End of October Flowers

Today marks the end of British Summer Time. It's only a few days until the end of October (no frost yet) and the garden still has a good amount of interest and colour through plants like sedum, grasses, kaffir lily, pieris forest flame, and the red stems of the dogwood shrub.

The wet, damp weather has been good for the weeds and they're multiplying thick and fast. I've still loads of weeding and tidying to do before I retire from general garden work for the Winter. 

Above: Sedum Autumn Joy amongst the Bergenia leaves.

Sedum Autumn Joy is a survivor; here it grows through heather.

Above: The grassy looking Schizostylis Coccinea (Kaffir Lily) are in their flowering prime.

Kitty follows me through the garden and enjoys a scratch against the red stems of the Cornus dogwood shrub.

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

No Apples for Me

Photo taken  October 2012.

Last year I had a record harvest of 15 organically grown apples from a little pot grown tree (yes, that's my top record.) This year I have a record - 0 apples (yes, zero). But it's my own fault...

We had a cold Spring and a warm, dry Summer. My apple tree is a self fertilizing tree that grows in a large pot. I was very bad and forgot to water it during the summer so I imagine this is why the fruits dried up and didn't develop. I do miss my little harvest of apples. Suppose there's always next year!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

Courgettes and Squash

I'm still harvesting courgette and squash. I thought most of my courgette were finished but I came across this plant with four good sized fruits. I found a recipe for courgette pancakes on the internet - basically just add a shredded courgette, with moisture squeezed out, to your pancake mix and it tastes really nice (especially with a bit of maple syrup!).

Left: Courgette (zucchini F1) - has done well this year.

Squash (Patty Pan White) - the squash plant has grown huge but hasn't produced much squash. Lots of flower blooms but they seem to fall off. Suppose they aren't being pollinated properly.  I'm still hoping for miracles before frost hits!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.