Home life

Gardens

As September 24th 2002 was a dry sunny day, it was ideal for many of our diarists to work in their gardens. Being a rural area many also kept poultry and other livestock.

• 10.00am After mopping floor and cleaning work surfaces a cup of coffee was needed before going into the garden to help hubby who is cutting back an overgrown hedge. The shrubs also need a light pruning. A daily task is to dead head the roses and flowers in the hanging baskets and pots.
  
  
• Picked runner beans - prolific this year - and started to strip damson tree. Enjoyed a supper of fresh plaice and late raspberries (from the garden). Put hens away and locked up for the night - protection from any passing fox looking for a quick "takeaway" supper.
  

• A fantastic thing happened while I was having my breakfast outside, on a glorious September morning, a sparrowhawk landed on the arm of the chair next to me. We looked at each other in surprise, then it flew away. I water the tomato plants in the greenhouse, do some washing and hang it on the line. Planted some bulbs and tidied the garden.
  
  
• For lunch I make courgette soup - they're still coming thick and fast on our two plants, other ingredients include our own onions and potatoes. The veg garden has done well this year, and we are practically self sufficient at the moment.
  
  Despite the warm days, the nights are becoming quite chilly. Geraniums are still full of flower, but I decide to start potting some up to take indoors for the winter; perhaps this year I can avoid a rush when a frost is forecast.
  
  
• In the afternoon I went out into the garden to do dead heading of flowers and general pottering around - signs of autumn coming - leaves are beginning to fall but the flowers are still flourishing.
  

• Taken some more cuttings; penstemon, lavendar, hebe.
  
  
• I go into the garden and cut a bunch of sweetpeas for the house; I am really pleased because this is the first time I have attempted to grow them.
  
  
• Plant bulbs on green outside bungalow. Each year we add more to the bank leading onto main road. It is nearly a sea of yellow in Spring - plus primroses - only one small clump when we came here 17 years ago.