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| November sweet peas - 'Fire and Ice' |
November has started mild, for the time of year; not particularly sunny, in fact often rather drizzly and damp, but with light winds from the south and temperatures up to the mid-teens (Centigrade) during the day. I did bring out the gardening jacket one day, but generally it hasn’t been necessary. And, though the winter-flowering shrubs are already in bloom, there’s still a sprinkling of autumn flowers about, and even the sweet peas continue to bear up. There are also a few late antirrhinum flowers in their corner of the veg patch.
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| Still some antirrhinums |
Down in said veg patch, the summer beans have been harvested, the remaining pods either eaten or left to dry in the greenhouse, and the plants composted. The courgettes have been picked – although I found one overlooked fruit under the leaves; quite large if rather pale. There are a few tiny fruits still on the plants but I doubt if they will grow to a usable size. The row of carrots is gradually shortening as I pull them up for the kitchen, but otherwise it’s mostly cabbages, kale, leaf beet and lettuces (of which I now have too many – the plants that I had despaired of during the dry weather came back to life with the rain, and they and the ones sown as replacements will more than fulfil my needs). There are also a couple of decent pak choi – the first time I’ve got anything out of these, as they usually end up being eaten by the slugs.
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| A pale courgette |
There’s also a bed of leeks, but the plants, instead of being a nice upstanding crop, are flopping on the ground. At first I thought that the birds had been flattening them, but now I suspect an attack of allium leaf miner, in which case they will be unusable and will need to go to the green waste bin. Boo.
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| Flopping leeks |
Another unfortunate bit of gardening was my attempt to dig up the white-flowered buddleja seedling in the drive. I had thought that this would be easy, and I that I would be able to pot it up for planting in a more suitable location. Not so; in a single season, it had put down a thick and strong root into the soil below the gravel, and immediately what had started out as a Desirable Plant for the garden turned into a Serious Weed needing removal. It took a saw and some effort to get it up (and there's still some root in the ground, so I hope it doesn't regrow). There was actually a smaller seedling alongside it, and I managed to get that out with a few small roots attached; it has been potted up and placed in the propagator in the hope that it might recover from the shock. (But I still don't know where I would plant it!)
Fungi are still appearing in the lawn, and the ash tree stump by the drive is sprouting a splendid crop of them, quite decoratively.
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| Fungi on the ash stump |
The green woodpecker has visited several times; it has located the ants' nest in the cowslip patch and spends much time feeding on them. A blackcap is still around, enjoying a bath from time to time. And the pheasants continue to hide in our garden when the shooting starts; we had twelve of them, a mixed party of males and females, the other day.
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| A pheasant invasion! |
