First of the month - August

 the day - and the month - started off sunny, so we briefly went to the allotment and came back with a box of goodies - potatoes, rhubarb, a few raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and even blackberries,

 tomatoes (probably the first of a glut)



french and runner beans

 a handful of peas

 courgettes (definitely well into a glut of these)








Back home for lunch - and the rain came down soaking everything and making the flowers look most bedraggled

 It may only be the first day of August but with blackberries ripening and Michaelmas daisies flowering Autumn seems only just round the corner

More seeds to save.

 Following on from last week's post about saving my own seed - here's another!
I've been really impressed with the peppers and chillies we've grown this year, but can't remember what sort of seed I'd set - so I'm having a go at saving some. I'm not sure if this will be ripe enough but there's only one way to find out....





I also plan on saving seed from the chillies - for now though they're drying over the dining room radiator.

 I also harvested more radish seed - all of these pods came from one plant!

and collected some more flower seed; these thistle-shaped seedheads are from rudbeckia, another 'new' seed for me. I love the bright yellow orange flowers so hoping seed-saving works

December Flowers

 It looks like we're set for another weird month weather-wise - and just look at what is still flowering. Nasturtiums, hollyhocks, welsh poppies, fuchsias and rudbeckia! Strange doesn't seem to cover it.

Some things are more normal though  - winter jasmine, rosemary and polyanthus flowering

Picked this week - 2nd November 2014

You could easily be forgiven for thinking this was a post from back in summer - a bowl of raspberries, radishes, tomatoes, a courgette, spinach and baby lettuce leaves!

and rubeckias and sweetpeas to pick.

 

Ok the leeks and savoy cabbage look more autumnal.

...as do these massive carrots - about 3 inches across. Sadly these aren't ours but the un-wanted crops from another allotmenteer.

November in the garden

This is how half of my November garden  looks - covered in leaves and the main colour coming from berries, maybe with some early spring flowers peeping through - normal for this time of year.

But a lot of the garden doesn't seem to know that summer is over - the recent warm weather has totally confused things.



 Marigolds, sweet peas, rudbeckias, welsh poppies, kaffir lilies, fuchsias, antirrhinums.... these and more still flowering. I even have alpine strawberries ripening and buds on hollyhocks and oriental poppies.

This week the temperature is set to drop.... so it could be the end of summer.