I'm trying something new with my diary. Rather than just publish it on this website, I'm also going to record a new weekly video, called "The gardening week'. This diary, will be the show notes for the video. I'm also publishing the audio from the video as a podcast, again with this page as the show notes for the podcast.
I'm definitely feeling as if my gardening life is winding down now and my cold weather activities are on the rise. Although I still have a huge amount of food planted, there's very little to do beyond harvesting.
I'm not sure whether I mentioned it but on Sunday I cleared and planted the last of the summer salads and spinach from the polytunnel and replanted with lettuce. The polytunnel is now 95% replanted, with just a few containers to plant next week. Everything looks to be well established so far.
let's get back to Monday though, although maybe not because I stayed home for almost the whole day. This is actually a big event for me, because it happens to rarely, although because of COVID tests I think I've stayed home for 3 days this year so far. Staying home gave me the chance to give the house it's autumn clean, which I thoroughly enjoyed and I caught up on lots of other chores. I also gave the all of the window/door locks, hinges and latches a spray with silicon based lubricant, ready for winter.
Truth be told I did manage an evening walk to watch the sunset, so I wasn't totally housebound.
Freed from the need to stay in, awaiting a pickup from Amazon, I went to Caffe Nero in the morning and after a quick sauna at the gym I walked to Fairhaven Lake, which is a local beauty spot. The cafe there has just been refurbished and restored to a traditional look and feel. I love the estuary views from the lake side, but the cafe also now does excellent sourdough toast, which is a bonus.
In the afternoon I went to the allotment and sprayed all of the lettuces with a calcium supplement. In my soil I find some lettuce varieties fail to uptake calcium from the cold soil, resulting in what looks like tip burn, or die back. Since it was sunny and windy I gave all of the beds a good water and the leafy greens were dry again soon after.
Now is also a perfect time to spray the north side of all of my polythene structures with an organic algae killer, I don't want anything reducing light levels going into winter! I also took the opportunity to plant up hanging baskets with lettuces, hopefully these will provide an extra boost to our supply in January, when light levels almost stop growth. The hanging baskets get the most light and heat of all of my growing spaces.
The 'shell' sculpture on Cleveleys beach
I then drove to Cleveleys (little Cornwall) where I stocked up on gardening gear from Wilko and then had a picnic on the seafront, watching the sunset.
Not much of a sunset, but even so a great picnic view
Wednesday saw me risking a real soaking and hiking in Rivington again. On the same day the Lake District (40 miles north) had 12 inches of rain, I enjoyed barely a drizzle. As a result we got in an excellent hike, in t-shirts!
