AUGUST: Garden update
What a soggy one!
Once again, I didn’t think I’d have much to tell you, but looking back on the previous posts (here and here), it’s surprising how much has changed!! I am SO glad I stuffed down my worries about sharing my less-than-perfect garden and even less-perfect gardening skills and documented everything from the beginning - it’s such a joy to look back on. Not purely from a progress point of view either, for the buzz of re-living memories! If I’m this chuffed mere months down the line, imagine how elated I’ll be to look back at my first foray into gardening - my first home, my first lump of land! - in years to come. I hope you’re getting something out of all this too, haha.
August has been wet, to say the least, and we haven’t spent much time sorting or enjoying our outside space. Still, the temperatures were just about high enough for my greenhouse goodies to plough on and Mother Nature took care of her fair share…
So, what happened in the garden in August?
The first ripe tomatoes!
It felt like it would never happen - which is exactly what I said about the plants spawning tomatoes AT ALL a mere month ago - but this week I was thrilled to return from the daily greenhouse inspection with two ruby-red jewels. Unless I’ve got my three different tomato plant varieties mixed up (possible), this crimson duo aren’t full size yet… the picture of the final product on the seed packet was significantly bigger and kind of knobbly, which these infants are not…yet? Anyway, I couldn’t resist and I twisted them free for a taste test. WOWOWOWOWOW. The most tomato-y tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. DELISH! I want MORE! The other 14 tomato plants are yet to turn their fruit from green to something more ‘ready’, but I am learning good things come to growers who wait.
Potatoes
Remember the potato plants that were here when we moved in and I was stressing about, hilling and re-hilling? Turns out they were prob just leftovers from a previous year and there wasn’t much to harvest anyway. Enough to make me giddy though! This weekend’s guests might get really lucky and be gifted a single HOME-GROWN tomato and half a potato to sample… lucky bastards.
Dahlias
Last month, when I said the dahlias were out in full force I clearly had no idea what ‘full force’ looked like!! Can you even imagine what a smug Sally I am, swanning around, taking flower cuttings to arrange in the house and give to friends and family? I want to remember my first season of flowers, so I’ve pressed some! I wouldn't say it was 100% successful but I’ll definitely be able to frame most of ‘em.
Wildflowers
This empty raised bed photo was taken in JULY and comparing it to now I am flabbergasted! Gardening feels slow and a bit of a slog when you’re always watching, ever checking roots and shoots, but with a wider lens, I can appreciate how quickly growing happens. Isn’t nature amazing? You can just see my first sweet pea to flower at the front there too. I don’t know if any more will manage to bloom now we’re heading into September though… any ideas?
Montbretia or Coppertops
Every month something new pops up that the previous owners planted. If you’ve been with me since the beginning you’ll know that many of these plants turn out to be toxic and upon Plant Identifier app-ing this fiery flower, I’ve learned it’s BANNED in the UK. It sounds like it’s okay to have in your own garden but it’s so invasive there’s a whole countryside act against allowing it to spread anywhere else! They’re quite pretty, maybe I wouldn’t mind them filling the space a bit more…
Rosebush
My dreams of adding borders along the perimeter this month have dwindled. The wet weather and harsh realisation that I’d need to fill them and that would be incredibly time-consuming, outside in the rain, and of course very expensive when we’ve got a lot of other more important stuff to pay for, deterred me somewhat. However, I have added this David Austen Gertrude Jekyll rosebush, which is supposed to be a short climber, to one side of the lawn, against the fence, where I hope a border will someday exist.
Weeding
It has been so soggy this August (did I mention that already? Did you even notice yourself?) that I really haven’t done much hands-on gardening, bar weeding, which has also been tough to do a full job of because of a) all the rain feeding those weedy bastards and b) all the debris still covering the garden. Reminder to myself to take more before and after piccies of weeding efforts because the difference is glaringly great and I need all the nudging to stay on top of it that I can get.
Big clear-out commences
Being able to look back through each month’s gardening progress report also highlights how much thumb-twiddling we do. I’ve been saying we’ll do a big clearout since we moved in but life gets in the way and everything costs a million pounds. However, the skip has finally arrived and this weekend we’ll fill it with all the rubbish that was left behind and the garden office building debris. I’ve scheduled a silly skip-related post to land in your inboxes tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.
That’s it from this garden reporter for now! Have a lovely weekend and enjoy what I hope will be a sunny enough time to potter in your own oasis :)