Misty mornings

Due to family illness, this week I worked two days starting earlier in the morning. It was beautiful driving to the garden with the sun rising and the mist hanging over the fields. The garden is lovely at that time in the morning, fresh and covered in beautiful cobwebs and dew.

Jobs for September include clearing windfall from the orchard most days to avoid attracting the wasps to the garden. Then a job which will carry on now for quite some time is clearing leaves. Houghton have a great machine called a BillyGoat for such a job. It is rather like a road sweeper that sucks up plant material from the ground so I had a go on that on some lawn and around the parterres of the Peacock garden. A beast of a machine to move around but it does a good job.

Deadheading is still on the task list. The Echinops in the long border were reaching for the sky and raining seeds down all around them, so they have been chopped. The Geraniums are ready to be stored for the Winter, so Andrew and I began to lift and air dry some by hanging them from the ceiling of one of the old calf sheds. Soon we will be lifting and storing other plants too, including the Dahlia's.

The veg garden was cleared this week as crops begin to stop growing and we sprinkled green manure seed over the ground. The idea being crops such as Mustard and Rye will grow, stop weeds and then we dig the green manure in before we plant next season giving nutrients back into the ground. Something I will be trying at our allotment, sounds great!

I am beginning to see changes in the garden now as the weather changes and it is always exciting.