New paintings and regular art updates.
A few tiny tomatoes, some from our plants, most from an allotment we helped on. I think they were brought on by some ripe bananas that give out a gas which helps ripen fruit around them. My hubby says the chemical symbol for the gas is Ethene (previously called Ethylene) CH2=CH2….We have a few apples too. I used a cooking apple yesterday with some cider to make a very tasty apple sauce. I’m going to use the rest of the apples up in a cake.
I’m still waiting, on the 3rd November, for my hanging baskets to get knocked off by the frost. October was the fifth wettest since the 19th century. And it was wet, and windy. A couple of ex hurricanes blew over us, the sky stayed battleship grey for a lot of the month. The wind makes our windows whistle and moan in the kitchen if its from the South West, and the noise moves to the front of the house if the wind shifts to the North East. That’s why the plants do well round the back, they are in a little sheltered micro climate. So I’m waiting to see what happens tomorrow… And not just in the garden!
This is a duplicated photo of the orchids in my window. I thought they were hard to grow, but they seem to thrive on the neglect they get from me. I generally just give them a bit of water once a week. I think you are supposed to mist them with water and give them orchid food but that doesn’t happen. I did try repotting them but I killed one because I didn’t know they like clear pots so the roots get light. Some of the roots are ariel ones that need to be allowed freedom from the pot. One of my plants has sent out two flower spikes since I got it. I’m hoping it will do it again.
It was hailing earlier, then a great shower of rain and then the sun came out. That sort of weather when it doesn’t know what it’s doing… Leaves are still on the plants and flowers too. Mainly because it’s been cloudy at night, keeping the heat in a bit. The lowest temperature I’ve seen was about 5.2°C in the middle of the night.
My hanging baskets are looking a bit bedraggled but we will see what happens over the next few days. Life cycles round, winter arrives later every year…
Chimney pots outside Cherished Chimneys in Longport, Stoke-on-Trent during Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent’s national sketching weekend in the Summer of 2019. So many shapes and sizes. We bought a couple as planters and filled them full of summer flowers. They make a terrific display because it raises the plants up above the ground. It’s also a good reuse of an object that might otherwise get smashed and used for hard-core on a building site.
Sunflower silhouetted in the bright sunlight of an aurumn day.
From am original photograph taken at Trentham Gardens in 2019. Edited in the Layout app that works with Instagram and Facebook.
Floating in the air, defying gravity.
I like ivy, it covers the ground, grows up trees, makes berries birds can eat. Places where birds can nest where it grows up walls. This is a mixture of plain and variegated varieties. It’s mature because it’s growing berries now. There is a Holly Bush near it which is also making berries. I might even make a wreath for the door when it gets to Christmas.
Nasturtium with varigated leaves and other plants that are in front of the house. The only problem is the litter that blows about outside. Now I wear gloves or pick it up in a plastic bag to dispose of it.
Today I saw several discarded marks just lying on the pavement mixed with the fallen leaves. How horrible that people won’t take care of the place they live in. I hate the way they take no responsibility for their environment.
Our plants out the front are doing well although I’ve seen people through the front window, stopping when walking their dogs, no doubt to pee on the plants! Still I’m glad we grow them…
It’s mid October and the baskets just keep flowering. This ones on the garden shed, another sheltered spot. I would recommend ordering them from a small nursery or farm, they generally end up filled with more and different flowers that have matured more by the time you get them. I usually ask for lots of colour and the lady that plants them up will put in lobelia, begonias, fushias, trailing petunias, and other flowers I can’t remember the names of. Then we fill our own baskets with pelagoniums, small sunflowers and trailing tomato plants (this year). I hang baskets one below another. Then set up pots on the wall and the ground. Finally we’ve grown a few, like this one, on the shed. Those have had nasturtium seeds put in them and have given a lovely late flowering display. In all the sadness of this year they have given me great joy.
Despite the cold, wet weather the flowers in the back yard continue to survive. If we get any bad frosts I think they will go, but the sheer number of them packed together offer shelter to all of them.
So pleased we had the hanging baskets filled by a little farm nursery back in May/June, they have certainly been worth the initial cost. I go outside and am immediately cheered.
Mallaband-Brown