The Sneaky Magpie

We had a surprisingly nice sunny weekend and I enjoyed looking at two of the red dahlias. I have been moaning for weeks now that the few so far are yellow and not that exciting, having grown these from seeds it was a pot luck but I am very pleased with them, the tubers are going to be kept safely for next year. I have waited long enough, I mean, to flower in October is surely pushing your flower luck with the frost and all?

If the dahlias are late some of the ranunculus are extremely early, I planted about 60 bulbs all over the front and back garden as well as in pots and not only are the pots in my greenhouse getting green shoots, some of the outdoor ones also came up. I do hope it won’t turn into a major disaster with nothing in spring again and lots of frozen Persian roses round Christmas time!

The garden is slowly coming to an end, something I have to correct next year with a selection of autumn flowers and winter berries. There are still some tomatoes and an odd Swiss chard but everything else is going yellow.

I have a couple of projects so the winter will be exciting, there are two areas to be cleared of shrubs and weeds, one will become an extension of a flower bed, the other one in the far left corner  (barely visible) will be paved, covered with trellis and plants to give us some privacy, we would love it to be a sitting area of some sort.

Warning, the gardening geekery bit! The vegetable beds to the left are getting a nourishing treatment, we are trying to improve the spoil which had a lot of weed killer and bleach poured over it before we bought the house. We did a whole lot of digging, chucked a tonne of horse manure at it, dug some more, sowed green manures, dug again and it feels much better and fluffier now. The summers green manures were mustard, phacyllia, clover and buckwheat, and the winter manures are Hungarian rye and field beans. We also had some potatoes to break up the soil and dig for us. Apart from looking good and improving soil the manures suppress weeds and attract wildlife, all the happy bugs helped us with pests like aphids in return.

The apple tree is in full blossom at last and lots of plants started to grow like crazy with all the rain we are experiencing. Now can we have some sunshine please to get the bees going? Broad beans are really big and radishes and peas are catching up fast. I have plenty of strawberries too, the Alpine strawberry plant I bought last year created 13 new plants, hopefully this hanging variety will do the same. Lots more to sow.

A resident robin, the boldest bird in the street.

Chocolate and banana bread in a shape of muffins by Joy the Baker for A Cup of Jo.

A new obsession – green manures. Ours is a mix of buckwheat, clover, phacelia and mustard. The plants are meant to improve structure of the soil, nitrogen content and attract wildlife. They also look beautiful, a small meadow in my garden. We have really bad soil and struggled with veg last year so apart from this we are also growing potatoes to do some digging and will sow Hungarian rye everywhere over winter. After few months you just dig it and it will work its magic. The prep is hard because we had to weed a lot but the results will be worth it.