Never doubt...

Monday 31st August. The morning after the night before. We had the launch party for Gather with Grace Alexander, and then the actual launch, and then a thousand emails and two really niggly tech problems and then it was all absolutely glorious. In the middle of it, a van arrived and brought not one but two stuffed-full boxes of Saipua soap and Snake Oil.

Tuesday 1st September. I’m not even pretending it isn’t autumn anymore. I have neglected the deadheading on the dahlias and I go and collect armfuls for the house. There are still some I am not sure about, such as a single red that is the brightest thing I have ever seen, and a small yellow that starts with a soft orange centre which is nearly wonderful, but I am not entirely sure of it. It is prolific though, I will give it that.

Wednesday 2nd September. The tomatoes. In the middle of the season I wondered if I had planted my vines too close and that the yield was going to be quite poor. I grow them in recycling boxes*. However, I upped the feeding in the last month or so and the fruits were just glorious. Not a bumper crop by any means, but a blissful one. The big Italian beefsteak ones roasted beautifully with red onions and bay leaves and I will grow as many of those as I can fit in the greenhouse next year. 

*Not glamorous I know but I simply don’t believe you get enough depth in a grow bag. I alternate the use of the boxes between tomatoes and tulips every year, and in the weeks in between they are great for taking bindweed to the tip. You can fit a lot of those boxes in my tiny car.

Thursday 3rd September. A day of compost. We now have three bays of compost. The first has four squash plants in. The second was six month old compost curing, and the third was being filled. The third was starting to overflow and I kept just throwing things on top (if you are in a mild area and cut back your scabious, you might get one last flush, hence my compost heap being full of scabious stalks). Compost needs little attention day to day, but every so often, it does need some physical effort and a turn. 

Today, Mr A digs out the compost that is ready and then turns and layers the next heap into the middle bay. The difference is amazing. With a few barrow loads of grass clippings and a water, the level of the heap goes down almost in front of our eyes. The temperature goes up to 60 degrees within two days.

Friday 4th September. The apples are falling from the trees with regular thuds. I pick the pears before they fall as the tree is in a container in the courtyard and I don’t want them to bruise. Two catch me out by being the shell of a pear skin but full of wasps rather than fruit. I planted two damson trees last year (our Shropshire Prune proved to be a martyr to leaf curl aphid). I did not think they would have fruited yet and I was wondering how I would make pickled damsons (thank you to Jenny’s husband Tom for the recipe. I had them at The Laundry Garden last December and they were magic with cheese). I am therefore delighted to find that the Fairleigh damson from Pennards in the kitchen garden hedge has fruit on in its first year.

Saturday 5th September. Church flowers. My time again. The keys dropped through my door with a note to say that the service is unfeasibly early on the Sunday morning and so to make sure I’m done the night before. I fill an urn with dahlias and crab-apples and some grasses. I take the grasses out again because they look a bit messy and unconventional and I am not sure they will go down well. I am already maverick enough by eschewing oasis and I feel like I have the reputation of the #foamfree community on my hands. Nothing too radical. My investment is such that they get at least three of my best Café au Lait dahlias. (Is it me or have they been very pale this year? Some of mine have been almost white.)

Sunday 6th September. It is raining. I was going to finish preparing the new beds for fruit, spread the lovely new compost and paint the inside of my studio. Instead, there will be tea and film editing, and hardy annual sowing to make the most of the moisture. Taking cosmos cuttings. A gentle sort of day. A Sunday sort of day.