Autumn Lupins & 'Grow Your Own' freebies

I took out a 'Grow Your Own' magazine subscription and received my free joining pack (pictured). I received a free book, "The Low Maintenance Vegetable Garden" by Clare Matthews for beginners, which I absolutely love. I'm still a beginner after ten years! I'm happy with my 'lucky dip' - 10 free packs of seeds, most say they're easy to grow (exactly what I like!). This starts my grow list for 2011!

I've had a nice autumn surprise... several of my lupins decided to flower again. I cut them down after they flowered in June/July and some (not all) decided to flower again in Sept/Oct.

Variety: Lupin Russell Mix. (pictured below)

Above, this re-flowering lupin is a bit week in colour but this time of year a little colour is better than none.

I collected seed from the darker purple/blue variety pictured at the back - love the darker colour! This picture was taken in June and, of course, a better show than the re-flower picture.

Autumn Harvest - Chard, Potatoes, Spring Onion

Today Northern Ireland was sunny and warm... about 16°C/61°F. Shame I have a cold & couldn't get out and enjoy the weather as much as I would have liked! I'm eager to dig over a new bed to grow potatoes come St Patrick's Day (the day the Irish sow potatoes).

There's still quite a bit of harvesting to do. I planted Chard seed outside back in May and it has produced leaves thoughout summer. (pictured above).

Variety: Chard Bright Lights, Mr Fothergill's, 150 seeds, £2.29. The pack says the chard will die down in Winter and come up again in Spring (for another crop) before they run to seed. How exciting! 

This week I harvested bag grown potatoes. Instead of buying the potato grow bags I used two old compost bags; folded the sides down & planted about four tubers in each bag (back in April). I  folded the sides of the bag back up as I earthed up the poatotes as they grew. I didn't get a very big yield from my bags (yield pictured from 1 bag). In fact, I would only get about two meals for 4 people.

Variety:  'Maris' Peer Seed Potatoes, Homebase, 2 kg bag for £3.49.

Picture below, I cut my spring onion back 4-6 weeks ago and am getting masses of regrowth, some of which is flowering (the flower petals look great scattered on salad).

Irish restaurants serve "champ". This is mashed potatoes with about 1/3 cup of chopped spring onion or chives. Yummy!

Autumn Yellows - Sunflower, Poppy

Northern Ireland 's first day of October was filled with rain and gale force wind... the sun creeping through at intervals. My garden is filled with Autumn colour mostly flowering shades of yellow, orange and red.

Sown from seed, I really like these yellow poppies - fingers crossed they'll self seed around the garden as they're known to do. I help this process along by picking off dried flower heads and scattering the tiny seeds.
Variety: California Poppy.


Also grown from seed, my giant sunflowers are still going strong. One in particular has had a multitude of flowers (pictured above). I'm collecting seed so I won't have to purchase any next year. Some of the flower heads are as big as an adult head so I could supply seeds to half of Ireland (but will supply the birds instead).

Variety: Sunflower Giant Single (Hardy Annual), Mr Fothergill's, 75 seeds, £1.25 per pack.

"Yellow, Yellow" painting with allamanda flowers by my favourite artist Egretta Wells.
http://egrettawells.blogspot.com/