Another garden

For the past month, because of my dad's illness, I haven't seen my own garden in daylight, far less the allotment.  Instead we have spent the past five weekends here on Speyside.  So I'm more familiar with the progress of autumn in my dad's garden than in my own.

These photos are from mid-October.  The warm colours and late blooms are fading now, battered by rain and wind, and by the first frost of the year last  night.

 We'll see if the holly berries make it through to Christmas.  The resident flock of sparrows is very partial to them.  Some people net their holly bushes to preserve the berries, but I wouldn't go to those lengths, and certainly not when we're not here all the time to free any birds that might get caught up in the netting.

Dad is now out of hospital, so we may be visiting the allotment this weekend to see how the weeds are faring. 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - September 2011

Not a huge amount of change in my garden since the August Bloom Day. Still, the season is moving on, and Autumn is definitely here. There was a day last week when everything that was growing seemed to shrink back slightly. The light is declining, with sunrise nearly at 7 am, and sunset by 7.30 pm. The equinox approaches.

Above, a marigold droops in the rain. Marigolds are a cottage garden favourite that I can't get enough of in Autumn. The sowing I did this year seemed to take reluctantly, and so the blooms are very sparse and all the more precious as a result. I don't know what happened to germination of my seeds this year, either in the garden or at the allotment. I'm going to read up about biodynamics over the winter, although I can't quite get my head round the preparations such a horn silica.

Below, autumn colours are beginning to appear on my blueberry bush.

Still a few fruits appearing on the woodland strawberries, and strangely the slugs don't seem to have found them.


Below, red clover which I sowed in a border as a mini patch of green manure, but which has also failed to germinate well.

Roses are making a brave second showing, although I doubt if the profusion of buds will all flower unless we get a very balmy spell now.

A bit of confusion here: a Spring-flowering polyanthus has decided to bloom, behind the seed pods of 'Love-in-a-Mist'.

A climbing fuchsia is doing well, but has a long way to go before rivalling the hedges we saw in Skye this summer.

Visit Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens to see what else is blooming this month.

Intimate view

One of the things I love most about growing things is how your vision becomes concentrated on life at ground level. That little patch of soil that you're digging or hoeing assumes an intimate topography. And it's all too easy to down tools and start taking pictures.

Since our plot is right beside the single access road in the site, and fairly near the entrance, most people pass by us on their way to their plot. I know they're saying that it's little wonder that woman still has a weedy patch to dig over and no seeds sown yet - there she is again, taking a photo of the ground, for heaven's sake, or a weed...

Looking into the heart of Spring

Two weeks early, my magnolia stellata is in bloom. Soft, velvet-covered buds one day, and then a froth of white, all of a sudden. My unscientific, highly personal yardstick for its early or late blooming is 'Turin time'. In 2006 we were in Turin from the 11th to the 18th of April. The magnolia was just coming into flower when we left, and when we returned it was over. Turin was worth missing its flowering for, but still, I remember the pang of disappointment at arriving home and realising that it would be another year before I would see my own tree in bloom. (And Turin has been much on my mind recently as I plan another, static blog about that experience. Coming shortly, probably to Wordpress.) The essence of Spring in Scotland is a counterpoint of blossom with echoes of Winter. This is the north, after all. Sunlit blooms against a background of slate-dark sky would be what I would long for if I were ever exiled to the South. And how can this be? Plum blossom, which my mental calendar places firmly in late April. Admittedly my little tree is planted against a high south-facing wall. It's an espalier that got away, going its own sweet way despite my attempts at pruning and training. I am counting the plums we might have this year. Last year we achieved three, and I am praying the gardener's prayer that frost won't smite the fragile blossom even in this precocious Spring.

Instant Spring

or 'Spring in a Box'. This little lot cost me 30 quid, but it was worth it. I NEEDED some signs of Spring, particularly around the front door to welcome us home from what are long days at work and school at the moment.

Looks like I planted them in the nick of time, because we have woken up to snow falling today. Dreary, wet snow, coming in on a raw wind. True winter seems to have been suspended since our December snowstorms. I'm hoping we don't have too much of a catch-up.

Now the green blade rises

At last. I'm not ready for it, but life is stirring again. Above, a green blade of garlic. Hopefully the cold winter has done it good. Below, the blackcurrant bushes are budding. I keep meaning to prune out some of the old wood, but the branches are so sturdy that I need the loppers and I keep forgetting to take them with me when I go to the plot.

But another weekend has gone by without any allotment gardening. Looking ahead on the calendar I can see that we don't have too much time in hand. I try to comfort myself by thinking of the Scandinavian and North American gardeners who have to wait until the snow melts each spring.


At home I'm planning a new border, a very small one, but I'm deep in catalogues and websites and lists of long-desired plants. What variety of clematis should I have? Can I fit in euphorbia, bergamot, astrantia, asters, rudbeckia...? Meantime I content myself with snowdrops. Every year they take me by surprise. One day there's nothing, and the next they're in full bloom.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day August

My favourite blooms this summer are on the courgette plants that are mingling with the more standard-issue container plants in the front garden. The patio at the back of the house isn't sunny enough, and the back garden is home to huge snails - a special mutant Edinburgh variety. But at the front, 3 pots of 'Black Forest' courgette are just prolific enough for our needs.


Continuing the edible theme at the front of the house, alpine strawberries Baron Solemacher. Everything I read about these before buying them said that they put out very few runners. Really? It has been my summer occupation to remove the runners.


Bargain nicotiana - just the sort of plant a Scot likes. A host of seedlings popped up between the paving stones in May. I didn't know what they were, but pulled some up and put them in pots. Et voila - self-seeded nicotiana from last summer.


Yes another plant that I've bought and forgotten what it's called. I am amazed by bloggers with vast gardens who remember the name of every plant they've ever bought. I think it may be Barbara Jackman. Anyone who knows their clematis care to put me right?


Another bonus plant - sweet little violas at the base of the clematis.


So pleased with these fragrant petunias. They were part of a bumper 50 plants for £14.99 offer. The slight drawback for me of these offers is that the plants are usually tiny plugs, and with no greenhouse it can be a bit touch and go to bring them on if we're having a cold spring.


An indication of the cool summer we've had. Normally this crocosmia has finished flowering at the start of August.


My bee-magnet, hyssop Black Adder.


Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for August is at May Dreams Gardens.

Vegetable tourism

A beautiful little potager, on a hillside near the village of Elizaberri, in the French Basque country. Apart from the profusion of outdoor tomatoes, what caught my eye were the upturned, bottomless mineral water bottles beside each plant, to ensure that the water goes directly to the plant's roots, and the companion planting of marigolds. We passed this plot several times, but didn't see anyone working there. If we had, I would have stopped for a gardening chat.

Below, the vegetable garden at a bed and breakfast we stayed in near the Basque village of Sare. I loved the little willow fencing dividing the different sections of the plot.

More enviable tomatoes:


Below, roses and peppers. The 'rose and vegetable/fruit' theme was a common one. In the photos of vineyards I didn't take you would have seen rose bushes at the end of the rows of vines.

It doesn't show up too clearly in this shot, but the ground surface of the whole plot was heavily mulched with grass clippings. Mulching to conserve moisture! Novel concept here this summer.


Apart from the vegetable plot, this B&B had a lovely garden. In the next two shots, the patio area where we had breakfast.



And to round off this bit of agri-tourism, a blurry shot of the traditional stone fencing in this area of France.

From my deckchair - May

A neglected blog doesn't mean a neglected allotment. At the moment I'm TBTB (Too Busy To Blog). Work is nearly all-consuming, and the bits of life it doesn't consume take up the little that's left of the day. Today, however, on a hard-working day at the allotment, I managed to relax in a deckchair for a few minutes and enjoy looking around. Above, our neighbour's well-tended plot and a line of wallflowers beside the standpipe.

Below, gigantic flowering rhubarb.


Our potatoes are through, with all but this tallest one burnt by frost. How did it escape? Perhaps far enough on to have tougher leaves.


Looking north, which is where our weather has been coming from recently. Bright, cold days and occasional frosty nights.


I've missed what's been going on in gardens and allotments of fellow bloggers. A 3 day weekend would be good, as would another 12 hours in the day.

Contrast

Unlike last week when all was dark and sodden, this Sunday was blue skies, sunshine and glowing colours. I'd resolved not to do any work at the allotment, because I'd been working all morning in the garden. With a ferocious pace at work just now I knew I needed a few hours on Sunday afternoon just to read, rather than to be in perpetual motion all weekend.

But it was impossible not to do just a little bit of tidying up. I thought the dill should come out, and then I could tackle the field beans, and before I knew it I'd been working for an hour. Just before I pulled out the dill I took this last shot of its autumn glory. After that I broke off the stems of the field beans and left the roots in the soil. Next week, if it's fair, I'll dig over that part of the plot and let the roots rot down and keep their nitrogen in the soil.

At home I finally managed to plant out the wallflowers I'd been bringing on from tiny plug plants. In the spring they'll be a fragrant lemon and orange splash of colour alongside scarlet and yellow tulips. The copper tape round the pots had successfully repelled snails and slugs, so I'll definitely use that again. I just love that extra touch of the sharp points along the bottom edge!


But oh dear, look at what I found poking through the soil.


Crocuses. In November, in Scotland. Wrong.

Doing nothing

On Sunday afternoon I took the house compost pail along to the plot, and intended to do some work while I was there. But I saw nothing that wouldn't wait another week, the sun was warm, and I was tired. I'd left husband sawing up large IKEA shelves (Ivar, for those on first name terms with the IKEA range) to make smaller IKEA shelves, daughter practising her clarsach, and son away at university in Glasgow. For a brief spell there was no obligation on me to do anything at all.

I looked out across our plot and our neighbour's, listened to the wind in the trees, and soaked up the sunlight that is beginning to slip away now. Sunrise today was 6.47 a.m., sunset will be 7.28 p.m. Almost at the equinox. It felt good just to sit, at this turning point of the year, and look.

From my deckchair I took these shots of what was around me.

Seeding dill:


Elephantine rhubarb:


The door plank splintered in the last break-in attempt on our shed:


A bee on a marigold:


And for once I felt no Calvinist guilt about doing nothing.