Reflections

July and August are such great months for the garden(er). The results of all the hard work back in spring are on display and it is time to sit back and take it all in.
It is also the moment to evaluate the effect of all combinations and see what is worth repeating and what could be improved on next year.
The dahlias once again are a big success and keep on producing wonderful flowers.

Unfortunately most of the sunflowers got eaten by slugs (grrr) and they did not manage to shine like they did last year. And once again I completely misjudged the amount of space certain plants need. My tomato jungle is joined by a pattison forrest which does not seem to stop growing and the undergardener is only just about tolerating them creeping over the border-grass boundary.

And I vaguely remember planting phlox, picked up at a plant swap earlier this year, somewhere in the garden this spring. I gave up on it, thinking it also fell victim to the slugs. But to my great surprise it stuck its head up through the crop canopy, right next to the tiny apple tree which is also swamped by the tomatoes.

Next year we definitely have to change something about the way we grow the runner beans. The garden fence is a handy help for them to climb onto, but perhaps it is just a little too adventurous and not very practical to get a ladder to pick the beans from the neighbour’s tree.

Winter makeover

Last week it was unseasonably warm around here. While I was getting ready for my winter wardrobe, the temperature swung back round to 20 degrees. Together with some rain this proved perfect conditions for the dahlias. The plants look a but scruffy because of the wind and rain, but the colours really stand out amidst the yellow and brown leaves of the trees.

The warm spell makes me hesitant to give the garden its final winter makeover, there is still so much green and because I mainly planted annuals it will look pretty bare once I am done. But one frosty night, and it can’t be that long, will turn it all to mush. So I got out my little red trowel and went to work. Who would have thought the dwarf sunflowers grew such big root systems?

Some of the late veggies are still happily going and growing. The beetroots are the size of big marbles, not sure if they will survive the winter, so perhaps we’d better eat them soon as some novelty veg. Sadly, the parsnips were rubbish (again) and I pulled them all out of the ground. Even with protective ground covers the cabbage root flies managed to wiggle their eggs in. You could almost hear the larvae munching away. And talking about munching, by the time the cavolo nero will have ended up on our plates, I will have checked every leaf a few dozen times, they were irresistible for the Cabbage whites.

Just after writing the first draft of this post, the big storm also hit our garden and snapped all the dahlias. Now I just need a dry day to lift the tubers from the ground and store them for the winter. I guess that’s also part of wanting to be a gardener, saying goodbye to your plants for the winter to come.

to weed or not to weed

While I “designed” a planting scheme for the back garden at the beginning of the season, I let the garden at the front of the house run free. With two dahlia bulbs and some zinia seeds planted all the help was welcome, weed or not. Anything that looked pretty or potentially produced flowers was allowed to flourish. One of the results of this experiment was that I had to pull out a lot of highly poisonous, black nightshade. Beginners mistake, will recognise them by their smell next time!

Warned by my accident with the nightshade, I decided to find out about the names (and toxicity) of the other weeds. The euphorbia that was growing in large quantities and I thought looked rather pretty with its lime green leaves, remarkably resembled euphorbia helioscopia, a highly toxic variety.  So far I have failed to identify the exact specie, but I won’t put them in a mixed salad.

Something I was planning on using were the flowers of the “chamomile” plants. However, there is still much to learn on the weed front. Not all white flowers with yellow hearts are chamomile, and you wouldn’t want to be making tea from feverfew flowers.

Luckily there were also some relatively harmless accidents that happened out there. Out of nowhere ridiculous looking peony poppies shot up. And there were a lot of them. I keep checking for the seedpods to go brown so I can collect the seeds and sow them again next year, they just looked so funky.

And after a long cold spring, the two dahlias that I planted in the front garden finally put their heads above ground. They are still making up for lost time and although they do not have a lot of foliage, they do deliver on flowers.