Nearly packing up for the year

I started to ready the garden for winter time last weekend, by clearing the tomatoes, cucumbers, patty pan, etc which had stopped producing. Most ended up in the compost bin or on my compost heap but then it started raining before I had time to finish. In fact, every time I stepped out, the sun disappeared rapidly. Seasonal hazard, I guess. This time of year everything looks rather bleak.


Only the Welsh onion and some white beetroot remain. The raspberries continue to produce however and I may even get another crop before the weather turns really nasty. Very good variety (Joan J), has seen me through from July to October.


In additional news, I harvested the mystery pumpkin that self-seeded itself. No idea what kind it is, probably I grew it from from a supermarket-bought pumpkin the year before. There is another vine that scrambled over the fence and is bearing some fruit, so if it turns out well I'll just lean quickly into the neighbour's garden and retrieve it (that's allowed, right?).


The other pumpkin was tasty (was turned into lentil and pumpkin stew) but the skin was really really hard. So hard in fact, that I needed a hammer to chop it and I gave up on it halfway through. Lesson for next year - eat it more quickly.

Digging out the compost bin

Not as in getting out of storage, no, I mean literally digging out.

Late last year something bad happened to my compost area. An influx of cage litter, old bits of stairs I had replaced, large dead shrubs, doors (don't ask...), it ended up all around the bin. It got to the point where I couldn't lift the top off anymore. So today, taking advantage of the nice weather, I did some investigation and a clean-up.

The doors have almost rotted down, except one which must be made of some hardwood (it is still solid and I think it has been out there for years). Restacked they can go on doing their thing. The large shrubs are now a screen against the back wall. Found lots of old decking off-cuts which I can use for marking beds. Also found a broken BBQ and lots of other rubbish. A broken birdhouse is sitting on the curb hoping someone can muster up the will to put it together again. The bits of stairs now form a wall around a mound of cage litter which still has another year of composting to do.

(It may not look like much but you shoudl have seen it before. And yes, I know there is a plastic goose...wanna make something of it?!? It's not rubbish, it's..decorative. )

Then I tackled the compost bin itself. Three-quarters full of lovely compost! I emptied that out on the nearest beds which have been mainly made up of cat poo and builders rubble so far.


I went a bit crazy after that because then I also forked in the guinea pig waste that I spread out on the other beds, and I cleaned up the deck, getting rid of an old table to make room for this little beauty:


I also hope someone will take about 50 small plastic plant pots off my hands...Oh, and I found some ancient grass seed in my cellar which I put on the bare patches in the grassy path. And I spread out some bags of ballast I had hanging around on the other, gravelly path.

Now I'm exhausted but it was lovely to sit on the deck with a nice cup of coffee and a hot cross bun afterwards.