Adventures in a small garden - September 2021

Things are progressing nicely in our little space, watched over by our garden guardian!

The Brassicas are all doing well despite the onslort of cabbage whites. Fortunately I had the help of a 4 year old and sometime catcher of butterflies Sesame the Cat. All the winter greens are doing well, we now have a regular supply of spinage, mixed salad leaves, corriander and rocket. The parsley is small but we may get some before the frosts set in. The salad burnett, chard, calendula and land cress have all germinated and im hoping these will get themselves established before the frosts in order to survive the winter....We had an amazing pumpkin harvest and are STILL getting courgettes!

Me to my daughter 'well the freezer is pretty full now, we have a good stock for through the winter'

Daugher ' Yes, But is it mainly courgettes???'

The current season wild flowers have been amazing although the wild flower seed I put down in september has unfortunately germinated due to those hot sunny days we had through the month so it looks like we will loose those and ill have to sow more in the spring but of course this years will self seed also. All the herbs I put in are going well and i will be cutting some of them back soon for winter drying.

I always love to see what pops up in a new garden and we have had quite a bit considering the poor state of the soil, native plants that are now in the garden are plaintain, chickweed (also going in salads!) dandelion, daisy, yarrow, cleavers, clover, wild strawberries, woundwort and a big patch of Smooth Sow-thistle which I let grow in the side where the soil was particularly poor, I intended to cut the flower heads off before they went to seed but got so much please from being consumed in big white clouds of fluffy seed heads when they became airborne i couldnt bear to cut them off...I will probably regret that come Spring.

We have also had cultivated plants pop up in the garden also in the form of a beautiful red snap dragon, strawberries, oxytalis and amaranthus.

I am just finishing a final bed which i will put garlic in and some seedling of spring cabbage which i am hoping survive but those poor babies also took a battering from the cabbage whites. It maybe that I need to move the growing beds to the other side of the garden as it gets more sun than the side they are currently on. Ive also put in some blackberry and tayberry around the edges, these will grow up the fence, the passion flower has already covered the back fence well and decided to grow down the washing line!

Other projects include repurpusing an old floristry plinth into a bird feeder and perhaps making a hedgehog house as i had the pleasure of seeing one snuffling around the garden late one night. We need a waterbutt and more observation on water drainage onsite as it seems a bit problematic, mostly for man made reasons. I removed the tomatos, which we had a suprisingly

good harvest from and I have put in a sandpit area for my son as he loves digging, we will also be planning some more areas for child centred play.