I haven’t been blogging much this summer, so it’s high time for a catch up from the garden.
I have been out pottering, planting and weeding, it’s a continuous cycle.
Here’s my account of the highs and lows of the summer’s activities, including a video I made in mid August.

The Good.

The flowers have done really well this year and are giving a great show as you can see in the picture above.
It really has been a cheerful display with the calendula, cosmos and the feverfew earlier in the year.

Here’s a peek at the daisies that came up from last year’s annual mix. Aren’t they lovely?

Also, the peas have been lovely and the potatoes have been great too.

The flowers are still looking great now in mid September too. I always adore the verbena, which self seeds well.

The ‘Bad’

I don’t like to call anything ‘bad’ … but … we’ve had a real issue with slugs this year.
For example, I sowed parsnips in with love in the mist (nigella) as an experiment and I’m really glad I did, as at least now I have a nice bed of nigella just coming into flower, which you can see below. Not one parsnip made it (and they were there as tiny seedlings).

I’m also blaming slugs for the disappearance of all my salads, even my amaranth and sunflowers (some tried to outgrow them, but were later stripped bare again!).
My carrots also succumed to something …. I had a notion that slugs wouldn’t like carrots, but maybe I was wrong. In the video I quickly pan over one of the slug eaten areas.

 

And …. The Paths!

Theose gravel paths just keep sprouting grass and ‘weeds’, as you can see in the video update.  It’s like painting the Forth Bridge trying to keep them clear. I’m even pondering re-laying more membrane on top of the gravel to tackle the issue. Having the gravel means that it is quite easy to clear the grass and annual weeds that do seed, but perennials such as dock, dandelion and burdock are coming up through the membrane.
It just seems a waste of time to spend so much time keeping paths clear. The newer paths, membrane and straw / sawdust are easier to maintain. It’s just that the gravel ones (which are around the edges of the garden), being more established, have had more time for seeds to start seeding. That being said, they are sometimes handy as seedbeds, especially for the aquilegia, verbena boniarensis and feverfew!

Update: I have been clearing the paths, including this one, to the far end of the veg garden, which backs into the field and a big patch of nettles. It does clear quickly, thank goodness.

 

Video update

This video is from mid August 2015. I have been clearing some beds since then, especially those near the house where perennial grasses are encroaching too much.

I’ve also been sowing winter crops, especially salads, which I’ll probably plant in the polytunnel. I’ll post more on that soon.

 

Extra Video Update

As it took me over a month to put up that last video, so much has changed that I decided to make a new update, so you can see the progress I’ve made over the last month.