Six things to share on Saturday with garden bloggers and garden gawpers. A collection of homegrown notables from a Somerset garden in early October. As usual, I’m sharing this SOS with the Propagator and his merry crew.
- Banana and tomato on a sunny windowsill. I’m hoping this treatment will help the last few tomatoes ripen. Apparently the banana releases ripening gas, and the sunshine on a south facing window could help too. Let’s see how it goes…
2. Brave little broccoli. These little seedlings survived the greenhouse kerfuffle. More on that shortly.
3. New lawn! the conspicuously green and even section on the right has settled in very well and replaced an ugly old pathway. The summer house looks pretty, but it’s about to collapse and has reached the end of it’s useful life. I’m writing this sat at the white wicker desk by the back door of the house.Â
4. Greenhouse gone, chillies in the kitchen. In a minor setback I’ll call the greenhouse kerfuffle, the little plastic temporary greenhouse tent, which also served as a tool-shed, was caught by the wind and blew down the garden. So now, the chillies are in the kitchen, and what remains of the greenhouse is in the summerhouse, disdainfully observed by the cat. Please disregard the huge gap where the rotten base panels fell away from the summerhouse. This is an issue we’re ignoring until spring. The whole thing is propped up with scaffold poles and probably might not collapse this winter.
The little owl at the kitchen window is Ray, my solar powered boogie buddy. A gift from my fabulous friend Hannah, he’s a cheery chap who wiggles when the sun shines.
5. Hazel O-Concrete in the begonia border, aka Willowstone amidst the apples.
Regular readers may recall this horse sculpture under the apple tree, which was here when we arrived in this garden, in spring of this year. I think it wants to be a unicorn and so it’s adorned with a garden grown crown of twisted hazel woven into a sort of twisted horn.
When first naming this beast, I thought ‘Willowstone’ sounded lovely, but as I’m old fashioned and committed to honesty, Hazel O Concrete is her name.
6. Finally a confession and commitment for this Saturday’s six. This super organic multi purpose compost is peat based. I bought it because it was cheap, but it’s not really so super as it is peat based, and peat based compost is a very bad thing that destroys precious wildlife environments.
Next time, I’ll research my purchase more carefully and consider the environmental cost as well as the financial one. Any peat free, affordable compost recommendations would be gratefully received!
And finally, I’d like to share some garden sky pictures from earlier this week. When things are collapsing it’s good to look up. 🙂
A rainbow…
And a sunrise…
Whatever your plans and however your plants grow, I hope you’ll keep looking up.
Jen x
Doing The Plan 
B&Q do 3 bags of peat free for a tenner, not bad value and it seems to be an acceptable replacement. My greenhouse blowing away is the stuff of garden nightmares! Hope the planty damage wasnt too disastrous.
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Wickes does a similar deal on peat free compost. You’ve really begun to claim the new garden & make it your own. Such a shame about the summer house, as it is lovely. Hope it lasts the winter! As for maters, my grandma always had green ones ripening on her windowsills when we visited during late summer. I do the same, stick them on the sill in the kitchen & have ripe tomatoes in a coupla days. The uber green ones might take longer or you can turn them into fried green tomatoes.
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Green tomatoes seems to be a common theme now. I never had that problem, since almost all of those that are still on the vines when they get frosted eventually ripen on the kitchen windowsill. (In the home garden, vines get pulled to make room for the cool season vegetables, so do not last until frost.) The very few that don’t ripen make nice pickles. I rarely get enough to bother pickling the though.
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