Windy, is what it is. Yesterday afternoon my big sister got cut off FB messenger by a power cut, she's in NE Scotland under a red warning for wind. I don't like wind.Six things in the garden right now only interests me if I can see it from indoors. Most of these are from yesterday…
Six on Saturday – 20/11/2021
There was a time I might have played "Late November" half a dozen times back to back; that's Sandy Denny for you youngsters. 1971, on vinyl, which I still have. Where the hell did that go! The time, not the record. Her song, "Who knows where the time goes?" is even older, 1969. Unhalfbricking, great…
Soil, the never-ending no-dig, no compost, green manure experiment. 14/11/2021
I have been an adherent of a no-dig philosophy on my allotment for around six years now and have written the occasional piece about my experiences. I’ve also written several other pieces that are still in the drafts folder on WordPress, if they even made it that far. Much of the time it all feels…
Continue reading ➞ Soil, the never-ending no-dig, no compost, green manure experiment. 14/11/2021
Six on Saturday – 13/11/2021
I don't seem to be spending much time in the garden at the moment, I'm very much in a phase of planning changes then making the excuse that I want to think about it before committing. I have pages of notes, a lot of them contradictory, where I've changed my mind, or duplicated, where I've…
Six on Saturday – 6/11/2021
Deeper into autumn and it's getting trickier. Camellia sasanqua is just starting, so that helps. We've yet to have a frost, which is just as well since there's a lot of stuff still outside that shouldn't be. I was admiring someone's toasted Impatiens yesterday, just a couple of miles away but at lower altitude, so…
Six on Saturday – 30/10/2021
The rain gauge yesterday morning had accumulated 52.5mm in the prior 24hrs and it was a very soggy garden that I wandered round, looking for survivors to include here. There was more than I expected; the usual mix at this time of year of late performers and earlier performers just hanging in with a last…
Six on Saturday – 23/10/2021
The rain and wind on Wednesday night laid to rest any lingering thoughts of summer. I was out in it on Wednesday evening and it was truly vile. By Thursday morning the rain had blown through but the roads were strewn with leaves and twigs. The garden looked like it had taken something of a…
Begonias in the garden – 3
I have written two earlier posts about Begonias in the garden. I'm not referring to the usual bedding types, rather to a range of mainly fairly recently introduced new species that are on the border of hardiness as well as some that would usually be grown as house plants. My collection continues to grow and…
Six on Saturday – 16/10/2021
There is still plenty of flower in the garden, a pretty good week weather wise has even produced a bit of an improvement on my Dahlias, with Salvias, Fuchsias, Plectranthus and Begonias still going strong. I've been getting stuck into autumn jobs, essentially moving things around, getting things in for winter and chopping things down.…
Six on Saturday – 9/10/2021
Cornwall Hardy Plant Society had Fergus Garrett as their speaker on Wednesday and three days later my head is still buzzing. He talked fast and he packed in so much content, all about what he calls layering, the business of building communities of plants growing together such that a piece of ground has something interesting…








