Ideal weather

Sunday 19th October

A great day to be out in the garden. Sunny with temperatures around the low to mid 70's and a gentle cooling breeze blowing.

The Persimmon Trees are in full colour.

Today I want to get my garlic in. It needs to be planted now and left dormant through the winter.

I selected 16 good sized cloves for planting in the front portion of Plot 1.

They go in "pointed" end up and around an inch under the surface.

Then I mulched the whole plot. This plot is now finished for this season.

Plot 2 has been invaded by around 25 of these........................

......tiny volunteer tomato plants which have sprung up from my homemade compost. They can't stay as I have plans for this area so I dig them in.

Here's what's going in.

Tiny bulbs from the Winter onions I gathered up last weekend. I kept them in the house and they have started to shoot. I have enough for around 4 decent clumps and they go in on the right hand end of the plot. These too are planted about an inch below the surface.

The Brussels Sprout plants are doing fine despite the constant gnawing by the grasshoppers. I intend to put a plastic cover over this plot a little later.

A thick layer of mulch is applied and that's another plot done with for this year.

The volunteer tomato plants in Plot 4 continue to produce pretty good fruit........

....like this.....................

.....and this.
Plot 5 is a mass of greenery, Cabbage, Kohlrabi and Cauliflower all fighting for supremacy.

At the other end of the plot...............

......the Swiss Chard is romping on. This is my Spinach substitute and will hopefully provide us with a few fresh greens when all else is gone.

Plot 6 continues to produce, it's amazing.

We made a batch of tomato soup last week to use them up but the kitchen windowsill is full again.

On Thursday evening I was peering through the mass of twisted vines and spotted this big fellow hiding in the middle.

I mean, how do you not see something of this size?

I then pulled my Catnip plants...............

....and hung them in the kitchen.

Last job of the afternoon was to turn the compost heap

This job is best done when temperatures are lower as they are today. Even then it's hard work. Maybe I'm just getting old.