September 1st

The first day of a new month -- and doesn't it seem like Autumn already? Last night at Farnborough airfield (about 2 miles from us) the temperature went down to just over 5 degrees. We'll be having a frost before long!

Nevertheless, despite being cold, it has been a beautiful day. As usual, I inspected the garden before heading off to work. No fox damage this morning, thank Goodness. I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos. The morning light at this time of year is just wonderful!

Here's a picture of a geranium plant I have been growing indoors on a windowsill. It is a small plant that I have grown on from a cutting. Today its first flower was fully open. In the morning sunlight it looked absolutely stunning. What do you think of it?

Geranium in the morning light

What about this one -- a "Traffic Lights" set of ripening Ferline tomatoes

The Ferline tomato "Traffic Lights"

 This nicely illustrates for me one of the most important principles of home gardening -- that you really don't want all your crop to mature at the same time. Unless you are planning on freezing huge quantites for later use, it's much better to have little and often. Although I think some veg do freeze pretty well, in general I would say that fresh produce that has NOT be frozen is infinitely preferable.

I also thought it was worth recording the progress of the Broccoli, which is coming along quite nicely. In one of my raised beds I have six broccoli plants -- 2 each of a very early variety called "Rudolph" and a later variety called "Red Arrow", and two of a white variety called "White Eye". There are also 2 plants of Cavollo Nero "Black Tuscany". The Cavollo Nero could be used right now, although it would probably benefit from a few more weeks' growth. On the other hand, the sprouting broccoli will not be ready until the Spring. This is a vegetable that occupies the ground for a long time (the best part of a year), but in my opinion it is worth it because the end product is just so nice!

Brassicas bed -- Sprouting Broccoli and Cavollo Nero

This is a photo I took on Bank Holiday Monday -- it's the chilli I have had to call (for want of a better name)  "Long Fat". Not particularly hot but very tasty. Perhaps fairly close to a capsicum - sweet or "bell" pepper...
The ripe fruits are to me irresitible objects of great beauty. Even if I didn't want to eat them I would just want to possess them!

Chilli - "Long Fat"