Last week I passed a house which spread a tiny organic vegetable shop in front of their front garden. It seems they have an allotment and they a grow great quantity of vegetables. I’m sure they eat their own vegetables but I guess they sometimes get too much crop so that they sell what they couldn’t consume to public. All the vegetables looked healthy so I decided to take some mini tomatoes, courgettes, green & purple beans, a marrow and … these round things that caught my eyes. I thought they were apples first but they weren’t. Can you guess what they are?
My watermelon is getting bigger. Soon it is ready to harvest at last! But …
Eh?😲, Really? In London?
It looks just like a watermelon, doesn’t it? But its size is actually much much smaller.
It was about a month ago that I picked the first Blackberry of the year. On the way back home from a little walk to the local Sunday market I noticed the berries were just getting ripe. It means that one year has passed since I had missed all the possibilities to pick Blackberries last summer and I did not want to miss the chance this time again. So, my Blackberry picking time started!
I have picked Blackberries twice so far this summer. Since then the weather became very rainy in London and I haven’t had a chance to do the third one yet. Apart from eating them fresh as a dessert with some other fruits and yogurt I made Frozen Yogurt and Sourdough Bread with them and also added Blackberries to anything I bake.
Britain is in the best season in a year now. It is also the great season for soft fruits. About two weeks ago I was given a very beautiful surprising gift. It was a huge bowl-full of magnificent Redcurrants which was from a very grand garden of a good friend of mine.
Yay, it is Raspberry time. It has been raining a lot almost every day here in London so I hardly water plants in my garden.
Whilst I was not even going out to my garden my Raspberries gradually started to appear. They were small and green at the beginning and became bigger …
It was ‘RHS Chelsea Flower Show’ week last week. It is the biggest Flower show on earth and people from all over the world exhibit their design and display. I am not a member of RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) but love to go there whenever it is available. Although I was not expecting that would happen to me this year, I got a ticket accidentally so I went to view beautiful gardens.
My Chelsea viewing starts as soon as I come out from the tube station. The nearest station to the show is Sloan Square which leads to King’s Road with lots of clothes shops. During the Flower Show period many shops around there use flowers as a part of their window display. I always wander around there before walking towards the show.
I am a bit annoyed that although it is the middle of November, I am still writing some posts about my stay in Japan in October. I really should hurry up! I try to post something I encountered in Japan that does not occur to me in England. And this was one of those things.
I like gardening and I particularly like growing something edible. I have tried planting various things and some become successful and some are completely failure. As I mentioned before I learnt that Okra/Ladys’ Finger is the biggest No-no plant in London and another I gave up even before trying is this plant.
This plant was in my mother’s garden. I was looking forward to being there when they harvest it. Do you know what this plant is?
I am in Japan now. Because of some technical issue (I don’t mean Japan is technically behind though) I have not been able to post as often as I would want to do.
“Autumnal Equinox Day (秋分の日)”
The 23rd of September was our national holiday “Autumnal Equinox Day (秋分の日)”. After this day the length of the daytime gets shorter than the nighttime day by day so this was officially the end of summer.
Still it is quite hot and humid here. The daytime temperature now is just below 30°C so it is almost the same as the hottest summer day in London.
In the garden Okra is still flowering and we can harvest some. Okra is one of the vegetables I wanted to grow in London and gave up after trying for a few years. It does sprout and gets cotyledons – the first leaves but … never reaches to the point having true leaves. So, I am happy to see the plant growing here. It’s been a bit late but some Peanuts plants are also growing in the garden here. I am looking forward to harvesting home-grown Peanuts sometime soon.
One afternoon we had visitors. This is Bella the Jack Russel. She came to my garden with Liliane for Tea. This was Bella’s first time coming to our garden so she was so excited and explored everywhere. That is why she was covered with some stuff on her body.
So for the Tea I made two things. ‘Sweet Potato Muffins’ and my signature biscuit ‘Kinako Shortbread’.
We have the first flower/bloom in a year in my garden right at the moment. It is Camellia. It was already here when we moved in so I don’t know the specific horticaltural name unfortunately. It is ‘the red blossom one’. The blossom is rather nice but it had a tough few years. It was maybe because that Blue Tits seem to like pecking the buds and it was not given the chance to open them properly. Although it does not have millions of blossoms even this year, it created good enough number to admire. Well done Camellia. You made me very happy.
I don’t do any gardening during winter. When the sunlight starts becoming slightly brighter and it gets warmer, I notice the first sign of spring in my garden. I can see it even through the window of the back room. When I notice this first sign of spring there is one thing I have to do. Although the sky is brighter, the air is still quite cold so I often hesitate to do the task and delay…
What I see from the window is Clematis, Clematis on the trellis which stands right next to the back room. I can see tiny buds are appearing from the almost dead looking stems. During the growing season Clematis’ stems tangle up each other and it goes in all sort of directions. It is only in its dormant period that I can see the structure of the plant without any leaves. You should tidy up and navigate the stems to the right directions right now so that it will look good in summer time.
Buds are starting to appear from almost dead looking stems of Clematis
But you must hurry to do the task! Because once you notice the newly appearing buds, they start to grow very fast. If you hesitate going outside, it will be too late to do the task and the leaves are tangled up in the blink of an eye. Almost every year I hesitate to go outside a little too long and struggle to do the task properly later.
However, this year, I managed to do it already without any hesitation. I even re-painted the trellis. No tangling at all.
Oops, some leaves are painted as well.
I just hope the Clematis flowers well this year. Last year it was not its best at all.