorious August Rain ~ 24th August 2015

25/8/2015

0 Comments

We enjoyed some very heavy rain in the evening yesterday. I was exceedingly thankful to the big chief rainmaker for this as it will save me a very great deal of work, walking up and down the allotment with a couple of watering cans. I arrived quite a bit later than usual although it was well before 7am.

I was under the impression I was alone as I walked from one end of the plot to the other, when I suddenly sensed a presence, I wheeled around in time to see this handsome cock pheasant idly strolling into my plot. I instantly grabbed my camera from my pocket and took some brilliant photos of him from about five yards. I will never understand why men go out with guns to deliberately kill these beautiful creatures.

When I reached my asparagus beds, I was taken aback by the beauty of the asparagus ferns still full of raindrops from the showers we had enjoyed the night before. I had to take a few photos of this picturesque sight, there is nothing as simply beautiful as nature in the clean fresh rain-scented state after a shower.

I was smiling as I realised the welcome rain together with the recent warm weather has created the perfect growing conditions. I began to gather some of the crops to take home to Margaret this is always a time-consuming very satisfying job.
First I began to pick some large succulent raspberries, I have had a very heavy crop this year and we are busily freezing the produce for later use, probably in the middle of winter. I have also been well rewarded with a heavy crop of superb cultivated blackberries, I have never had such an excellent crop of these tasty beauties before.

I dug up a single plant of my main crop potatoes and the resulting bounty of large Desiree potatoes bodes well for our winter stores. The second early variety have been quite small but we have been enjoying the taste of fresh new salad potatoes for about a month now.
The courgette plants are still producing like mad and I have given a very large number away this year particularly at the bowls club. We still have quite a store for ourselves to use in the near future.
I cannot pick the runner beans fast enough and the wigwams are full of unpicked beans, I am giving away a lot of beans to people at the bowls club. My rhubarb is having a second burst of growth and Margaret is using a lot in some very tasty deserts. Unusually some of the leeks are almost ready to eat. This really is a very good growing year.

0 Comments

Sweet berries, courgettes, ~ harvest-time is here. ~ 15th August 2015

16/8/2015

0 Comments

The overnight rain had left everywhere feeling and smelling wonderfully fresh.
I arrived in the early hours and the first thing I noticed was a huge courgette bordering on a marrow on one of the front plants. The huge leaves on the courgette plants were discoloured as if a rusty sort of blight had struck them. From my experience of growing these vegetables over the years, I knew this was a natural sign of age, and nothing to worry about.

The runner beans were hanging in great profusion on the bean wigwams and with the amount of flowers that are still visible, I am sure I will have a bumper crop this year.

Then wonderful Autumn fruiting raspberries were clearly visible and looking very large and succulent, with Blackberries ripe and deliciously ready for picking and eating.
In spite of the reasonable quantity of rain we had overnight, my first job of the day was watering and I filled a couple of watering cans with rainwater from my water butts, and watered the pots and my cold frame.
I then bagged a few onions from my store in the shed to take home to Margaret and I picked about ten Courgettes. There were about three that were almost marrows and I will pass these on to our friend Sonia, who owns Number Ten restaurant, as promised.

Then I began picking the fruit, the blackberries are very large and I half-filled a punnet straight away, there will be a bumper crop this year as the bushes are full of the hard green berries that just need a good dose of prolonged sunshine to ripen them up.
My Raspberry canes are heavy with delicious ripe fruit, large berries that look and taste delicious. I very quickly filled a whole punnet with these beauties and I had to leave a lot on the canes to pick tomorrow. The leaves on the raspberry canes were soaking wet with the fresh rainwater that we had overnight, and I was getting quite wet as I picked the fruit. Then suddenly we had another light shower, I carried on working in spite of this rain to finish picking.

0 Comments

Author

John~~Battling with the elements, pests and diseases in my struggle to keep the garden growing. A constant daily struggle that will be recorded here.

Gardening is such a delightful pastime. I spend time on my allotment almost every day of my life, and the sensation of pure satisfaction never ceases to amaze me. I get so much out of this pleasure, I think the benefits are so huge that the government should legislate and make it more available to everyone. I will list just some of the obvious reasons here. ~~
1) Fresh fruit and vegetables and other produce.
2) Fresh air and an intense feeling of getting close to Nature.
3) Healthy exercise without the necessity of machines that are found inside a gym.
4) The satisfaction obtained by growing plants and watching and caring for them through to maturity.
5) A regular occupation that you can make into a routine, somewhere to go to at a certain time every day.
6) The companionship of like-minded people, with whom you can get ideas and swap tips on your mutual interests.

There is peace of mind in a garden

Late august in our garden ~ 30th August 2015

HARVESTING THE BENEFITS ~ 28TH AUGUST 2015

After the glorious August Rain ~ 24th August 2015

Sweet berries, courgettes, ~ harvest-time is here. ~ 15th August 2015

Author

Archives

Categories