This weekend is all about harvesting for a later date. I picked some sloe berries a couple of Saturdays ago and have stored them in the freezer ever since – sloe gin is best made after the first frost. I picked the berries before natures first frost so I have had to go for an artificial version in the style of my fridge freezer. The gin still tastes just as good!!

I was also going to attempt to save my tomato seeds for next year. As I had already done the sunflower seeds I was feeling fairly confident about doing the tomatoes, or was, until I read up on this on the internet.  A quick check on Gardening Direct‘s website and I see that a packet of tomato seeds costs 79p and I am now wondering why on earth I am even considering the hassle of saving the tomato seeds and am going to go for the easy option.

We have had some beautiful sunshine in the Home Counties today so I was happy to have a wander into the garden, if only to hang the washing out!!

I am still amazed at the colour I have in the garden, the Sunpatiens Sunsplash White still look amazing planted next to the Rudbeckia Tiger Eye. I decided to cut down the sunflowers before they died in the garden and am now displaying these gorgeous flowers inside in a vase. Like last year I will be saving the seeds so that they can be used in next years garden.

My tomatoes are finally turning red, they may be small but I am pleased that they are finally beginning to ripen. They are in a grow house at the top of the garden but every time I walk up the garden I seem to get a mouthful of cobweb. I seem to have hundreds of spiders around at the moment, the webs are glorious in the morning but it is such a horrible feeling when you forget to duck and end up walking straight into one.

I still haven’t got round to planting the spring bulbs and these will now have to wait another week as I have more pressing matters in hand such as a quick weekend break to the south of France in search of some final blissful rays of sun before I really do declare to myself that we are now in Autumn.

In between all these rain showers I have finally managed to do some tidying up in the garden and cut the lawn. I am hoping that this might be the final cut till next year.

Every year I seem to try and fail with tomatoes and I don’t know whether to blame it on the climate or on my lack of green fingers. I did manage to produce a couple of red tomatoes but these were as tough as old boots so have ended up on the compost heap. All is not lost though as I do have a few green ones, the plan now is to start thinking about chutney recipes to go with the Christmas dinner.

Talking of Christmas dinners, I am still to unearth one final bag of potatoes so hopefully these will last until December.

And still talking of Christmas I am all set this weekend to go on my traditional sloe berry hunt and start producing some delicious Sloe Gin. Judging on the amount my family, my friends and I devoured on Christmas Eve I am definitely going to ensure that more berries are picked.

Autumn is my favourite season with all the crisp colours that are around, yet I am still pleased to see that there is still an abundance of summer colours in my garden. The purple flowers on the Wintunia are so delicate and pretty and the Begonia Glowing Embers are easing me into Autumn in a very gentle way.

The past week has felt quite Autumnal with all the rain and wind we have had. The garden is still flourishing but my lack of time in it over the past couple of weeks is starting to show. We have been eating beans, courgettes, lettuce but unfortunately the slugs have eaten the sprouting broccoli that I have only just planted out.

I have a plentiful supply of green tomatoes which I don’t think will turn red so I think in our final week of the school holidays the kids and I will make a batch of chutney. I may even have a go at cooking some fried green tomatoes!

The weather forecast for the next week is looking good so the plan is to get back out into the garden, do a spot of tidying up and then start planning the spring garden.

Sunpatiens Sunsplash White

Rudbeckia Tiger Eye

Begonia Glowing Embers

Impatiens Sweetheart Mix

Thunbergia

Courgettes

Trailing Petunia Easy Wave Mix

 Tomato

 Begonia Illumination Salmon Pink

Cosmos Sonato Mix

Last year one of the shrubs in my garden died, I have no idea what it was and can’t even remember what it looked like. Anyway, at the beginning of spring this year I managed to get it out of the ground. This was great in that it left enough room for all the foxgloves to spread their leaves, however, what I now realise is that it was actually supporting one of the small trees I have in the garden.

Don’t ask me what this tree is as I haven’t got a clue on that either, all I do know is that the trunk is not strong enough to support its branches and leaves. If I take it down or remove the branches then I leave my garden extremely exposed and overlooked and as much as I have very friendly neighbours I do like to have some privacy.

The solution to this is to stake it but at the moment this will mean trampling over a large number of flowers in order to get to it. I have tried tying it to the fence with garden twine which only works  until there is a gust of wind.

Interestingly I have just read that using a pair of old tights may help as they are soft and stretchy and much stronger than string. So it is now time to rifle through the drawers to find an old pair of said item and hope that this will help until the autumn arrives when I will be able to get to the back of the borders and stake the thing in properly.

Tony Milne, Product Development Consultant for Gardening Direct recently visited Thrive, a small national charity that uses gardening to change the lives of disabled people. 

Tony Milne writes; 

High winds and stormy clouds could not dampen the sunny atmosphere at this year’s annual Thrive Trunkwell Flower Show. 

Held at their headquarters at the Jeffrey Udall centre just outside Reading the Thrive open day appears to be a chance for those helped by Thrive to show off the results of their hard work. 

An atmosphere best described as subtle mix of Chelsea Flower show and a village fete made for a fantastic atmosphere. 

Gardening Direct donated a substantial quantity of vegetable seeds to Thrive last spring which have been distributed through the organisation and used to run a competition called ‘Bean Fest’ where participants had to find the most creative containers to grow their beans in.  

I had been asked to attend the annual open day on the 15th August act as one of the judging panel, I thought specifically for the Bean Fest competition but as it turned out I joined a panel (including Nicola Caruthers the Chief Executive of Thrive) given the pleasure of judging; the best chocolate and potato cake, the best flower arrangement in a tea cup and the best flower arrangement to represent the world cup! 

As with all judging the decisions were tough (particularly when they involve large quantities of chocolate cake) but final winners, runners up and highly commended awards were decided upon. In the chocolate cake competition I am afraid my very favourite could not be pronounced the winner because they had deviated (as it turned out with fantastic results) from the recipe so I had to settle for a ‘Highly Commended’. 

Nicola kindly took me and a number of other judges for a tour of the facilities. The original land and buildings were donated by Jeffery Udall who started the charity aimed at helping disabled and disenfranchised people through horticulture. This link with Horticulture is what makes this charity of such interest to Gardening Direct. With a range of buildings and over 120 acres plus a dedicated team of permanent staff and volunteers the site is designed to cater for the needs of an incredibly wide range of people. From ‘angry young men’ as Nicola describes their annual September intake of disenfranchised teenagers who are immediately set to work ‘digging’ for a few weeks to use up excess energy before a full educational programme is started to Alzheimer sufferers, and all forms of metal and physical disability. 

The range of activities is amazing. Activity is one thing but as we walked around the site the level of outright achievement is breathtaking. Each student is given a small raised bed in a walled courtyard at the beginning of the season and allowed to do with it as they see fit. The resulting range of mini gardens is amazing and ranges from pure vegetables to perennial herbaceous mixes and everything in between. In addition Thrive created its own garden for Chelsea this year and they are just finishing reinstalling it just outside one of the main buildings where all those using the centre can enjoy it. 

Having completed our tour I was delighted to be asked to present the prize to the winners of the Bean Fest competition. Hill View Farm made use of an old cement mixer to grow their beans in which looked fantastic and I imagine made the beans particularly easy to harvest. 

I suspect choosing the winner had been particularly difficult as some of the entries were truly creative. Notable for me was the Big Green Bean Latrine which featured an old toilet being used as a container! 

Gardening Direct are looking forward to working with Thrive in the future and wish them all the best in their work.

After days of promising, the rain storm has finally hit us here in the home counties. Unfortunately I don’t think it will help me much with the daily garden watering duties as the pots are so overflowing with flowers the rain wouldn’t have found a way in.

I spied my first tomato the other day and hope that there are many more to follow. A friend gave me some courgettes from her allotment the other day which were simply delicious and although my courgettes are very tiny I am getting too impatient and want them to be ready now. Must remember good things come to those who wait!

The flowers are of course looking spectacular. The wintunia is a stunning flower with hundreds of delicate purple flowers, the three small plug plants have completely filled the pot I put them in.

I seem to be ok at growing the flowers, however I am not sure what on earth I have done to my cauliflowers??

I am very pleased with the amount of wildlife I have visiting my garden this year. Of course I have the nuisance visitors that we all would rather not have, but despite eating my marigolds to an inch of their lives a quick relocation seems to have brought them back from the brink.

The bees have been plentiful, buzzing around the petunias and lavender is a very welcome sight.

My daughter was very impressed with our first crop of strawberries, and as usual I didn’t get a single taste.

I have just received my autumn catalogue and have enjoyed sitting in the garden mulling over the new varities and choosing what to have in the garden next spring. The new layout has made it so easy to work out what will work in my borders. The pansy mystic strawberry is definately on my list as are the snapdragon magic lanterns.