It’s high time for a garden update, so I’ll start by back tracking to last month, October.

I can hardly believe I last posted in September, but I guess things have been unsettled and I’ve been a bit distracted. I really notice the effect it’s had on the garden, as the weeds have really taken a stronghold since the end of summer.

As I shared in my September video update I said goodbye to my lovely feline supervisor, Elvie (seen below in one of his favourite garden spots), at the end of August. We did temporarily have a new tabby supervisor, called Caspian, who makes an appearance in the October video, but unfortunately that didn’t work out (see here for details).

Mr Elvie was a great gardening companion and his presence in the garden is missed. I made him a fitting floral tribute, see below, which I see it from the kitchen window, so he’s well remembered. Baby, the ‘kitten’ (she’s over one year old now, but still a kitten to me) is also a keen garden helper, but her style is more hands on and usually consists of ‘helping’ me weed by attacking my hands as they move.

 

Anyway, back to the garden. October brought some misty evenings. I loved watching them roll in.

 

The first proper frost came on 12th October. The garden was still blooming and  the frost gave the flowers an eerily magical appearance.

 

The frost makes everything look magical, like these Alchimella Mollis leaves.

 

 

The frost finished off the tomatoes in the tunnel, so I harvested them, even though some were still rather green, but they ripened up nicely inside and I’ve just about finished them off now, at the end of November, and they’ve been very tasty.

I mulched one of beds outside with well rotted horse manure and then put straw on top. The peas had finished cropping and my mixed seed sowings of salads had all succumed to slugs, so it was a good time to tuck the bed up for winter.

 

I also got busy mulching beds in the tunnel, using the rotted mushroom compost that I heaped beside it. I also topped these with straw.

 

As the video shows, there were still a lot of flowers in the tunnel in October, which was really pleasing and gave me some cheery blooms for the house. I especially appreciated these cosmos (today, 28th Nov, the still had one plucky unfrosted bloom on them).

The tunnel was still a bit chaotic, but a diverse mix of veg and flowers (even though the cabbages and kale still have this notion of favouring the paths to the beds I’d like them to grow in, same with celery, as seen in this photo (yup, the kale / cabbage hybrid and celery are in the path). The feverfew loves it in there (and is still blooming).

 

Here’s a final pic of the garde, on 31st October. If you look closely you can see I’ve started mulching a very overgrown bed (middle right) with cardboard.

 

Video Update

A picture may speak a 1000 words, but a video probably speaks 1000 pictures. Here’s a video showing both the garden and tunnel in the middle of October.