It's hard to believe that it's almost October. My garden is still looking really colourful and I'll really miss it once the frosts arrive to kill most of it off. Tony and I are giving everything a thoroughly good tidy up while the weather is decent. Soon we'll be curling up under a snuggly blanket and dreaming of Christmas.
Now that autumn is well underway I'm making some changes in the veg garden. I've planted up the Greenstalk planters that will go out into the front garden and hopefully they'll give me loads of lovely fresh veggies next spring. Garlic, leeks, onion sets and chard are planted in the front garden. Tomorrow if the weather continues to be decent I want to empty one of my back garden raised beds and sow more veggie seeds. Slugs continue to be a flaming nuisance but frogs are hopping around in the garden so hopefully they'll be munching their way through plenty of the slimey little blighters
This morning I tipped out one of my tubs of sweet potatoes to see if anything had grown. I was absolutely delighted to find this lovely little harvest. There was 745g of beautiful healthy sweet potatoes. I think that the long hot summer has helped as they're very much a heat loving vegetable
Isn't mother nature wonderful. This is my little harvest for today
We've just left Whist and we're off to our folk dancing group tonight.
We've just popped to Aldi to pick up a couple of things. I'd put a large pack of chicken drumsticks in the trolley when I spotted these. They're today's date but my intention had been to cook the big tray of drumsticks and put them in the fridge for snacking. I'll keep all the bones and the cooking juices to make a nice stock. Needless to say I put the more expensive ones back. Swedes are a really good buy as they keep for absolutely ages. The leeks and lettuce were also a good find. I've scattered a gorgeous hot spice powder all over and it'll make both the drumsticks and the stock very tasty. We've a lovely Asian supermarket not too far from us and we can buy the most delicious curry powders and spice mixes
And if gardening is your thing we're in the middle of changing things around a bit
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I've had a busy morning preserving some of my recent harvests again. There's a huge pan of pasta sauce which I'll leave overnight to develop flavour. Then I'll bag it up and freeze it. There's several big 2l jars of lacto fermented tomatoes. A jar of fermented hot sauce and a jar of fermented apples and pears. I've really had a good think about what I plan to grow next year as I have given absolutely tons of produce away. I'll grow more carrots and onions are far less tomatoes and courgettes
I really can't believe that we're two thirds into September. The weather is absolutely amazing. It's the perfect weather for gardening and that's exactly what we did today. We had a run to a local garden centre and picked up some pretty autumn bedding plants. The front garden is now awash with colour and it'll look even nicer as the plants grow and spread out. Then we moved out into the back garden and gave it a thoroughly good tidy up. We'll put more bedding plants into the big raised bed in a couple of days as it needs to settle after being topped up with compost. The pink GreenStalk was under the pergola and is heading for the front garden.
Tony and I spent last night at the beautiful Brass Castle hotel in Middlesbrough. We've stayed before and I've already booked to stay again in November. It was my friend Ann's birthday and she'd arranged to have it here as it was local for most of us.
Tony and I have spent all weekend working in the garden. I've taken out the tomato plants and the courgette plants as they were really looking untidy. Tony dismantled the big wooden tub and it's made a huge difference to the front of the house. There's another to dismantle but that will wait until all the begonia are finished.
And here's the back garden this morning while I was chopping down the courgettes. We've moved things around since I filmed this and I'll share that another as we're heading off to my friend's birthday barbecue. I can't believe it's ten years since she turned 60 and was all upset at the thought. This time around she's completely fine about about the passing of another decade.
Last night Tony and I danced our little legs off at the ceilidh and I've just heard that it's time to book the ceilidh tickets for NYE. I can't believe it's come around so soon. I think perhaps, this lovely, long summer that we're having makes me feel that New Year is a long way away. It'll be here before we blink. We've got a really busy social calendar between now and New Year's Eve and I'm absolutely determined to lose a stone before then. My friend and I have started walking as often as we can, though not every day at the moment. Suzanne works full time so isn't as available as I am. Tony has a diabetes test coming up in October so he's doing his utmost to lose a bit of weight too.
