during last week when I stayed indoors I checked the stored onions Sturon, along with the potatoes second early Charlotte and maincrop Desiree, and was pleased to find that all were okay.
I do this periodically as I do occasionally find one that needs to be disposed of on the compost heap or using as soon as possible.
I didn’t go to the plot yesterday as it was breezy and chilly but not very sunny. This morning was better, and I’m glad I went for a couple of hours. I finished roughly hoeing the third, and last, of the vegetable patches. Apart from adding compost and removing any weeds they can be left now until next spring. I also collected another bag of fallen leaves to add to both compost heaps.
The various blue asters are now mostly past their best sadly, but the white ones are still twinkling.
I haven’t seen much of the robin recently but was glad to see him this morning. I also haven’t seen any red kites flying around low overhead for a while but there were two today. I told that there are a pair nesting one of the big willow trees in the park across the road so they were probably these.
Have a good week, and take care!
The weather is rather unsettled at present, being chilly, rainy and windy, so it’s not surprising that the now reddish-brown leaves on the cornus (dogwood) are beginning to drop. I filled an old compost bag with ones I collected from the ground all around the tree to add to both compost heaps. I’ll be doing that several more times over the next week or two.
The rose Pretty Lady usually continues to flower right through autumn into early winter but this year has already finished, perhaps because it started several weeks earlier than usual.
The green mound in the above picture has now removed and added to the compost heaps. This morning I pulled up all the collomia grandiflora stems, top right in the first picture and top left in the second, cleared the weeds and then forked it over.
The Calendula Oopsy Daisy in the black plastic half-barrel container is about a foot ( 30 cm) high and has been flowering profusely for weeks. I’ve been well pleased with both plant and flowers so will grow another one here next year.
The plant grows about four feet (1.2 metres) across so it obviously needs plenty of room. I’m going to try two, one in the middle of cosmos corner and the other at the top of the plot where the rhubarb used to grow. Hopefully by next summer I’ll have two sunflower Holiday plants, around four feet high, with dark-centred golden-yellow flowers.
ly pruned the raspberry bushes and will now leave them alone until the spring, apart from adding compost around each plant. Once new growth appears I’ll then cut out dead and unwanted stems.
It always surprises me how quickly the comfrey plants, the green plants in the picture, grow again after I cut them right back and add to the compost heaps. It’s not that long since I last did this and in a few weeks I’ll be doing it again, not that I mind.
and the asters/Michaelmas daisies are in full flower, with one exception. The biggest clump will definitely need sorting out in the spring, which as you can see is now far too big and sprawling over the plot and the adjacent grass path.
The exception mentioned above is the white flowering Twinkling Stars which is just starting to flower, and is one of my favourites.
this morning, who has been completely hidden under the ivy growing on the ground around the rose Pretty Lady. He’s been resident for nearly as long as I have as he was given to me by one of the nearby plot holders soon after I took the plot on. I will properly rescue him, check him over and give him a clean then put him somewhere where he won’t get hidden.
Flighty's plot 