It’s been a tough month for the garden with more heatwaves arriving in what seemed to be more often than the buses. I jest we get buses once an hour most of the day here, but it seems that the heatwaves have been never ending doesn’t it?
There has been a steady stream of ripening tomatoes through the month which has been tasty, some have been an odd shape but that hasn’t detracted from their taste. I suspect the yields are lower than perhaps they might have been other years, but we’ve had plenty to keep us going, and I’ve appreciated the slow drip approach rather than having a glut.
We have tiny olives on the new olive tree in the bit pot, and we’ve even got our new garden furniture out and sat in it - it’s comfy, but thankfully we’d put it away before the big rain later in the month.
There’s some plant woes this month despite the regular watering. The alstromeria in flower below had a wobble but recovered enough after some time in a trug of water. I lost the agastache that I bought earlier in the summer, which was a shame but was one of those things.
The daisies were doing well until they weren’t, despite watering and the rhubarb has only a single stem on it now. I’m less fussed by these though as I’m hoping these will be back in earnest next year, and I know that the daisies will benefit from getting out of that pot - actually most of our plants will.
I didn’t have much joy with my salad growing either. The second batch germinated but then we were away for a few days and they looked a bit crispy on our return, and if you look at the photo above you’ll see that something had taken a liking to one half of the seed tray. Well, at least I helped out a hungry creature or two while I was trying! I’m hopeful that next year I’ll manage to get growing more consistently again, fingers crossed.
The cosmos - in pots too - have done consistently well over the summer and are still in flower today. I’ll be collecting some of their seeds as they seem happy here, and I’d be happy to have more of them - let’s hope that doesn’t come back to bite me!
My other success of the summer is this lagerstroemia, which against the odds - it looked like a dead stick much earlier in the year - has developed into this. It’s probably as surprised as I am I’m sure.
In warm summers we move this indoor plant outside as it loves the heat. And it’s really loved this summer, in the warmer weather it develops the red edging to its leaves which is just joyful, and when I looked more closely it’s also throwing up some more stems. When the weather cools I’ll give it a quick once over - and a dust - and bring it back inside to it’s more regular spot on the windowsill for the winter.
A lot of this post is about the heat, but as the month went on the heatwaves lessened and rain in the middle of the month must have felt like a milestone - as I took this picture. Now looking back it doesn’t seem that much, but it was probably the most significant rainfall we’d had in quite a while.
This second rain picture was just ten days later, and that was quite a bit more! So much more that our outside sofa had puddles on it, but it was much needed and I don’t think I’ve heard so few people moan about the rain! Though it added a new job to my list, and that was to make sure these two saucers were emptied when the rain had stopped, I could manage that though!
My garden still has plenty of gardening left for me to do, and I’m grateful that the days are now cooler so I can get out and tackle this, though clearly that’s better on dry days - and days where we have free time. The joys of gardening, hey?
