How was your summer?

Bought a load of cheap plugs from B&Q just to get flowers in (we’re not proper gardeners, just want some pretty flowers) and they all came up and grew really well.

My wife plants seeds but then doesn’t look after them properly and they usually don’t do well, but a surprise hit this year was some purple mallow that took off eventually even planted behind the fence. I hope they spread as they are lovely.

The lawn is now looking far better than it was. Planted some shade tolerant seeds on the bit that gets overlooked by the fence that seems to have helped. Going to top dress with sand and compost this weekend and hopefully we can get through the winter without rotting away like it did last year.

Mallow will spread like wild fire! I know.

Re the summer, not brilliant really. Courgettes were the great success. Ate quite a few, gave plenty more away. Tomatoes were looking promising until they all got some sort of blight, turned black and withered on the vine. Peas were OK but not spectacular.

Biggest disappointment was my “wild flower meadow” bed. Carefully prepared in spring with plenty seeds sown resulting in one poppy and lots of weeds. Going to try the prep and sowing in Autumn this time in tune with nature.

Currently moving a few shrubs around, tidying up in general and ordered loads of bulbs. Hoping for a decent weekend so I can get some more planting done.

Our vegetables have been hit and miss this year. We had a couple of young foxes who insisted on digging up one of our raised beds.

Squashes have been going crazy – we have Patty Pan, some yellow thing and courgettes coming out of our ears.

Root veg has been disappointing – we tried a couple of unusual varieties of beetroot and carrot, neither have done well.

Spinach went over quickly, beans not so good either.

We had quite a good year. The cucumbers have just finished as have the courgettes. The cucumbers don’t get much chance to get very big as the kids love them. Its the first year we tried broad beans (planted last winter) and they had a really good crop – we ended up freezing quite a few of them.

Just finished making 2 batches of Cumberland bean pickle with the old runner beans. Not many blueberries this year, but the plants have grown a bit. Strawberries did quite well, but seemed to finish early. Just planted some of the runners.

Need to plant the Garlic fairly soon. We planted Solent Wight last year and it seems to do really well.
Mrs has planted some Artichokes, Rhubarb & Gooseberries so hopefully they’ll do ok next year. She’s also planted some Egyptian walking onions that look a bit weird.

Ps front lawn is terrible though – may get turned into a veg bed next year – lots of plantains and ragwort in it.

Mostly good.

Successfully obliterated the tall yellow flowers that were taking over everything on one side of the garden and replaced them with herbs, lavender, some mystery plants a friend bought round and some verbenas which the butterflies love.

Also moved a bush and planted a wildflower meadow that’s been a roaring success- loads of poppies, loads of bees. It’s been great. Almost too good- they’re starting to smother a a mystery plant which suddenly appeared in June that I think sprouted from a bulb.

Herbs have gone absolutely mad, which is great since Herb is in our house name.

Also killed a great many things I didn’t mean to moving them around, and the wildflowers under our wysteria struggled. Then the landlord cut 90% of the wysteria down, including, I think, a robin’s nest 🙁

Oh, and I built a bench. That my wife keeps falling off of, and apparently that’s the bench’s (and there for my) fault.

Mixed bag. Insane amount of raspberries, gooseberries and plums, lettuce did well but went to seed very quickly . Beans took longer than usual and my chard got eaten by deer! Decimated !

Not bad – mainly ‘structural’ – putting up 6 x raised beds, creating x 2 ponds, spending too many hours washing and then reassembling my wife’s 2nd hand hexagonal greenhouse, painting sheds, building woodstore and benches and generally being groundworker as per instructions 🙂

Took on an allotment too but the plans for that extend purely to preparing for next year.

We’ve had a resident family of hedgehogs for the first time this summer which have been very entertaining.

Grew a few chilli pepper plants.
Lemon drop peppers were good, eaten the entire harvest already. Nice citrussy flavour.
Prairie Fire (I think) keeps on producing. Pick and eat them as they get ripe, and more appear.
Also have one other that may be the world’s smallest Habanero plant. Just spotted one had turned orange yesterday.

All other plants that I planted died. The above plants nearly died when I went away, but came back to life with a lot of water.

Flash buggers. And there was me proud of the fact my lawn has no mud in it.

Bit hit and miss.

Our brassicas were decimated by butterfly’s will go full on nemesis next year.

Potatoes were OK, strawberries were pretty good. lettuce OK.
Lots of gooseberries, but my apples weren’t great, not enough sun to ripen I reckon, Chard went well, still don’t know if I like it though!

Pumpkin seems happy enough.

But lots and lots of slugs and snails early on made it difficult, pellets helped but they still eat loads.

Our brassicas were decimated by butterfly’s

Plant nasturtiums nearby..?

Not great. We have a large & mature garden that is proving difficult to keep on top of (3 young kids & both of us work). Got an area marked out for a veg plot, but didn’t get round to actually doing anything with it (again!). Fruit trees (7 of the buggers!) have all produced a decent amount, but it will mostly fall on the ground and we won’t use it 🙁

Must try harder is the message I think…..

fife based, so we are usually 2-3 weeks behind Southern parts….

brassicas excellent, potatoes went mad, carrots were/are great – we tried some heritage ones this year – yellows and purples add a bit of variety to the plate.

beans/peas were crap but we think we caught a frost just as they went in. tomatoes in the polytunnel were average – a bit of blight and overheated did for them really. sweetcorn was a disaster. courgettes went mad, pumpkins on the compost doing well, same for the squash. beetroot were great.

fruit – raspberries have been great, black/red/white currants good. apples n pears not so much. melons in the hot bed are as good as can be expected – think we’ll get three this year. still got autumn rasps to come. blackberries were new last year so only a wee harvest this year.

reasonably satisfied i guess.

Marks for prettiness: 4/10 (always gonna be the case until complete)

Marks for practicality: 8/10

Dug up the veg plot that I built last year – it took too much time to maintain. Created a raised lawn over the same area, supported by a retaining wall on 2 sides.

Laid numerous borders and a dining area.

Removed all the turf in the front garden. Excavated (by hand courtesy or Mr Shovel and Mrs bloomin’ lethal Mattock) 18 dump truck loads of earth and buried rubble/hardcore. Dug up a section of driveway with 2ft deep hardcore.

Now in the process of expanding another part of the driveway, then removing a load of fencing/hedging ready for some new gates. Laying new turf needs doing too.

All in all, bloody hard work but rewarding. Saved £s doing it myself though.

While you are all here , please gents

Is now an OK time to do lay a bit of turf?

I held off during high summer, as I knew there would be times it would get enough water. But now will it take/settle/grow with a weaker sun ??

Ta

Autumn is the best time.

All structural here for spring, making raised beds and putting in a polytunnel, terracing the slope and putting in gravel path. chasing myself with planting until June, messed up courgettes but mangetout, sweetcorn, cucumbers, pepper and salad crops all went well. Green beans also went well. Toms went OK, learned what I did wrong so will be better next year.

New purpose built strawberry bed a big success, and I now have 200 new plants from runners for a stall I’m going to put by the gates next year in the hope of paying for compost for the year.

Artichoke plants in new beds well established, and winter crops all in – kale, broccoli, chard & sprouts.

Autumn raspberries have started very strong so I should get loads of jam this year.

Looks like a good year for grapes in the greenhouse too.

On the stall – Its march, you’re out in the countryside. You wander past a stall with trays of 15 strawberry plants for sale… How much would you pay. I’m thinking maybe £7.50? They will be well established with several new leaves and looking good by then (bit of time in the PT before they go out).

Is now an OK time to do lay a bit of turf?

IMHO you don’t want it too dry nor too wet. I laid my raised lawn in spring and it’s taken brilliantly. Watered it well every day it was dry. Will do the front in 3-4 week I imagine.

Is now an OK time to do lay a bit of turf?

I put some grass seed down a few weeks ago and its now about 2 inches tall so I imagine turf would be fine now.