The September garden

A post from the garden rather than the plot this month.  There are still quite a few flowers blooming in this glorious sunshine we've been having.  In fact I might need to water all the pots, they're looking really dry.  The bees are still busy everywhere, especially on the cosmos.  I think I'll always have cosmos in the garden from now on, they really earn their keep.  Flowers for weeks and weeks, and always attracting bees.

There are masses of figs, but I'm going to take them off because they're not fully grown yet, so there's no chance they'll ripen.  It'll be a job for rubber gloves, fig sap is quite irritating to the skin.  Ask me how I know.

I grew some late sugar snap peas (intentionally) and late runner beans (not intentionally - they just didn't get going for ages).  So now I have both to pick, which is lovely so late in the season.  I must remember to plant late sugar snaps next year too.  I shall try harder to have some available all summer, we can easily eat as many as I can grow, they're a real treat.

I grew carrots!  It turns out they love the dry powdery soil in the garden.  And they've been almost completely blemish free, by some miracle.  Maybe the carrot flies can't get into the garden over our fences.  I've heard they can't get up high.  So maybe they're all behind the fence trying to work out how to get in.  Anyway, the carrots have been a triumph.  One of them has flowered, but the rest are just doing the normal thing.

The herbs are doing nicely, and there are still tomatoes, although some of them are splitting, and they are getting to the end of the line.  I'll probably take the plants out at the weekend.  I have a few pots of tomato sauce in the freezer - tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs and red pepper - simple, but oh so delicious, especially in the depths of winter.  The discovery of the year was the tomato Orkado (pictured), which did brilliantly for me.  All my tomatoes are grown outside, most of them in the soil which they seem to like a lot more than pots.  I'll definitely be growing it again next year.

Things will no doubt be looking quite different by the end of next month.  Once the frosts hit, the cucumbers and courgettes and flowers at the plot will be finished.  But for the time being, I'm so enjoying this late sunshine, and I hope you are too if you're lucky enough to have it.