Announcing a newcomer....

...to Molokoloko Garden....

A garden isn't meant to be useful. It's for joy. Rumer Godden

(How true!  But even better if it is useful too, in my opinion)

A new bench, huge surprise birthday gift.
Thank you G & D xxx

Old Bench, bought some 10 to 12 years ago I purchased from Wilkinsons, an everything-is-cheap store.  Nothing wrong with that.   I loved Old Bench.   I oiled her lovingly every spring and autumn.  And after some years I painted her a different shade every spring...but I have to admit Old Bench is really getting so old that she might just let me down when I sit on her these days.

Leah on Old Bench earlier this year.

  I will be sad to see Old Bench go, but as D has said he wants her to make some shabby-chic picture frames I think her life will be extended a little longer as a recycled objet d'art.    New Bench need a couple of bright cushions, some Teak Oil and a cover for winter then she will last as long as beloved Old Bench, I'm sure.

I haven't been able to be in the garden much last week.   Frustrating doesn't even begin to describe how I've felt while the autumn days have been bathed in sunshine.   Birds visit the feeder every day, lovely to see a regular little Blue Tit and a Robin too.   I have been stuck inside sewing little flower-girl dresses for a friend's wedding.  At least they are flower-girl dresses and have a print of ditsy flowers all over the underskirt.   That is as close to garden as they are.  They are all but finished now so I shall make up for lost time in the garden this week.  It is satisfying to sew dresses - but a bother when it gets in the way of sowing seeds!  Oh well, the garden is forgiving and the girls will look garden-sweet in their new dresses.

Passiflora

As far as the garden went this week I got no further than harvesting and eating more delicious tomatoes.   Watering the plants, because there has been almost no rain.  And every morning and afternoon having a few minutes with a cup of tea out there admiring some of the late bloomers.   Particularly the Passiflora that continues to be better and better, dripping with purple passion flowers.

The Asters are all in full bloom too.   They can be a bit rampant, both in height and spread.  These are taller, much taller, than me and I find I do have to thin out their roots vigorously every year.   But the bees absolutely love them.  They make a wonderful early autumn source of bee-food and a good show too of starry white flowers.

The salads growing in the greenhouse are flourishing.   I will soon be able to crop some of the Oriental Spicy salad leaves to add to my lunchtime salads.   The winter lettuce are coming on strongly too.

Oriental Mix of Spicy Salad Leaves

Winter Lettuce

I think it would be sensible to plant another crop of the Oriental Spicy leaves.   The trouble is I tidied up my kitchen and where I have put those seeds...well, it beats me.   I think they have joined the countless other bits and pieces in 'The Black Hole'.  I hope they turn up sooner rather than later.

A & J gave me a fabulous book for my birthday.

Just what I need!  Thank you. xx

My veg growing is very hit and miss.   The slugs get a lot.  The slugs are still sliding round my garden devouring anything they can.   They have had every single courgette before me and I even found quite a mature butternut had been half eaten by the rapacious brutes.   Hopefully, armed with this book I will find a few hints and tips to help me have better vegetables and perhaps even a bit on how to control the slugs.   I suppose I could resort to squashing them with the book, it is quite fat and heavy, though I wouldn't want to spoil it with their slime.

Spiders are having a hey-day in the garden.  They are quite harmless, in fact they probably do good in the garden.  These are fat little stripy ones whose worst point is that they artistically sling their dainty, gossamer webs across my greenhouse doorway, and other garden thoroughfares, so I am always having to delicately rearrange their handiwork to allow myself access without ruining their abode completely.

So now OCTOBER approaches...and I am still cutting big jugfulls of sweet-peas every 2 - 3 days,  wonderful, never had such a long season of them.  Believe it or not it is time to think of a few jobs that should be done in the garden this month.   Here is a list of  some I hope to do.

Sweet-peas from my garden

Plant spring bulbs now for the best displays next year. The general rule is to set them at 3 times their own depth below the surface, I think.

Plant fruit October offers the perfect conditions for establishing new fruit in my garden.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home.
Leah found her in the garden, we put her back there too.

Divide overgrown perennial plants. If they are looking over-crowded it's time to thin the display.  I do this by lifting plants with as much root as possible then use two forks, back to back to split the rootball in to two or three smaller pieces.

Plant roses.  Conditions are perfect for adding the colour and scent of roses to my garden.

Mulch beds and borders Adding a 5-10cm layer of organic material – compost.

Protect exotics for winter.  I've placed houseplants, mostly my increasing Pelagonium collection, outside this summer, now is the time to bring them indoors to keep them from the cold.

Now, forwards into the new week.   The weather looks good, there is much to do.   Let me leave you with this rather lovely thought about a bench by

Mary Rose O'Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

“There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia.”

That's all for now folks.   Chat to you again next week.

More than half way...

...through September and the sun is still shining!

Passiflora

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

[Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]”

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks 

What a finale to a glorious summer.  This weather is unbelievable.   Also wonderful.  As was the compliment from my neighbour this evening when he saw me over our mutual fence and remarked how he had told his parents how pretty and colourful my garden is/was this summer.   A sincere compliment, much appreciated.   He's not wrong, the garden has surpassed itself this summer.   This doesn't mean it can't be improved.   I am so glad my neighbours enjoy it too.   Afterall they have to view it almost as much as I do.

Let's see, what has happened since I last tapped garden news?   The salad leaves have really grown.  The winter lettuce has germinated already.

Salad leaves

 The salad leaves are a mixed oriental variety  and the lettuce is a special winter gem lettuce.

Lettuce germination

Winter seems very far away because of the wonderful sunshine we have had since the beginning of September.

It has been so warm that the Mandevilla in the greenhouse has really grown.   The scent is so musky and tropical every time it gets a bit of water.  Very reminiscent of rain forest scents.

Mandevilla

I will bring it inside the main house once the weather turns.  All the sunshine is encouraging harvests nearly everyday.   This was my harvesting today.

Butternut, Sweetcorn and tomatoes

I am not growing enough edibles to support myself but there are plenty to supplement meals.   The tomatoes are sooo tasty.   I think it really works to water them from the base of the roots not the top of the roots.   I did this by inserting an old cut-off milk bottle funnel into the grow-bag so the water was channeled deep down not on the surface.  Butternut are tasty too...I've already eaten a couple of them.   I'll let you know about the sweet-corn.   Usually the less time and distance between harvest and plate the better the taste of the produce.

The Sweet-peas are still spectacular.   They have flowered non-stop since July.   I have had Sweet-peas perfuming and adorning my dining table pretty well every week, if not every day, since they started to bloom.

Sweet-peas

Let's not let the sun fool us though.  Autumn winds and rains will come.  It is also time to plan ahead. Order bulbs for spring.  Tidy up for winter as things stop producing.   Plant now for spring and, if possible, a bit of winter colour.  I have 9 little cyclamen waiting in the wings to be planted up outside. These will probably last through autumn and most of winter if the position has enough shelter.   Then they re-appear again next autumn.  

I haven't been able to get in the garden as much as I'd like this week due to other duties...children, flower-girl dress orders to fulfill and article deadline to meet....

Hopefully, over the weekend, there will be an opportunity to get some dirt beneath my fingernails.

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.”

― Luther Burbank

Chat to you again soon...now I am off to find my recipe for crab-apple and cranberry chutney...I should be able  to make at least 3 batches this year...the garden is not the only place that is fruitful at the moment!

Shine on...

...September Sunshine...

Still and sunny this afternoon.

This week has been saturated with sunshine.   So far September has outdone August in spades when it comes to warmth and sunshine.  The days are shorter.   Nights can be cooler, but certainly, the sun has shone much of the time.  Red Admirals are enjoying the late blooms on the buddleia and the rudbekia.   In fact there has been so much sunshine that some of the butternut I thought I'd be lucky to see swell and ripen have done just that.

The salad leaves I planted last week have germinated in record time because of the warmth.

Salad has germinated.

The net over the top is to stop next-door cat using the salad box as a litter tray.

This afternoon I gave the meadow another trim.   In the non-growing months (autumn and winter) I want to treat it as I would a lawn. The reason being I need it short for dogs and children.   As far as I know there is no extra benefit to gain by not trimming it occasionally during these months.

This time of year is ideal for planning some of those construction jobs that should be done over autumn and winter ideally.  I think I'd like to put in a path entirely round the meadow to delineate it from the rest of the garden.   This would add structure and rhythm, I think.   Do you, or anyone you know, have any old bricks?   They would be ideal as path edging ...I know, I'm scrounging again.

The other areas I want to work on are at the far end of the garden...

Here by The Mound and the Sheds

This area needs quite a lot doing to it.  The 'artistic' pile of rubble and rocks is less artistic than it was. However, it is very much enjoyed by the children who spend hours unearthing the bugs and beetles it conceals.   L tells me that the snails are all girls, all princesses in beautiful dresses going to parties.  I fail to appreciate her view of snails...even princess snails have healthy appetites.

Aside from the 'look' of this corner, it also needs something to shelter the greenhouse from the winter gales that whistle down that fence in the background.  Something tough.   Maybe another buddleia or two, they are tough and easy to grow.   I wonder if they would act sufficiently as a wind break?

Opposite this area is another area on the other side of the sheds.

A dumping ground and working area for potting, compost and so on.

Both these areas are quite sheltered, except when we have a storm, then nothing is sheltered.  They are certainly more sheltered and more pleasant, at certain times, for relaxed seating than my patio, which continues to catch the wind and too much sun some days.  So this is the area I need to develop as somewhere pleasant to sit with a cup of tea....watch the children with their princess snails....

My front garden continues to need work on it too.   I have plans to re-pot some hostas that came with me from Dorset.   They are decimated by snails (princess, and the common variety) as well as slugs.  I will re-pot them into compost soaked with nematodes I think.   Then move them to the front garden where it is very shady...and where it is easier to control the slimy-army.

Talking of snails...and slugs...

This morning Pippa Greenwood of Gardeners Questions on Radio 4 was discussing how best to control them.   She uses nematodes, also copper tape and the old beer trick.  The copper tape is only effective if you keep the pots or whatever containers you are using, scrupulously free of bits of compost and so on.  The beer is the cheapest.  Sink some containers into your garden, old plastic beakers are ideal with a couple of centimetres lip protruding above ground.   Slosh a bit of beer in, about half fill.  Don't cheat...they don't like non-alcoholic beer, they like a nice dark ale...the slugs and snails all go to your bar and literally drown in it.  I like to think it is a kind way to kill them.

The worst slug we have is the Spanish Slug.   The cold winters here do kill them but last winter was not cold in spite of it being one of the worst, I can remember, for rain and wind.  These slugs eat anything and everything.   They breed so fast, much faster than our native species, that they are a real pest.

The sunshine has brought out late roses too.  My Geraldine Rose just goes on giving.

Been in bloom since June.

This one is a very fragrant, robust climber.   I do have to cut it back regularly it is so rampant.   It repays the brutal treatment by blooming even longer and harder.

The smaller climber, Generous Gardener, I planted last autumn, as a bare-root plant, is also blooming again.   Although not as rampant as The Geraldine it is still a good long flowering and fragrant rose.   It looks lovely as a cut rose.

Generous Gardener.

The apricot yellow climber I planted in summer against the arch has not stopped blooming.   It, too, is fragrant.  There is no point having a rose that doesn't have fragrance.   Margaret Merrill is a white rose on my patio, she has done just as well this summer, repeat blossoms and still has buds to open if the sunshine holds.  The roses I grow for hips, Rosa Rugosa and the Dog Roses all have wonderful red hips this year.  Rosa Rugosa is still flowering.   The secret is to feed them.   Roses are very greedy.  That is my opinion based on my experience.   They are tough but they do like regular food!  Don't we all?

Talking of food...let's not forget the vegetables.  They have been good.  I found another cucumber this week, one I hadn't noticed before.   The tomatoes have supplied me all week for salads.  The butternuts, as I mentioned, have surpassed all expectations.   The sweetcorn is almost ready to harvest.  Oh, and I discovered some very late red currants this week...or rather Jonah spotted them with his eagle foraging eyes.

Reds and golds are the colours of the month so far.

Some of my poppies have another flush of blooms

Quite a few of  the poppies are having a second flush of blooms.   I think this is because I cut back the seed pods.   Dead heading your flowers definitely encourages many of them to keep on producing colour and blooms late into the year if the weather is good.  I have learnt that by cutting back spent Marguerites they will re-sprout and continue to give more new blossoms.   I had not realised that they responded well to being dead-headed (cut back).   I wish I had known before I would have prolonged their flowering time in the meadow.  Next year I will do this.

Dahlias have been good this year.

A cerise pink simple dahlia

This dahlia is blooming among the lime green zinnias which add a wonderful zing of colour to the pink.

I thinks that is about all the news from Molokoloko Garden this week.   I will leave you with this apt quote from an anonymous source.   I think, at this time of year, it sums up how it is in September.

Summer is kind of like the ultimate one-night stand: hot as hell, totally thrilling, and gone before you know it.