The Month of Mellow Fruitfulness...

...September...Glorious... ...September...

Here you are with your tickley spiders,  autumn sunlight lower on the horizon, your aroma, all redolent of a golden month....our last chance to snatch a bit of summer back, fleetingly more or less a stolen moment, a memory....that's how it is in September.

"Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh so mellow

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain so yellow

Try to remember the kind of September

When you were a young and a callow fellow

Try to remember and if you remember

Then follow--follow, oh-oh." 

-  Try to Remember, Lyrics by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt

So that is the end of summer.   What a wonderful summer it has been for the garden.   Now the light is different, softer, lower in the sky.   Everything is having a last burst of flower...

Fruits are ripening, being harvested....

Bees are bumbling.

But we know that autumn comes just around the corner.

With this in mind I have spent time this week strengthening the greenhouse with reinforcing tape along all the joins of the panels.  Also, I have started to tidy it out ready to house plants that are more tender and won't survive outside in the winter.    These will include the Pelagoniums that are still  bursting with colour. Fuchsias too.   

I am going to experiment with winter salad leaves this year...I sowed my first few rows this afternoon.

Perpetual spinach and Oriental mixed leaves

Pink Mandevilla

The greenhouse was just under 30C this afternoon, but the temperature drops rapidly when the sun goes down.  

The Mandevilla is flowering, it really is an exotic.  I will try to move it inside my house when the weather cools off.   

I am still worried about the high autumn and winter winds.   I know the wind is likely to travel down the side of the fence behind the greenhouse and suck the panels out.   This is what happened last winter.   If anyone has a good idea of how to put in some sort of shelter-cum-windbreak do let me have your thoughts.  Ultimately it needs a couple of bushy shrubs there to break up the damaging gusts but they take time to grow.  

This weekend was time for pruning and cutting back.   H assured me that the little willow would prune well.   I also 'googled' it to see how to do it.   It seems much like any other pruning job...prune to let in light and cut away dead wood, to shape it...so that's what I did.   What with the bits from it and from the currant bushes last weekend, I filled an enormous bag to take to the tip.

An old 'Bracey's' bag did the trick.

The new shapely willow.

That's the Bracey's bag (left) that sand was delivered in when I moved in 3 years ago - it has quite come into its own.  I knew it was a good idea to keep it safe and sound. I also put in some of the dogwood cuttings and other bits and pieces of cuttings and weedings.   It only just fitted into the Polo with the back seats down.  

Certainly the pruning has let light into the front bed. 

I must work harder on that bed, it is not as good as it could or should be.

On the other hand, there are some things that have really surpassed my hopes for them.   The butternuts are one of the successes...also the Passiflora.   I had such misgivings about it.   However, it has surpassed any of my hopes, let alone expectations, which were set pretty low, I must confess.   It is beginning to bloom its socks off now...beautiful socks too I think you will agree?

Passiflora

The lavender is still flowering.   Orange Californian Poppies have self seeded among it for the second time this year.   If you want a fast growing easy annual try them!   They seed easily, grow like crazy, then, when you pull them up because they are too leggy and straggly, it is just a few weeks ...hey-presto...some more fresh ones have sprung up.

I like the combination of blue or purple with yellow or orange.  It is something I want to introduce repeatedly throughout the garden next year.   Of course I love the other colours too, but it is nice to have a kind of colour signature repeating here and there to link everything together.  The lighting in this garden definitely favours the contrasts of blues and yellows, purple and oranges.

This is the time to consider what to plant for spring.   With my new colour scheme in mind I invested in a couple of bags of tulip bulbs for my patio containers. 

Yellow and purple/blue tulips
In front 2 of the butternut I harvested today

I want to get some daffodil bulbs into the meadow too.   I think the smaller ones.  The ones I have in mind are Narcissus bulbocodium - Hoop-Petticoat Daffodil, a new type of hardy bulb just brought out this year. It is a dwarf Narcissus, apparently, with rounded, flaring cups that give it the common name of Hoop-Petticoat daffodil. This little daffodil is distinctly different from its larger cousins, producing single blooms on individual stems that appear above clumps of grass like foliage.  They (Thompson & Morgan) say Narcissus bulbocodium is perfect for growing in rockeries and alpine gardens or naturalised in lawns for a vibrant spring display.  It really isn't big so the wind shouldn't ruin it, height just 20cm (8"). Spread: 10cm (4").  I'll see if I an squeeze the housekeeping money to afford some.

Narcissus bulbocodium

The garden gate has fallen off its very rusty hinges.   That will have to be fixed...it is essential.   I cannot have kids and dogs here with a gate that doesn't work.   Occy wanders...JP doesn't, but I don't want other dogs coming into my garden and I especially don't want the children to be in the garden and able to get out onto the road.   So fix gate is number one job this week.   Unfortunately it is not a job I can do myself......so that means a man with muscles and a bit of knowledge of how to hang a gate.

My carpentry is so bad I can't even make a straight edge to a bed in the greenhouse.   Never mind, in this case it just has to be a rough soft area to stand the over-wintering tender plants on.

It is NEARLY straight.
Can you do better?  Then please come and give me a hand!

Still lots to do this week.   More seeds to sow, Radicchio, winter lettuce, to name two...maybe tiny turnips in the greenhouse.   I'll see what I can read up about them.

There is more pruning and cutting back to do.   This is the first year I have had to concentrate on cutting growth back....before this it has all been about getting things to grow.   I think I can safely say that the beginning of a garden has taken root really and truly now.   If I have to cut things back something must be growing..not all of it weeds.

Passiflora over the arch already
Green bags of weeds waiting for tip-trip.

These are a couple of other jobs I have thought I should do this month: 

1              Plant spring flowering bulbs Daffodils, hyacinth, tulips and maybe snowdrops, cyclamen too.

2              Plant up seasonal containers. I don't have to say goodbye to colour just yet. Plants like pansies, primroses and cyclamen will offer a burst of autumn colour.

Maybe next time I tap a post I will be able to show you the juicy sweetcorn.   I think it is almost ready to harvest.  Now it is time to put my weary gardener's body to bed.   H, that hand-scrub and hand-cream you gave me is marvellous...even with all the work this weekend, just one application of it, and I have hands that look as if they haven't been near a garden at all.

 "By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer’s best of weather

And autumn’s best of cheer."

-   Helen Hunt Jackson, September, 1830-1885

A pleasant time of year...

...in the garden...

Lavatera

I cultivate my garden, and my garden cultivates me. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

It is peaceful in the garden at this time of year.  I think this is because all the birds have brought up their chicks so there isn't the meal time clamour of  'feed me -feed me' from juvenile birds demanding food, squabbling among themselves.  Late summer peacefulness.....

Though the weather has been unseasonably cold this week, Thursday in particular, the sun shone again today.   This morning the forecast issued a warning to some parts of Britain, not here, to be aware that there could even be a frost ...in AUGUST.   No, that isn't right.

Mandevilla in bud

Today I continued tidying up the greenhouse ready for the next season.   The cucumbers are over.   How excellent they have been.  I'll take out the dead vines and compost them tomorrow.   The Mandevilla is twining her tendrils round one of them, maybe that bit will have to stay a while.  Mandevillas are a tropical plant ...Sandra, I think Roger would love one or two of these showy beauties.   Mine is perfumed when I water it, a rich tropical fragrance.

Crazy as it may seem...I really wouln't mind a much bigger greenhouse!  I know this one is going to be full over winter.   First of all I want to house the more tender plants, pelagoniums and some fuchsias, in here...also I want to try growing some winter  salads.

Feeling happy!

I ordered a few packets of seeds from Thompson & Morgan this week but had a thought after I had dropped them in my online basket...I thought to myself...let's not pay for these right now because there is a Bank Holiday approaching this weekend...and, in my experience, T&M offer free P&P over holidays.   Indeed they did so I was wise to hold off checking out until today to make use of the free P&P offer...that really makes me feel quite a winner...

Especially as part of my order was made up with 3 little raspberry plants, Ruby Beauty, though they won't be delivered till later...by the end of October. See last week's post for details 

.

The seeds I've ordered are - 

My simplified version of the gutter-lettuce garden.
(Not yet planted!)

• Salad 'Niche Oriental Mixed'      
•  Lettuce 'Winter Gem'
•  Poppy 'Seriously Scarlet'             
• Squash 'Butterbush' F1 Hybrid (Winter)               
• Spinach 'Perpetual' (Spinach Beet)                         
• Radicchio 'Rossa di Treviso precoce'

The poppy was a free packet of seeds, that won't be planted till March or so.

The Pintrest gutter-lettuce garden.
I don't need this many!

Let me see if I can provide some fresh greens through some of winter.  I've moved my SALAD DAYS salad box in the greenhouse.   It is on its last legs but it'll go through winter.   Also I saw a brilliant idea on Pintrest for planting salad leaves in a gutter, slightly sloping for drainage.   I've started to set up my own version ...just need to work out how to stop the ends to prevent the soil draining out too.

Sandra told me about some recycled tyre rubber chips she is going to try out in her chicken run this winter to combat mud.  She is sending me the link and details of this product .   It does sound interesting and might be a wonderful material for the 'path' down the centre of my greenhouse...also might be useful as a mulch on pots...keep reading my posts, if I get some it will be featured here.  It might be more friendly than the stone chips or gravel.

The garden is full of fat little spiders with pretty stripy tummies making their webs like lace all over the garden.. These are completely unthreatening spiders.   They look like tubby little people in rather quaint clothes dangling from the plants and between the sheds.  They are quite sociable too, often spinning their webs close to each other.  I rather like them.

Rudbekia and Cosmos soaking up the afternoon sunshine.

This evening it was grand chatting to D (of the DnA family) ...it sounds as if you are having a wonderful late summer, mushrooms and enough blueberries to make blueberry leather...yummy.  D recently showed me his  Veg book by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall (of the River Cottage fame) ...I consequentially bought a copy for myself.   I am really happy with it, anyone who is looking for some very tasty vegetable dishes this is the recipe book for you...it is enough to tempt anyone to be vegetarian.  If you are growing your own veg you

can use them in some of the recipes.   At this time of the year there is so much locally grown fresh produce that even if you aren't growing veg the book would probably be worthwhile as an addition to your recipe book collection.

More gardening tomorrow.  The greenhouse is a pleasant place to have a cup of tea, warm and out of the wind...

A good place for a cuppa, out of the wind.

One of the healthiest ways to gamble is with a spade and a package of garden seeds. ~Dan Bennett

I intend to do a bit of garden gambling this week ahead...even if the seeds are not as successful as I hope at least  I'll be keeping fit and happy with the exercise.

A 'berry' good year and...

...a goat...or a couple of sheep....

...to mow the Mini-Meadow...

Berries are abundant this year.
(Photo taken in Kenfig Nature Reserve). 

My legs and hips are screaming in protestation of too much meadow-mowing the slow, laborious, bent double way.  20 bags of meadow hay I've hauled off to the tip...time to invest in a goat, a donkey or something that eats or sleeps in hay.  Mind you, it has been the perfect weekend for the task.   Not too hot or cold, no children to get in the way of sharp implements, no rain so got it bagged and tipped easily.

The garden looks very different, but I am ready for this seasonal change.   Soon the 'grass' will green up again and I can treat it like a regular lawn for a few months.

Yesterday...2/3 done and ...

Job done.  Looks a bit sad but will soon get greener.

I used manual hedge cutters to give the meadow its first cut.   This entails crouching, kneeling or sitting and gradually cutting through the matted meadow growth which I then stack and bag up.   Next stage is to strim it with just a light garden strimmer, not the petrol heavy duty one.   Lastly, a quick go over with the mower.   After every cut, a rake up, and bag the bits.   Meadows like poor nutrient soil so the clipping must not be left to rot down which will add nutrients to it.   I think I could use a scythe, but because the children and dogs do tend to play on the meadow it compacts down, so I think I would still have the initial problem of cutting through 'flopped-over' grasses.   Also I've never used a scythe ...maybe starting now wouldn't be my best idea...probably chop my own leg off!  Overall I am pretty pleased with this mowing.  I think next year I will just allow the meadow to have its head in the very centre of the garden and cut a circular path round it along the edges of the flower boarders.   That way I may be able to persuade children and dogs to keep off the meadow.  Farmers don't allow anyone to walk across meadows because it squashes down the growth and then it is not so beneficial to the very insects and wild life it is supposed to attract.  My idea is that maybe a less area of protected meadow will actually be more for the wildlife.

This summer, which has been a good summer overall, the garden really has been a wonderful place to be.

Garden path edged with sage, rosemary, lavenders.

The hanging baskets and patio are still a riot of colour.

The lavender is perfuming the garden beautifully.  I am eating fruit and vegetables just about every day that I've grown myself.   Soon the sweetcorn will be ready.  I am particularly proud of the butternut I've grown, that's been a huge success.

Butternut, and there are plenty more ripening.

Even the tomatoes have started to ripen.  Do you remember the Heath Robinson method of watering I set up?  I did that because I had read that tomatoes have so much more flavour if you can funnel the water to their roots.    I can say that this year is the first time that I have managed to grow tomatoes that taste quite as tomato-y and delicious.  I don't know if it is the method of watering them or the variety I've grown, Gardener's Delight...but the one or two I've had are superb.

Funnel for watering trough to the roots.

The failures I've had this year have been the apples.   That tree is really not well.   I have to research the reason why, see if I can remedy it.   The cucumbers were excellent but their vine got some sort of blight, rust, fungi.   As for that plum tree, it had blossom earlier in the year but fruit didn't set.   I'll feed the plum and apple, protect them from bugs and see if they do better next year.   And, as I said, I'll see what I need to do to make my sick apple tree better.  Next year I think I'll grow potatoes in containers, I think they work better that way.  I'll plant more peas, and less beans.  Beetroot are good too, I didn't plant enough this year.  And, next year I want to make a much better strawberry patch, maybe under glass...I'll ask Barry for a few old windows and make a special strawberry frame for them.

I see there is a new patio raspberry out.   I might invest in 3.   I haven't grown raspberries because I don't want to introduce something that would need a lot of pruning and care, these little patio variety might just be what I need.

It's called Ruby Beauty

Raspberry 'Ruby Beauty'™ (Summer Fruiting)

Rubus idaeus

Hardy Shrub

Summer fruiting.

A completely new concept for growing Raspberries! These compact dwarf raspberry canes reach just 1m (3’) high, making them perfect for large patio containers and smaller gardens. Try planting 1 raspberry plant per 10litre pot, or 3 to a 40 litre pot.

The multi branching floricanes of Raspberry 'Ruby Beauty'™ bear superb yields of deliciously sweet berries that we’ve come to expect from modern varieties. Thornless stems and a short stature make harvesting quick and easy too. Being low to the ground they can be netted with ease to protect the crops from greedy birds and the sturdy stems won’t need supporting either - perfect for the low maintenance garden. Height: 100cm (39"). Spread: 50cm (20").

Sounds perfect to me.

So the time of summer is coming to an end.   Mowing the meadow is only the start of getting ready for the next season.   There's a greenhouse to sort out and get ready for storing tender plants.   Also for planting some winter salads.  There's lots more harvesting to do...I love the busy-ness of the garden, ever changing with the seasons...

One other little surprise I've had this weekend.   The Mandavilla I thought was dead ...LIVES...and is about to produce a beautiful red flower.     It is climbing through the cucumber vines in the greenhouse.   I wonder if I bring it inside my house this winter if I can coax it to stay alive and be really splendid next year?

Never mind next year...it's late, I'm tired...more garden news next week.   

Have a great gardening week.

August already...

...Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown.

Lacey hydrangea and rudbekias in my flower bed.

You might get tomatoes.   I haven't had much success with tomatoes since living in UK.   Maybe this year I'll be lucky.   There are tomatoes on the one tomato plant I have, Gardener's Delight, I believe it is labelled, I don't know if it is or not, I bought it as a seedling....   They are a long way off being big tomatoes, or ripe tomatoes...but still, maybe they will suddenly swell and redden .   They are supposed to look like this...

...mine are similar in shape but only the size of walnuts.   Not looking promising for a big crop of red tomatoes before the cold weather comes.

Weather means more when you have a garden. There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans. ~Marcelene Cox

This weekend the weather is set to deteriorate.   There is an ex-hurricane, Bertha, heading towards us that is going to put an end to the beautiful summer weather we've enjoyed for a while.

This means that it is time to do a bit of housework.   What gardener wastes time with house work when the weather is fine and the garden calling?   Now house keeping in the garden, that's different...I have a few bags of dry cuttings back and weeding to take to the tip in the next day or two...and now is the time to start thinking of what next to plant in the garden...and where ...greenhouse or outside?

I read a really good idea about using old grow bags for winter salads.

• Life in the old bag.

What you do is take an old growbag you have used for tomatoes, or whatever.   Remove the spent plants and give the bags a good shake, or thump, to break up the compost in them that has got a bit hard and impacted.   Then cut out a couple of large squares exposing the compost, add some fresh compost and organic fertiliser, farmyard manure or blood, fish and bone meal.  Top up with fresh compost and give it all a good mixing.   Voilà ...a new growbag ready for some winter salads.  Perfect in the greenhouse.

Double deep red hibiscus given me as a baby plant by A-K in Sweden last summer
 - now flowering and flourishing.

• What to plant in August

I should really say, what I intend to plant this month.   Each of us will have favourites.   Cabbage is a good one to plant now, but I don't want to grow cabbage, I find I have too many of them for just one and I find they get eaten by all kinds of pests too.

But I will try Swiss Chard again and Kale, Cavolo Nero.   I've grown both before, they are good to eat, pretty easy, pest free and they look good too.

Cavolo Nero Kale

 I am going to try, for my first attempt ever, to grow turnips and spinach.  Also winter lettuce.  Maybe garlic, just for fun and I was impressed with D's garlic crop in Sweden.

• A new use for a pesky weed.

You all know how I fight a war with dandelions.   Actually I love them in the wild, but they are a thuggish pest in my garden.   But not all bad.  This week I read about using them in a novel way.   Apparently them make a good good massage oil for aching limbs and muscles after digging and weeding all day.  Collect a lot of flower heads, no stems or leaves, put them in a jar with some olive oil and a dash of vodka, to stop mould forming.   Leave on a sunny windowsill for a month to infuse before using as a muscle relaxant, on rashes or to prevent scars forming.

• Raspberries or Crab apple?

I've been thinking of dry root ordering again.   It is getting to that time of year.   Buying fruit trees and roses in dry root form is a much cheaper way of getting the plants and they invariably do grow vigorously in the spring.   Don't be afraid to try it.   I have had great successes with it.   This year  I am tossing up choosing between some raspberry canes or a crab apple.   I don't think I can afford both...so which shall it be?   Or should it be that sour cherry...oh dear, the choices we have to make in life!

Cranberries

• Why not Cranberries?

Another plant that came to mind to try is Cranberry.   Probably not, it likes boggy acidic soil ...boggy is one thing I might replicate but acidic is not really what I want...no, I think I'll buy them at the supermarket again this year.

So that is all for the future...what has been happening at Molokoloko Garden this week...

Quite a bit of harvesting aided by Leah and Jonah, for one thing.

Checking for and picking berries.

The jubilant harvesters.

They have really enjoyed finding fruit and vegetables in the garden this week.   Squeals of delight greet every juicy berry.  It's so much fun to teach children where food comes from like this.   Here is what they managed to glean in a very short time.

Cucumber, tiniest ever butternut squash, beans, berries.

I have managed to cut back the growth on The Mound, mostly Marguerites, now all bundled, bagged and stored in the dry to take to the tip or add to compost heap.  I added 4 rescued Veronicas from the 50p range of plants at the garden centre round the base of the mound.

Tomorrow is the extra big full moon night...gardeners do say it is the best time to plant at various stages of the moons cycle for different crops. Planting by the Moon is a great way to help plan your above and below ground crops.

Plant flowers and vegetables that bear crops above ground during the light, or waxing, of the Moon: from the day the Moon is new to the day it is full.

Plant flowering bulbs and vegetables that bear crops below ground during the dark, or waning, of the Moon: from the day after it is full to the day before it is new again.

I'm not sure I would believe this though a lot of the old time advice really does seem to work...they knew by observation what a lot of science is now confirming. Click here for Video.  However...an extra big full moon...well I am not at all sure it will be visible here in Wales if we are having the last of the rain emptying on us from a dying hurricane!

Supermoon  10th August Click Here for details

Chat to you again next week, meantime happy gardening.

An optimistic gardener is one who believes that whatever goes down must come up. ~Leslie Hall

Thank you ....

...Garden Helpers...

...for looking after my garden while I was away...

Agapanthas and Dwarf Sunflowers

A big thank you to G for tending my garden.   It isn't easy looking after someone else's garden especially when there are two lively tots and my dog as well as their dog to keep an eye on too.  You did a splendid job. 

Here we are...in August, after a warm and dry July.  It has been so dry that the garden would have needed water almost daily.   Everything was looking good on my return from Sweden, testament to G's vigilance.

Sunflowers and Agapanths are looking their best right now.   The white Agapantha I have not succeeded to get to flower before this year.

Leah planted many of the sunflower seeds back in spring.  These dwarf ones are a treat at this time of year.

Although the meadow is past its most colourful I can see it is still feeding lots of bees.  I will have to mow it soon but a few more days won't hurt.   The bees are loving the lavender too.  This year the tiny lavender I bought as posti plugs a couple of years ago is a decent size with masses of flowers. 

Bridge of Sighs

Lavender and Rose (Margaret Merrill)

The 'new' rose, 'Bridge of Sighs' is blooming again. The Passiflora is covered in buds, I can't wait to see how it looks when they all open.  It seems these were a good choice to plant on the arch.

Another newcomer is the Cherry Brandy Rudbekia.   It is much more difficult to grow than its more common cousin the lovely warm yellow Rudbekia that indicate late summer/ early autumn

Rudbekia, Cherry Brandy

The usual colour for Rudbekia

They are both lovely.  The blue flowers behind the Cherry Brandy are Borage.   These self seed freely.  I dig them up like weeds because I know there are plenty more...the flowers are pretty and can be eaten or used to pretty-up summer drinks.   You can freeze them in an ice cube for party effect.  But most of all the bees just love them so that is a good reason to grow them.

The hanging baskets are better than ever right now.

There is something very opulent and summery about a good basket.   

Aphids and whitefly have infested a lot of the sweet-peas but I still have enough to enjoy a fresh posy on my dining table every couple of days.

I think July and August are all about the vegetables though.

That is if I can nurse a couple of them through an attack (probably fatal all the same) of some sort of fungus attack I presume.   If you know what it is let me know please.  Even better if you know how to prevent it.

What is doing this to my cucumbers?

Still plenty of cucumbers though on other plants.

The promising cucumber crop is going to be halved if I can't stop the disease.  I have sprayed it with an all purpose Bayer product for this kind of problem.

Cucumbers grown at home do not taste anything like shop bought cucumbers.   They are slightly citrus flavoured and tangy.  Really delicious and explain the taste of the English, last century, for cucumber sandwiches.   I always thought cucumber sandwiches were a pallid tasteless thing till I have my home grown cucumber...then it all made perfect culinary sense.

One of the plants I am delighted with is the squash.   I grew this hybrid of the butternut for the first time this year.  I think I'll get a few little butternuts from them

It was called Squash H something or other on the packet,
It's a butternut hybrid I think.

I have been harvesting a few things for a while now

Beetroot, beans, cucumber.

The beetroot is delicious as a salad.   Peel, grate it and squeeze orange juice over it, serve chilled with a garnish of parsley.   Mmmmm!

The sweetcorn is looking better and better too.  Hopefully it will swell and ripen some more providing me with a wonderful crop this year.

Soon it will be time to pick the berries.   Actually, I think I could already but they are all the better for leaving on the bushes for as long as possible.   This year one of the grapevines I grew from a cutting of my Dorset vine is really well away - grapes from it maybe next year.

Grapevine

However, the lull in the gardening season is pretty much over now.   Time to get on and plan for the colder months.   I must plant out a few seeds for late salads and some winter veg.  That means doing some homework on what is best to grow and when.   I think Kale is a good one, chard too, if I get them in this week.

Having gorged on delicious home-grown raspberries with DnA in Sweden I am keen to put in a couple of canes this autumn too.   If you have raspberries growing, August is the month to cut back the stems that fuited this season to make room for a bumper crop next year.

Now is the time to take some semi-ripe cuttings of other perennials if you want or need to.   Reminds me...I must go and help G move her mature rose bush.   They are having work done on their house and need to move the rose.   I think we will take cuttings from that, for example, just in case moving an old rose like that suffers fatal set backs...I hope and think it will not, but to be on the safe side....

G it is time to cut back your wisteria now.   Just shorten the long side shoots a bit.  Tidy it up a little. 

Fennel feeding the bees

Tomorrow, if it isn't too wet, I will dig up the last of the potatoes, pick a few more beans...what a wonderful time of year when all the planning, planting and pulling up of weeds results in a meal supplemented by your own home grown veg and fruit. 

I leave you with this thought from Joel Salatin

The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard. ~Joel Salatin, Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World