Category: Sunflowers

September is a most conspicuous month, parading nature’s catwalk in ostentatious seasonal apparel, flaunting its gold and vermillion treasures. In the September garden nothing is concealed and every detail of the allotment plot is revealed as once again we are invited to the annual show of pomp and pageantry wherein the garden displays its spring and summer efforts in autumn’s showcase collection: large blousy dahlia blooms together with bright white cosmos and smouldering tithonias; sedums, rudbeckias, anemones and echinaceas; late autumn sunflowers with second flush roses; boughs laden with ripening full blushed apples and pears, and all embellished with the first touches of gold and yellows now clearly discernible in the leaves of the horse chestnut trees and the berries of the rowans.

September, if we’re lucky, is not only summer’s parting gesture it is also the garden’s glorious swansong; an envoi to the gardener’s due diligence throughout the growing year.
And there is no hiding place in the September garden. Midst the mellowing magnificence there is often a murky mess and beneath the splendour there can be spoiling, for at the heart of the every garden’s golden grandeur there is -de rigueur- decay, and underlying September’s radiance there is often a raggedness not immediately obvious to the untrained eye.
The pea and bean crops have finished, and unpicked pods mildew and blacken on unkempt poles and frames; the summer cabbages left in bed at this late stage begin to look forlorn, and any remaining lettuces and wild rocket bolt; early chards, spinach and beetroot go over in the blink of an eye, and even late planted onions begin to break their own necks and lay themselves down. Pumpkins may be ripening fast, but, as with the courgettes the vines are brittle, grey and spent, while the outdoor tomatoes and cucumbers noticeably slow in ripening and betray the inability to cope with the overnight light loss and fluctuating temperatures by splitting spontaneously. The annual herbs such as coriander and dill have set seed as has the fennel, while the flowering thyme(s) and sage(s) bloom is withering fast. The rhubarb stools are done for the year and for the first time since April their crowns are visible, now sitting proud in their own patch, hemmed by a sprawling carpet of dying yellow leaves.
The September garden is one of the gardening calendars great celebrations with its glitzy, showy, razzle-dazzle richness with all accompanying tinted tones, and when taken together with the burgeoning harvest from the vegetable and kitchen garden it is little wonder that September is perhaps the gardeners’ favourite month of the year.
Although with over 3 months still remaining to year’s end, here at monsterinthecorner we can say –and with some quiet confidence-, that 2017 has been one of the best years ever on our allotment. Having completely shaken the dust of our previous allotment from our feet we relocated monsterinthecorner to our new plot at the beginning of January. We spent weeks and months earlier this year clearing and cultivating our newly acquired overgrown eyesore; we raised our beds and set our drills; we composted our leaves and mulched our runs, we laid out pathways and built and stained our shed, and we sowed our seed and we watered and weeded; then we weeded and watered, and watered, and weeded. We’ve had success with practically everything we sowed, and we’ve been enjoying the home-grown fruits of our labours since late April. We made our jams and chutneys; we shared our successes and we’ve jarred the excesses.
The monster’s beds are emptying rapidly, so we’ve collapsed the bean poles and pea frames and stacked and stored them away till next year. There is a creeping bareness about the monster at present, but we’ll be top dressing the bared patches with compost over the coming weeks, and after that we’ll cover-up to protect against the wetter excesses of winter.

We still have dwarf curled Kale and a later sowing of Tuscan Kale Negro on the go. We have the Tweed Swedes and some leeks coming along still, not forgetting the parsnips for later in the season. Our onions are cured and strung, and in the last week we’ve actually set some erysimum cuttings in pots, and sown some lupin and echinacea seeds for next spring. And there, right there is the constancy of the garden and allotment plot.
We faced a serious challenge at the end of last year, but having risen to the task, the dirt-digging Mrs and I have enjoyed ourselves no-end with our new venture. We’ve met some wonderful new acquaintances and have been recipients of many gifted seeds and seedlings throughout the spring and summer form new allotment neighbours. During our allotment site’s annual harvest festival at the end of August our immediate plot neighbours Daniel and Beata were deservedly awarded best large plot. Another neighbouring plot holder Pat won largest beetroot in the largest root competition for her 5lb 2oz specimen, Helen won tallest sunflower (after a good natured stewards enquiry) and Joe the Gardiner Street gardener won longest carrot and having accepted the judge’s decision in the sunflower category (i.e. that a sunflower has to have a full and open bloom to be suitable for inclusion in the category) acknowledged that he had, in fact, a 16 foot 2 inch bloomless green stalk. It was little comfort for Joe that his fabulous specimen actually showed its face 4 days later, and he can take some pride in knowing that he grew the tallest sunflower of the year, just not the tallest flower for the competition. That’s the thing with the garden and gardening; things happen in their own time, and if there was a packet or tin into which all our garden plans could be poured, we’d have to be very careful indeed regarding the packet blurb, for experience has shown that mother nature does not necessarily have to do exactly what we think it should say on the tin. Best small plot category was awarded to George, who keeps a very good allotment on the far side of the allotment site, and unbelievably the best overall plot award 2017 was awarded to the monsterinthecorner, and genuinely there was no one more surprised than Mrs Dirt Digger and myself.

The monster is cropping out, and activity all across the larger allotment site is slowing down. We’ve picked blackberries from the sprawling brambles which fence the allotment site from adjacent fields, and the growing starling numbers are beginning to gorge themselves on the now ripened rowan berries. Autumn is well and truly arrived and the monster has come through its transition in right royal style, we’ve been amply rewarded in every way for our efforts, and are puffed & chuffed that one of the plaudits (we’ve been reliably informed) is that the monster is now considered one of the “must have a look at” plots on site: No bad for 8 months, not too bad at all. However, there is an unfortunate after-effect with our small success in that we’ve now set the standard for ourselves. But, we’ll just enjoy this year’s monster success for what it is, and we’ll leave next year to this year’s winter plan.