autumn doings

Thank you. We are in the south west and it is still warmish. I'll try picking them this week to speed up the ripening as they are so heavy the plant is bending under the weight.

Yes and thank you re Lucifer, dollygloss much appreciated! Looking forward to spreading them round as they make such a cheerful show._[

Joseanne

Can anyone help with what I should do with these tomatoes? They keep getting bigger and bigger but are taking ages to ripen. I don't even know what they were.

You have a ripe one on one truss, it should help the ones near ripen. Putting them in a brown paper bag with a banana apparently works.

I have cleared all the tomatoes off my tomato plants. I have put all the green ones in a polybag with one red one, turned the top over and put them on a warm window sill. They are ripening rapidly and half of them have been transferred to the ready to east bowl. I exxpect all to be ripe by the end of the week.

My wonderful neighbours helped me tidy up the garden, I am so pleased with it!
Only the greenhouse to empty and pots to tidy now. I have ordered bulbs galore so a busy day or two when they arrive.
I don’t think my garden has ever looked so neat before!

Well, I did a very odd thing last week - I cut the grass! After months of brown crispy lawn, it changed to a lush green. I cut back the ivy growing over the mower, and voila- a green space in the middle of the garden: it looks great... My favourite autumn job is planting forced hyacinths to bloom at Christmas. I do this in a nice warm kitchen before I put them in the dark.

My favourite Autumn job - and Autumn is my favourite gardening season - is raking the leaves. We are surrounded by trees, plus some in our graden, I just wait until they are all dowwn, usually late November/early December, dress upwarmly and rake the leaves, the smell, the gentle action, and cool autumn sun. Wonderful!

Cleared the three raised beds yesterday and dug them over. That was enough for the day and it began to rain anyway. I need to plant some broad beans , buy some hyacinth bulbs and plant some small alliums. Plus do something with the apples we have. Then rest until the leaves fall.

Yesterday we caught squirrel no. 3 who has been relocated to the same park as his compatriots. I woke this morning wondering if they have met up yet.

all my tomatoes have ripened, very happy, I picked the last from outside a few weeks ago.

Howgate wonder apples are now picked and in the garage, not many as the tree is young, I removed lots before june. The biggest was 932g. Gorgeous apple

A total of 26 bags of john innes 3 finally bought and moved, good exercise. The raised beds are all fully filled, slightly mounded as they will flatten. All 48 strawberry plugs filled their 9cm pots with roots and I have washed and refilled 24 troughs, took a while but was worth it

I have to wash all those pots, will wait for a sunny day. My blueberry leaves are turning red, always the first in my garden. I pruned down the moved roses, only leaving stems and they look healthy and green, I am sure they will survive

Not much more to do, maybe mulching soon, I have 3 bags of composted bark in the garage. I also want to move 3 ben sarek blackcurrants, only been in a year and will wait for dormancy, then a bit more re-positioning of more roses in the back, again only been in a year.

The sudden cool weather made me glad that I set-to early with autumn cleaning

I had a general clear up yesterday, to get things into the green bin for the collection tomorrow. I’m limited as to what I can do at the moment, but I deadheaded stuff, emptied wall planters that had gone over, cut down the hollyhocks, (which have been lovely this year), shedding seeds all over the place?; some pesky sea holly which I can’t seem to entirely get rid of; cleared the tomatoes away, which contrary to expectations did very well. I took a bag over to DD’s on Saturday. Lots of plants have got their “second wind” since the drought ended. I’ll probably have a bite sized go at it on a daily basis weather permitting.