ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
The sky out the front window is black, it's raining, and the sun is shining brightly. Out the back the sky is blue. It's been that sort of day. The garden is beginning the long slide into autumn; pretty much all the gardening that can be done has been done but it's way to early…
A monthly video ought not be too onerous, and probably wouldn't be if I was more familiar with what is involved. Here is a mere nine and a half minutes of me doing a quick circuit and stopping off at the odd interesting plant. The footage dates from 17-19 August 2023. I am already planning…
Yet again, it's blowing a hoolie and chucking it down, at the end of a week when a couple of dry days were something to be very grateful for. I'm far from being on top of the mess that is my allotment, but it's better than it was. The garden has also had an early…
I seem to recall that the RHS say summer pruning should be in the third week of August and all laterals cut back to one leaf above the basal cluster. My experience is that if I prune at that time, the terminal bud, and sometimes the one behind it, will break and make an inch…
I just came back from my allotment where I noticed that a couple of my tomatoes have botrytis in the main stems, cutting off the top of the plants altogether. It's turned into that sort of summer. I was hoping to collect seed from my peas for next year but they rotted, I will likely…
Storm Antoni will be lashing the South West right through Saturday, just what we need. Remember back in June, when we getting desperate for rain? Rarely has the warning "be careful what you wish for" been so apposite. Grotty weather has made gardening all but impossible for quite a bit of this week, so I've…
Sometimes things come together nicely. Last week one of my sisters paid me a visit and I told her about my nightly torchlit forays to hunt for slugs and weevils. A couple of days later an Amazon parcel arrived, containing an LED head torch. I often look at plants for sale online. I had been…
Nearly another month down and with plenty of moisture the garden is slipping into its overblown stage where the paths become impassable and it doesn't seem sensible to try and keep any of it especially neat. Suits me fine. Not having to spend two or three hours a day watering has also added to my…
We had another two NGS open days this weekend just gone. Saturday was a dismal affair, it rained all day and only two people came. Sunday was very different, with a good turnout and fair weather. It hasn't been an easy season to get a garden looking good; too dry in the lead up to…
Oh dear, my short-list for this six is 13 items long. The garden has got its second wind, especially after a couple of weeks of cooler, wetter weather. We're open again this weekend, though the forecast for Saturday is pretty terrible so we're not expecting many people to turn up. I'm not much bothered, in…
garden ruminations 