Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Keeping the colour going.

Summer colour is now fading,
we still have roses and rudbeckia flowering as well as dahlias
and hydrangeas, but the summer flowering plants in the containers are nearly over. The geraniums will keep going for a while yet, until the first frosts so they are now being potted up to go into the greenhouse for over wintering.
 I have been replacing the summer plantings with cyclamens and winter pansy's, four have been done, only another eight to go and that job will be done.
The two pots either side of the wooden planter were made by Simon, they are concrete and weigh a ton.
All the planters have spring bulbs in them and I have increased the amount of anemones. Anemones seem to be very reliable, coming up year after year.
The spring bulbs that I ordered have now arrived,
four hundred and sixty five in total, add on the seventy five anemones waiting to be planted and I realise that I have a lot of planting to do over the next couple of weeks. Each year I say I wont get more bulbs, but then the catalogue arrives, and once again I get tempted. Once these are planted that will be the lot, I have run out of places to plant unless we make another bed, but that would mean encroaching into the vegetable area, so what I have is it!
The swallows are now gathering, ready for their flight back to warmer climes, we are always sorry to see them go, it really does mark the start autumn.
The late season vegetables are now producing well,
lots of cauliflowers, and
the calabrese is doing great, the ones in the photo are not the main heads, they are the side shoots.
This is the first year that we have grown celeriac, well that's not quite true, we did try once before when we lived in Spain, they came to nothing, but these have grown very well, easier than celery which always seems to be badly attacked by slugs, I guess the skins on the celeriac are too tough for slugs to get their teeth into.
Our potato harvest was as bad as we had feared, most of the spuds have been eaten by slugs, next year we are going to try growing them all in containers and one new raised bed. This bed will be sixteen feet by four, with the containers this should, hopefully give us enough potatoes for the year, we know that this year we will have to buy potatoes, a first for us for the last twenty odd years, it will be hard to find a spud that is worth eating, even the imported organic ones leave a lot to be desired, mainly flavour.
At last our front gate has had it's long awaited coat of wood preservative, it looks very nice, and it only took us five years to do it.
Misty, Freddie's sister.

10 comments:

  1. Awww, love the photo of Misty, she looks very cuddly. My roses are blooming away at the moment, they were quite late flowering this year but they've really got going now. I hear a lot of people mentioning how difficult celeriac is to grow but you don't seem to have a problem judging by your photo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Misty is a real sweetheart, but a very independent madam. The roses have been good this year, this is their second blooming even though all the bushes were badly affected by blackspot.The celeriac was started off in modules and planted out into a raised bed when they were about four inches high, they are sharing the bed with parsnips, maybe they are a good companion, I will have to look it up.

      Delete
  2. Yes summer is slowly faded, you still have lots of beauty in the garden though, I have bought bulbs, am currently tidying up the garden ready to plant them x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't realised just how many bulbs I had ordered, it was only when the box arrived that I did a count. I do try to have some colour all year round in the garden, this is probally why my garden is so over crowded, I pop to a nursery, see what's in bloom and have to buy it.

      Delete
  3. Your wooden planter is gorgeous♥

    summerdaisycottage.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. It was very and cheap to make Summer, it's just fencing posts cut to the right length.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anne

    The celeriac looks great. I want to grow it again as it did well for me a few years ago. I grow potatoes in old plastic bins with holes in the bottom and sides. They do well in there. Its hard to have to buy potatoes after growing them for so many years. You will certainly bee very busy planting all those bulbs. I can't wait to see the results in the spring.
    Carole

    ReplyDelete
  6. We were very pleased with how the celeriac grew, we will defiantly grow it again. The potatoes in the pots got blight even though they were in the tunnel, so we are very short of potatoes this year, we will have to eat more rice and pasta. I've made a start on the bulbs but it's going to be a long job.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry to hear about the potatoes, what a shame. But everything else seems to be doing very well. I love how many bulbs you have ended up with! Busy time for you at the moment then...already can't wait to see them all come up! Lauren x

    ReplyDelete