End Of Month View ~ October 2014

As October evaporates in a heat haze a bit of outside has come inside today to acknowledge Halloween. Meet three of my little 'Wee-B-Little' pumpkins with some being more little than others.
The taste jury is out as yet but soup will be on the menu soon along with a verdict. We have quite a few of these to get through but only one of the much larger 'Black Futsu' the surface of which reminds me of a lunar landscape.

I am still struggling with getting to grips with the new camera so again this will be a photo light post. Now that the dark nights are upon us time to do some serious reading of the manual before the snowdrop season is upon us.

So a quick run through October starting with the garden where there seems to have been little in the way of action as the season has shifted discernibly to autumn. There have been various affairs going on in the background which have distracted me. One that I will share here is that after much earnest discussion we have purchased a static caravan in the southern Lake District. The discussion has been going on for a couple of years and with himself's possible retirement on the horizon it was time to make a decision about our options. One of the few advantages of not having the child or children we hoped for, is that our savings can be spent on ourselves. We both love France and spent time looking at some properties over there this summer but we did not want to uproot ourselves completely. If we lived near the south coast we would have been seriously tempted but instead we have looked nearer to home.

We can be in the Lake District in less than an hour and a half and both love the area despite all the wet stuff. Himself is a keen rambler and sees himself walking up fell and down dell, whilst as well as taking me for some gentle low level walks in the beautiful surrounding countryside. So October has seen us rather preoccupied fitting up our new second home with some necessities, before the site closes for winter to reopen in March. Himself is already chomping at the bit to be there as much as we can in the spring, so I am in a quandry about how I will manage seed sowing next year let alone the allotment. I have much thinking and planning to do over the winter and there will have to be some compromises!

One fiddly job  that I have done much later than planned is to top dress all my pots of special snowdrops with fresh horticultural grit. They are all looking pristine and fresh at the moment in readiness for flowering. At the moment the pots are all outside but if the weather turns really cold I will bring them under cover into the greenhouse which needs clearing in readiness. I'm also planning to relabel some snowdrops as names are disappearing. Talking of labels I will be posting the results of my label experiment soon - a year on from the date it began.

Meanwhile at the allotment clearing and dismantling is the order of the day. Beans and sweet pea wigwams are coming down and old foliage is heading to the compost heap. There are still some harvests here and there. The 'Polka' raspberries continue to flourish and produce. I picked what I think must be the last courgette of the year earlier this week. After four months of eating courgettes I'm happy to wait another few months before eating another. The strawberry plants are sending out flowers and occasionally there is the odd strawberry to nibble - especially sweet at this time of year.
Tomorrow we are having an autumnal celebration on site which I'm looking forward to with soup and parkin being on the menu.

Plantwise I've resisted the temptation to make purchases apart from bulbs. A shipping order from Peter Nyssen arrived a couple of weeks ago which is looking at me and shrieking "Plant Me Now!" every time I go past. I've also added another snowdrop to the collection or was that last month? Whatever the date of arrival it's galanthus 'Ding Dong' which is an early riser. Maybe there will be photos in November. Yes I must make a start on that manual.

Thanks as always to the lovely Helen over at 'The Patient Gardener's Weblog' who provides us with the opportunity to reflect and contemplate about our gardens each month as well as look forward to the future.