A Day Of Variety

The tasks in the September garden are as many and varied as the flowers in the borders, sometimes you don't know just where to start. This morning we let the temperature dictate to us and as it was feeling pretty chilly we decided that digging up potatoes would be a good place to start. It certainly warmed us up as we dug and uncovered part of the crop, luckily there wasn't too many rotting ones to deal with, there is nothing more unpleasant than a stinky potato! We still have two more varieties to harvest but have cut off the foliage and left them in the ground for now, this stops any further blight worries. After a change of pace with some routine hoeing, we went to collect the bumper crop of cob nuts that Alyson had noticed last Monday only to discover that the squirrels had noticed them too, we could only salvage a meagre punnet, teaching us that next year we must pick them as soon as we see them. In the afternoon we cut back the willow hedge which was threatening to engulf the vegetable garden and iris border with its monstrous growth, we still left plenty of the more upright stems in place for their winter colour of vibrant red though. Right at the very end of the day comes the good part for us workers when we can help ourselves to whatever is ready, a bag of rosy red discovery apples, a swede and a shiny red cabbage all made their way home with me, a good contribution to tomorrows Sunday dinner.

"No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety"
Publilius Syrus