Early Autumn in the garden – Harvests, flowers & sunshine
Still feeling like summer
These days, early autumn is indistinguishable from summer. In fact we regularly have better weather in early autumn than we do in mid-summer. The only real clue to the season is the shortening day length. Initially, hardly noticeable until we head into late autumn and the time change.
It was so warm in September that our al fresco eating carried on well into mid-autumn – including some breakfasts!
September is the month of bounty. Back in the days when we used to go on holiday, we’d come home to courgettes transformed into giant marrows. Which resulted in stuffed marrow and marrow chutney – we do hate to waste good food!
Even spending September at home, it takes some keeping up with! So much to pick and turn into ready meals for the freezer. Luckily we had my mums old freezer as an extra this year – it didn’t take us long to fill it!
The grass ‘Karl Foerster’ (seen above) turns a rich golden colour, and amazingly keeps blowing in the breeze until I cut it down next spring. The borders are now full to bursting and the flowers are looking fabulous with their hotter colour palette.
Autumn Outings
Woolerton Old Hall
We did manage a couple of garden visits and a rather prestigious garden show.
One of the gardens Woolerton Old Hall, really stood out as this was the perfect time of year to visit. It’s renowned for its late summer borders, and boy were they impressive!
Woolerton Old Hall is in North Shropshire, it’s now closed for the winter, but will re-open in April 2022.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021
Late in September we had our first ever trip to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, wow, wow, wow!
I was so impressed I wrote three blogs documenting it:
I don’t think I can add much more, apart from to say, I hope that it’s not our last visit!
Harvesting
Summer Squash – Courgettes & Patty Pan
As I mentioned this is summer squash time. The standard courgette started earlier than usual and was running out of steam as September progressed. On the other hand the Patty pan had been slow to get going, so now took over from the courgette. All the summer squash taste really good when roasted, the sugars in them caramelise. If you roast them in slices, they make the most fabulously tasty lasagne.
Autumn Raspberries turned into Cake
The autumn fruiting Raspberries ‘Polka’ produced a vast amount of delicious fruit. Strangely there were lots of doubles this year, and even one triple!
We made rather a lot of courgette and raspberry cake. Sliced up and in the freezers now, we eat it for breakfast with yogurt. It gives you a good reason to get out of bed in the winter!
End of the Tomatoes
The tomatoes produced as much as ever, giving us frozen tomato sauce that will last well into winter. Brandywine our beefsteak tomato did the best yet, the leaves stayed nice and green, unusually for this variety. The mass amount of cherry sized tomatoes hung like sweeties.
The warm weather meant the vines kept growing and fruiting, but the sweetness goes out of the tomatoes. I collected them and made Green tomato chutney for the first time in years.
Apples & Pears
It’s time to start harvesting the pears and the two late apple varieties ’Winter Gem’ and ‘Christmas Pippin’.
The pears have been strange this year. ‘Beth’ only bore one fruit. On the other hand ’Louise Bon of Jersey’ was covered from top to bottom!
The pears were also later to be ready for picking, nearly two weeks into October. It always feels strange picking fruit before it’s ripe, but pears have to ripen off the tree. You gently lift each fruit and if it comes off in your hand, it’s ready!
The big shame with pears is that they all ripen together. This year we made and froze pear tarts, which are a weekend breakfast treat.
Roses go on & on & on…
I only have three rose bushes, but I’ve never known them to flower for such a long period, they’ve just gone on & on. The red one was in the garden when we came, and is very short lived. The two I brought with me ‘Mary Rose’ (the pink one) and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ (the purple one) are David Austin roses and just keep on flowering!
The White Garden
Down in the white garden, the penstomen that started flowering in June continues to look good. The thalictrum now over 5ft tall, opens into a fluffy white cloud. Echinacea ‘White Swan’, that was only planted last year is bulking up nicely, and we had three large daisy type flowers. The Japanese Anemones are really a bit of a thug, running under ground and popping up everywhere. But when they come out against a blue autumn sky, they do look stunning!
Next week we head into ‘Late Autumn’, my least favourite time of the year!
Stay safe & happy gardening.
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