October arrived this week bringing with it a mix of
weather. The rainy and stormy days cleared the muggy air and then some sunshine
and unseasonably mild weather. I love Autumn especially when the leaves start
turning to the beautiful reds and yellows and leaves dance around the pavements
in the wind. With the seasons turning came with it a signal for me to start to
tidy up our courtyard garden and harvest our final few crops.
I spent time in our garden sweeping up, moving garden
furniture and pots, tidying the dead plants and picking our small crop of tomatoes,
chillies and potatoes left in the garden. It is quite therapeutic pulling up
dead plants and preparing the space for planting bulbs and preparing the soil
and our space for spring. Lugging things round and moving containers was satisfying
and great exercise! Overall the garden is delivering a good crop of herbs, we
had some unsuccessful radish crops and the strawberries didn’t produce much of
a crop this year but it was worth trying.
Three different tomato plants delivered some lovely
tomatoes, most of which I had to ripen most of them on a windowsill.
The chillies started turning red by themselves and are
waiting to be used to add to a pasta dish. I’m looking forward to seeing what
flavours they produce!
I grew potatoes for the first time this year but started
really late. I was unsure when to dig up the potoes as it didn’t flower. I
didn't plant many seed potatoes and thought perhaps I had just grown long
trailing plants! I did a bit of digging around and came out with a small crop!
Mr C and I had these in one sitting, boiled with salted butter and chives from
of the garden. It really was one of life's simple pleasures. I will definitely
try growing potatoes again next year.
One of my fuchsias is still flowering, which started quite
late this year. I love these pretty petals, they are almost like pink and
purple frilly skirts.
While I was digging around and sweeping up I spotted a
few final flowers on the strawberry plant. I do love looking close up at these
flowers they are so delicate.
Our garden will be quite an empty space over the next few months but I'll keep you posted on any changes or things I'm trying out in our courtyard garden.Labels: autumn, urban gardening
