Planting bulbs, despite the time of year

 It's an odd time of year to be planting bulbs, but that's what I've been up to.

Firstly, some fritillaries and mini-narcissi 'rescued' from the DIY store's reductions shelf.

I thought it was too cold to plant them outside (this week the overnight temperature has really dropped), so I put them in pots and left them in the porch, where they'll be cool but hopefully not frozen. In spring, I'll either bring them indoors or just place in the garden somewhere easily visible from the house. 

Secondly, this alien looking growth. 

I deliberately bought a piece of ginger root with signs of a shoot on it, kept it in its supermarket plastic bag in a warm spot in the kitchen, and let the shoot grow. It's done better than I expected - there's a little bulb growing and it even seems to be putting out roots

So I've chopped it off, keeping a little of the original root, and potted it up.

For now, it's in a plastic bag/mini greenhouse, during daytime on a windowsill above a radiator, and at nighttime in the warmth of the airing cupboard.

Hopefully by summer, I'll have home-grown ginger to harvest.

Raspberries in November!

Every time OH brings raspberries back from the allotment I expect them to be the last of the year, but we're halfway through November and they still keep cropping!

Seed collecting

I try to keep my gardening as inexpensive as possible, and many of my flowers grow each year rather than needing to be replaced - either bulbs, perennials or annuals that self-sow easily, like love-in-a-mist or welsh poppies. Some plants aren't reliable enough left on their own, though, and rather than pay out for seed next spring I like to collect it from this year's flowers if possible. 

Both these nasturtiums (left) and marigolds (below) were grown from home-collected seed, and have done really well so I've picked some more from both plants.

In case you don't recognise them, the nasturtiums are the large green seeds (when dried they'll shrivel and turn brown) and the marigolds the thin black and white 'sticks'. The dried 'peas' are from the sweet pea plants, and I'm hoping to find more when I cut the plants back down, as five sweet pea plants next year wouldn't be many.














Also, for the sake of their skull-like shape rather than needing the seeds, I collected some antirrhinum seed heads, full of tiny black seeds.

Playing "guess what month it is"

You and I know that it's November, there's been frost overnight and the garden should look like this - covered in fallen leaves, berries bright on the mountain ash and pyracantha - but the garden doesn't. In fact it seems to have no idea what time of year it is at all.


















Bright sunny days seem to be keeping the summer flowers going. Antirrhimuns and campanulas ...









clematis

love in a mist

nothing can stop the continued spread of these nasturtiums

and even an oriental poppy has suddenly burst back into flower!











On the other hand, winter is definitely here with jasmine flowering round the kitchen window ...

... and a couple of polyanthus seem to think Spring is on the way.