Plenty of feed.
They will be needing it for the flower heads and seeds growing behind.

Lovely summer plants.

Great fun to grow.

Used to have great competitions with my Dad.

A sneeky bit of miracle grow on the leaves(,foilier feeding) used to help a bit.

Hope it goes well.

Tough going this year in the garden for most.

Keep us informed.

Basket and pots are in full bloom.Sweet peas  not as I would  like but they are being used as cut flowers every 3 days,

Lousy crop this year with sweetpeas, ourselves.

Even with a south facing garden.
Not a great summer at all.

Garden completely over-run with self-seeded nastrurtiums. Not what I intended, but a lot of other things have succumbed to the weather (e.g. tomato blight) and the wife likes nasturtiums so they're staying.

Picked the thornless blackberries today.Had them with strawberry yogurt.Very nice....

Do you know you can eat the Nasturtium flowers with salad,they have  a slightly spicy flavour.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gary

Yes, that and the seeds too - we've been chomping our way through them (though the great-nieces were horrified at the idea you could eat flowers)

Blue flowers of Chives are ok In salads...-Borage-Chicory-Cowslip-Daisy-Dandelion-Elder-Geranium-Lavender-

Pansy-Pot Marigold-Rose - Sage- and Violet..All can be eaten...

Lots of slugs got crushed night on patio.Was looking for a clear space between the clouds.The eary birds this morning were in for a feast...

he he yep feast time for birdies. snales are risking crossing the paths tonight.

Veg update!

Most of the tomato plants (12 of 16) have trusses... but it's 6 weeks from truss to fruit... that takes us into October... not sure if Durham has enough warm days left to make this happen. :S ... Green tomato chutney anyone?

Broad beans (30 plants) looking huge - very nearly ready for first major harvest of them (have already had 2 small harvests for the kids). Easily the best performer every year.

Beetroot - 50 of them - leaves healthy, but YET AGAIN the beets look very small - could be the last year I try this - the NE climate just doesn't suit them.

Lettuce - 49p B and Q packet has yet again come up trumps - 15 already grown and eaten - 2nd batch of 10 almost ready.

Chives - planting out when established has proved much better than leaving in pots. Looking good.

Basil - Lost 50 plants when trying in different positions outside, but 12 kept in sunlounge have given a LOT of leaves - 5 pots of pesto and still enough for 5 more!

Onions (about 40) - again, the NE climate and lack of sun due to trees in my garden means they don't get very big - tried seed and sets this year... won't be trying from seed again!

Leeks - 65 in holes in the ground (holes filling in with earth naturally over time - hope that's OK!!) - 9 still to plant out if I can find space.. harvest due in Nov-Jan.

Garlic - 14 garlics - all harvested, looking great and now dried and ready to store.

Spinach - very slow start in May/June, but now huge and providing a LOT for pesto - about 30 plants a foot or so high with lots of leaves.

Potatoes - sited poorly, some died, but doing OK. Harvest about 3 weeks away.

Radishes - planted last week - fills holes and makes sure there's something to harvest in October.

Been a mixed Summer for me also. Only got a veg patch up and going around March this year. We moved into a new house and the garden was pretty much all grassed, so had to dig up and remove a pile of rocks from the soil. The soil is very heavy so had to add plenty of loamy stuff to it too.

I planted around 30 onions from sets and around 20 red onions from sets. Both have taken a while to get going, but seem to be coming on now. Also planted spring onions from seed and they have done well.

Had first harvest of potatoes two nights ago - a couple of plants that were struggling so thought I would dig them up and was pleasantly surprised to have quite a few tubers. Still have the main crop of Kerr's Pinks to pull up in around a months time.

Beetroot hasn't been great up here either nor has the carrots. Brussels, kale, parnips and neeps are in for the winter though.

Peas have done quite well, although I only had 4-5 plants - will plant more next year.

Fruit-wise its been a mixed bag. Strawberries were tasty, but didn't get many. Raspberries were disappointing, as were the currant plants, although they will probably fruit better next year. Needed more sun.

New honeysuckle has had buds on anis flowering now.Lovely aroma....

My potatoes are not good. I've got three big pots of them (should have been 3 in each, but only 2 in each have come through) and in two pots the plants are dying, with leaves almost all brown. I partially dug one tonight (well, just shoved my hand in and pulled out 4 spuds) and the potatoes themselves were big - but they were affected by scab again. Boiled them quickly, and they tasted very flowery' it might be the variety, but they'd make better roast/jacket than boiled new. Both these pots were affected by slugs a few weeks ago. The third pot was less slug-affected, but still showed some sign of wilt - but fresh growth has sprung up in the last couple of weeks which is really healthy and dark green. Very odd.

Elsewhere, the carrots are good again. My cabbages got blitzed by slugs/snails early on, but the survivors are big and really starting to form hearts now. My sprouts (after last year's getting demolished in 24 hours by a plague of cabbage white caterpillars) are doing really well. The leeks have come on really quickly in the past fortnight.

Lots of feed being applied to keep them all growing

For the 1st time some of my pots have gone that way, Saint - all died back  - will dig them up this weekend. THe remaining 2/3 (about 10 plants) are healthy.

Never tried carrots... are they easy? Cabbages - I tried some late varities last year and out of 24 sown I got... zero!

I tried sprouts 3 years ago, and ended up with 2 rows of straws with peas hanging off them.. they never got any bigger than that. Brassicas and Durham don't seem to get on.

Carrots are stupidly easy - the last couple of years I've not even bothered to thin them out. I don't like carrots normally, but freshly dug up and the taste is so much nicer.

My first crack at cabbages, second for sprouts.