“Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul... but I must confess that I love you only because you are a prelude to my beloved October.” ― Peggy Toney Horton
Tomorrow is Michaelmas Day. It was traditionally the day that a new year started. Once the harvest was in, bills could be paid and kids could return to school. Well we have certainly been bringing our veg harvest in. And it’s been lovely sunny weather to do it in. Most of the summer veg has finished now and the plants pulled up. We have pulled up the last of our beetroot and that only leaves our summer crops of chillies and lettuce. Garlic cloves and red onions have been planted this week to fill the gaps and to go with all the cabbage-like winter veg.
The sunflowers that have finished have been cut down now and other plants pulled up. We’ve left some sunflower heads out for the birds to feed on and are storing more to keep them fed over the winter. And others we have kept ready for next year’s sowing. So expect hundreds of sunflowers in 2019 as each head seems to have lots of seeds.
As we remove finished plants from around the garden, there are gaps. So this week we have planted snowdrops and winter pansies to fill them in. I’m looking forward to seeing these grow and keep our garden interesting during the winter. We have brought in a few plants from the yard that have been grown from cuttings too. And our willow tree has been repotted into a much bigger container so we hope it will have a happy winter.
We have another group of fungi in the garden. This time they have gathered at the right hand side. And they are a cluster of small ones. Anyone any idea what they are called? They don’t look edible, but I think they are very pretty.
We had a homeless person camping in the garden for a few days last week. Constantine put his small purple tent up in the WI corner, where it co-ordinated with the containers and was quite sunny. He said he really liked our garden.
Well I’ve finally given up waiting for all the tomatoes to ripen. I’ve been picking some each week. Leaving them to ripen on my window ledge indoors. And this worked well for a while. But now I’ve stripped off all the green tomatoes from the garden and yard. Its chutney time!
The Blooming Old Gardener