The Last Chance Saloon September Garden

Well, I'm looking out of the window at the rain having come in from the chilly 9 degrees in the garden.  I'm now officially despairing of ever getting anything from my garden this year.
This is where I'm at:
No damsons, no apples & 6 plums which are all covered in wasps.
Brassicas at the stage I would expect them to be in May having had to replant seedlings after aphid & root fly destruction.
One courgette every couple of days if I'm lucky and winter squashes with no hope of ever getting big enough - most are rotting and dropping off.
Beetroots that never got past the 2 leaf seedling stage
A few parsnips that may or may not come to something
A greenhouse full of the best tomato crops I've ever had but apart from Sungold nothing is ripening (I had to buy tomatoes at the weekend for a barbecue - yes, in the pouring rain).  Auntie Madge seem to be succumbing to blight.
It's not entirely doom & gloom - Tutankhamun peas have done well, I have some Mr Fearn's beans to pick and I'm still picking strawberries from the greenhouse, enough to make a strawberry trifle for the barbecue.  They have been my stars this year.

Ah, thanks for getting a September garden thread started Ploshkin !

Having just got back from warmer climes to old Blighty - I find blighty is the word ! For the first time ever I have late potato blight. I've had the relatively harmless early blight quite commonly, but this is my first time to get properly blighted in 10 years of growing. They will have to come up at the first chance at the weekend, I'll sort out the tubers and I think I'll get my incinerator going to get rid of some of the scrap wood and the diseased material - if I can find anything dry enough to burn !

Beans seem to have been the best this year, but the drop in temperature may stop new flowers setting. The greenhouse crops have done well - I have plenty of tomatoes and chillies, a good few ripe but the ripening has slowed here too.

Sweetcorn is ready though; we had the first couple of cobs last night. Not so sweet as it might be yet, but if I wait to start eating it I'll wind up wasting some as it will all need eating at once !

The other thing which is thriving is - weeds ! My allotment is a mess ! I weeded quite a lot before I left, but within a week there are weeds everywhere. A big job for the weekend. I try to be optimistic and regard it all as potential composting material ...

As you can see; my Paper lantern chillies have done quite well this year ! This is a Capsicum Chinense, and so is to be expected to pack some heat. I have now to go in search of a good hot sauce recipe or two. Some will also go into a Peruvian potato dish which I think is in Meg Jump's wonderful book Cooking with Chillies. Maybe I'll have a dip into Dave DeWitt's The Habanero Cookbook too

Results in the vegetable garden seem to have been very regional this year - on the allotment and vegetable growing group I'm in on Facebook, people's successes and failures have been very variable depending on which bit of the UK they're in. For instance, a lot of people have had wonderful french beans but mine have been poor; the runners have been much better (though not enough to freeze any.) I hope your year is better next year Ploshkin

Lots of weeding today.  They have really taken over whilst I was on holiday.  In the garden plot, I've cleared out the remaining peas I had left for seed saving. Should have enough for next year.  At the allotment, I've had to focus on clearing the weeds that are in the beds with crops that can't take the competition, like leeks. No use trying to hoe with the ground this wet, they have to be forked loose and hand pulled.  Also cleared out the dead lower leaves from the brassica; these seem to invite nut slugs and disease if left.

The other job is trying to encorage the crops left to ripen.  Cutting off superfluous foliage from tomatoes and squashes to allow light and air to reach the fruits. The butternuts have spread over a huge area at the allotment, and it is quite a job wading through them to find the fruits, but it looks promising for a good result if we get some late sun.

I never usually do annuals but as I knew I was going to have a bit of new planting space I got a couple of packets of seeds to keep the weeds at bay. I got Cosmos (a dwarf variety) and Calendula- Yellow Daisy. They have both been absolute stars, simple to grow & just given a bit of deadheading, they are both still flowering their heads off. I don't particularly like yellow Summer flowers but the Calendula are all different shades of yellow through to very pale orange and the petals fade on some to almost white as the flowers age. The biggest bonus is that the bees love both of them - even my bees.

That is such a beautiful photo Ploshkin!

That does look lovely Ploshkin. I could do with importing a bit of your colour into my garden. I thought I had covered late summer/early autumn flowering, but nothing seems to have appeared this year.

The calendulas I sowed a few years ago usinfg seed from the seed swap didn't come up this year after several years of having effort free volunteer flowers. But some have spread to my allotment, and I have let them grrow there; they are flowering nicely and setting seed, so I'll save them to bring back to the garden. They are orange ones though. I like these yellow ones.

I finished digging potatoes at the weekend. Last year I used Nemaslug for the first time, and was impressed so repeated it this year. Well, this time they are full of holes so either last year I got lucky, or this year was worse. Still, I think I will take a break from growing main crop potatoes next year and try something else for a change. The yield is not worth the cost of the nematodes !

Some great carrots though. The technique of the narrow trench backfilled with last year's spent potting compost really works well in my heavy clay, IF you can get the things established. It has taken two or three sowings to get a good stand for the last couple of years. Perhaps I am starting too early.

The other result was that I gained a shed ! My neighbour was struggling to put up a new (to him), larger shed so I offered him a hand with getting the roof on, and in return he gave me his old one. I don't live far from the plot and normally push my tools round by wheelbarrow (I'm sure I look like the neighbourhood eccentric), but a small shed will mean I can leave an old spade and fork there, and keep tidy all the other odds and ends. Should make it easier to use little bits of time to keep on top of things.

This spell of lovely weather is very welcome - long may it last. It has come with some rather cold nights / early mornings though - the last 4 have ranged between 0.8 c and minus 0.5 c. The only thing that has suffered are my Cosmos but they've been fantastic so they've don't their bit. I'm off to carry on bed digging in my polytunnel, it's solid clay, some of it blue clay, so I'm trying to get it done before it dries out too much. There's a thick layer of well rotted cow poo going on top. I'm optimistic about the usefulness of the tunnel - I can already see that it is getting 4 hours more sun every day than my greenhouse in the garden.