Photos for the post contributed by Brendan, Fraser, Shona, Sean, Louise and Kaska
Another month of growing at the Garden is under our belt. And as Peter says, Autumn is with us and now it’s thoughts of putting the garden to bed, ready for another season.
We have seen the end of season for many of our crops. Tattie beds are now empty, bumper crop of onions almost sold out and sweetcorn, beans, cucumbers and cucumelons gone from the polytunnel. Peter, Kathleen and Lewis have put together a vlog on preparation of the outside beds for the next growing season here. Many of the outside beds are also being filled with winter brassica seedlings. And we are hoping to squeeze in a crop of winter salads, rocket and lambs lettuce, in the polytunnel beds over winter.
Runner beans outside are still delivering though, and tomatoes, chillies and peppers keep on ripening inside. We’ve started harvesting our autumnal root crops – the dainty carrots alongside the absolutely massive parsnips. The brussel sprouts have been coming along nicely, and so have leeks, in spite a touch of leek rust. To the delight of our littler visitors, we are getting a second crop of strawberries . And the pumpkins are ripening quietly in anticipation of Halloween adventures – culinary or otherwise.
We are delighted to be getting a word of all sorts of yummy things being cooked up with our garden produce. Thanks Shona, Fraser, and Sean from KitchInn at Cobbies for sharing your scrumptious creations!
The recent easterly wind toppled many of our lovely sunflowers but we managed to rescue lots of the blooms for sale at our weekly Tayport harbour stall, alongside our usual mixed posies. Late butterflies and bees have been enjoying the flowers in the sensory border and so have the visiting children groups. Cuttings of butterfly bush and perennial wallflower from our summer Butterfly Explorers session have rooted successfully so we should have even more nectar-rich treats for them next year (for the butterflies – not the children;).
As the plants are going to seed, Peter has been saving seeds from some of our favourites in the annual cut flower border to use next year. If time permits, we are planning a seed-saving expedition to the perennial wildflower border at the bottom of Scotscraig Drive too.
Others have also been busy around the Garden. Cathy’s tidied up our herb bed and refreshed it with some new additions…looking really stunning in the afternoon sunshine.
Bill’s constructed a base for a fairy garden on top of one of the bug hotels. We’ll design and construct it together with the kids before the summer next year, and plant it up with some insect-friendly plants.
And last week council has started working around the burn to flood-proof the area, building up banks and deepening the burn in the process.
Peter got in some winter ornamentals for our limited edition of winter hanging baskets – Louise and Brendan made a start on them last week. They even put together a photo step-by-step DIY guide if you’d like to make some at home (click on the image to see it in full size). Look out for the finished product at PLANT stall at the Ferryport Fruitfest on Saturday 14th of October. Hope to see you there for all sorts of family fruity fun!
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