Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

The autumn tidy is well underway on my plot with more and more bare soil becoming visible on the vegetable plot as crops are harvested and cleared and less and less blooms appearing across the flower beds. The leaves are beginning to fall from the Cherry tree and with the clocks having gone back a few days ago the nights are, of course, drawing in. The outdoor tomatoes are long since finished and those in the Greenhouse also now cleared away and composted replaced with the Agapanthus in pots that will overwinter under the cover of glass. With the relatively warm weather we had in September, and at times almost monsoon-like bouts of rain, the runner bean plants were still producing into October and I actually ate the last of the fresh picked beans in the first week of November. Those plants have also now been cleared and composted. An entire 'Dalek' bin of compost has been added to that bed. once it was weeded, with some manure to be added yet. The bed will then be left to rest

All sorts of trials and tribulations await around every corner for us gardeners as I noted the other morning taking a stroll down the garden to the Greenhouse. The Leeks I sowed several weeks ago have been living quite happily in a large log store that I use at the end of the garden for sheltering plants and storing pots. Now I don't know if it was the very windy weather we have been experiencing or, most likely, and inquisitive Fox or local Cat, but the trough was found on the floor in front of the table on which it was sat with most of the contents deposited on the ground. Disaster! I have been able to save a few of the seedlings which I have potted on and hopefully I will have at least a few Leeks, if not as many as planned, to plant out in a few weeks time.................. It really has been a crazy winter with some quite extreme conditions changing from one week to the next. I have taken a lookback though some old notes from my time owning an allotment and I had a number of s