Marrows everywhere!

After another week, the tiny courgettes we left undisturbed last Sunday have turned into monsters! But at least the autumn raspberries are the usual size, LOL

We’ve not harvested so many runner beans as usual today as the Allotment Show is in a fortnight’s time and we’re planning to enter the Longest Runner Bean comp – go us! Still, we did take a few, plus a couple of beetroots too.

The dahlias are looking amazing at the moment though sadly we’re getting to the last of the gladioli, oh well. Next year, we’ll do a later seasonal planting as well so we might get some for the Allotment Show.

The sunflowers are astonishingly tall so I’ve tied them together with string to give some support and also some flexibility. No point putting canes up as the sunflowers are stronger!

Meanwhile the sweet peas must have heard us say they were for the chop last week as they’ve rallied a little -though still definitely reaching their end.

Anyway, here is the ultimate harvest, including courgette/marrows, beetroot, runner beans, autumn raspberries, gladioli, echinacea, coreopsis, geums, and dahlias.

And here are the vases at home – the stock is definitely slowing down now as I only have 3 vases instead of 5. Autumn is on its way …

Have a great Sunday – and Bank Holiday Monday, hurrah!

Anne Brooke 

Gladioli Gold

This week, the gladioli just keep on flowering and do look stunning in vases so I’m definitely going to get more of the same next year. I’ve recently discovered the trick of snipping the last few flowers off at the top when I pick them (as they won’t come out anyway) and that definitely makes them last longer and helps the rest of the buds come into bloom too.

Talking of buds, now that the dahlias have recovered from the dreaded blackfly, I can pick a harvest of them twice a week and still have huge numbers of buds remaining, waiting to come into bloom:

Meanwhile the autumn raspberries are doing well, and we are beginning to get the beginning of a small harvest, even though it’s not ‘officially’ autumn yet – though actually there’s a change in the weather that is definitely autumnal to my mind, plus we had the first of the large autumn spiders (yuk!) in the house this week so that doesn’t look good for the rest of the spider season, oh dear me …

And the runner beans continue to do their thing in great abundance – we have now filled the freezer with them to see us over the winter, and there’s no sign of them stopping yet! Maybe we’ll try to enter the longest runner bean competition in the Allotment Show next month and see how we do, LOL!

Anyway, here are the two harvests of this week, which include courgettes, runner beans, autumn raspberries, gladioli, gaura, penstemons, sweet peas (now reaching the end of their season, alas …), crocosmia, coreopsis, dahlias, marigolds, geums and echinacea.

Here are the flowers at home in their vases:

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Runner Bean Riot

Oo-err, we can’t get to the allotment for one week and the runner beans have gone mad! This is the trug I normally get everything in but not today …

The courgettes aren’t that far behind either and definitely have marrow aspirations:

I think courgette/marrow soup is definitely on the menu for us! Mind you, the beetroot are going for it too:

That should last us the week for sure. Flowers are doing well, and the gladioli and echinacea have bounced back:

And here are the sunflowers, getting even taller!

Dahlias are doing well as well, and are still blackfly-free, hurrah!

We’ve also got some crocosmia growing, though I had thought I’d taken them all home last year – obviously not! I shall have to have another go to get them home when they’ve finished flowering this year:

Here is the harvest, which consists of gladioli, sweet peas, sweet williams, geums, dahlias, echinacea, coreopsis and marigolds.

And here is the total harvest – also including some autumn raspberries!

Whilst there today, K watered and I hoed, but there honestly aren’t too many weeds anyway, hurrah! We also did some composting using stuff from home, and took down the pea frames. I managed to get a splinter in my finger in the middle of doing that (ow! ow!) but thankfully K is a GENIUS at getting splinters out of fingers and managed to rescue me, phew. Heaven alone knows how he does it but it’s wonderful.

Here are the vases at home:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Anne Brooke Books

Sunflower season

The first sunflower is in bloom, hurrah! And it looks particularly lovely in its vase – only one flower needed, LOL (see later)!

The echinacea and gladioli are also doing well:

Meanwhile, there is quite a glut of runner beans – the gift that just keeps on giving! – and we’ve frozen loads of them now for later in the year. Plus we have to keep harvesting the courgettes before they make it to the dizzy height of marrows, and the beetroot are getting super-sized. Must be the glorious weather!

We’ve also filled up one of our allotment composting bins – mainly from flowers I’ve deadheaded and/or pruned in the garden at home – and are now fixing our sights on the 2nd bin we have there. Monty Don will be so proud of us!

Here are this week’s two harvests, including runner beans, courgettes, beetroot, sweet peas, sweet williams, geums, coreopsis, echinacea, dahlias, gladioli and that sunflower:

Here they are in the vases at home:

Have a great weekend!

Anne Brooke Books