September already

Our last two Monday session were rained off, but eventually we managed to find a dry(ish) evening later in the week when we could catch up in the garden. The main job was cutting the grass edges and then general tidying.

The rain has encouraged our annual rocket seeds to germinate - in abundance!

Rocket seeds germinate quickly in the right conditions.

We also have some wild rocket in the garden. It is a perennial which we don't remember planting, but it is a tasty addition to salads, and very hardy.

Wild rocket

The Broad Ripple Yellow Currant tomatoes, which come up every year with no help at all from us, are ripening now. Tiny, but very tasty.

These plants will go on producing little tomatoes until the frost comes.

Late summer tasks

We have planted out some chicory (radicchio) seedlings.Their green outer leaves can taste bitter, but we hope they will heart up over the winter to provid succulent red and white inner  leaves for salads.

Tiny chicory seedlings.

 Dead heading flowering plants is always worth doing, to promote more flowering and to keep the garden looking tidy.

Dead heading can be quite a relaxing activity.

Salad burnet is a useful winter salad herb, as it is perennial and very hardy, almost evergreen. The young leaves have a cucumber taste, and look very attractive, as do the clusters of tiny red flowers.

Salad burnet (sanguisorba minor)

Summer days

Things seem to be rather quiet in the garden at the moment.  Runner and French beans are maturing and being harvested.  Grass edges have been neatly trimmed. Watering is still a big concern.

All hands to the tap!

The sunflowers are looking their best now.

Bees love sunflowers

Borage is a herb that self seeds so readily that we can have two crops in the same summer. Young leaves can be added to salads, where the flowers also look wonderful.  Borage is said to be the herb that was given to young Roman soldiers, for courage and comfort.  Gerard's Herbal (1597) states that the flowers "drive away sorrow, and increase the joy of the minde."

Borage - herb of courage.

After the rain - new growth.

No watering needed this week, thank goodness!
We were pleasantly surprised to see that our broad bean plants, which were almost dead after drought and black fly, are producing new growth, and maybe we'll get some beans after all.

Broad beans with a new lease of life

The flowers of runner beans "Celebration" and "Saint George" are looking very attractive at the moment.

Flowers look good, and beans will taste equally good.

It's time to pull out the old dry growth of plants like land cress which have dropped their seeds by now.
These seeds will germinate to give us salads in autumn through till next spring.

Self-seeding salad crops make life easy for us.

Watering is still our main job

We arrived at the garden this week just after a heavy shower, but we spent most of our efforts on watering once again. Happily, the padlock which allows access to the water tap is now easy to manage, after the generous application of WD40!

Looking around the garden this week, we noted that....

Sweetcorn is doing well

Courgettes do not hang around for long before being picked

Similarly, all the globe artickokes have been harvested.

The lemon balm is now in full flower.  A delicious tea can be made from the leaves of this plant, but the flowers are also very important for bees. Its binomial name, Melissa officinalis, comes from the greek word for honey bee, and it is a good source of nectar, blooming for 45 - 60 days, and continuously producing nectar throughout the day.

Lemon balm is a tough herb which seeds around easily

More rain needed!

Although we have had some rain recently, it has not been enough to soak into the ground, and we are still having to water beans, tomatoes, courgettes, etc.

Our self-seeded sunflowers are coming into their own now.

Sunflowers always make a good display.

 
Jerusalem artichokes, a relative of the sunflower, are  putting on some height too.

Jerusalem artichokes to the left of sunflowers

The Good King Henry is flowering. This is an ancient herb, the young shoots of which are said to taste like asparagus.  The leaves are a spinach substitute, and the flower buds can be eaten like broccoli. However, the plant can taste bitter, and the leaves apparently benefit from being soaked in salt water before cooking.

Good king Henry in front of marigolds.

Our creeping thyme has been covered in flowers, to the delight of bees and butterflies. This is not the usual thyme for culinary use, but it is still quite acceptable as a seasoning herb.

Creeping thyme at its best.

Promise of Harvest

Our dwarf beans (Purple Tepee) are flowering well now, and the climbing beans are also looking good.

Dwarf beans with pretty purple flowers

Climbing beans doing just that, among the marigolds.

Loganberries are beginning to turn colour and will soon be ripe. They are in a fairly shady position here, but they can cope with that.

Thornless loganberries doing well against a wall

The large shiny black seeds of Sweet Cicely are quite noticable. They will germinate readily all around the base of the plant, even in grass.

Sweet Cicely seeds