Shows offer a yardstick!
Summer flower shows have been replaced by autumn ones, but they both provide sound evidence of what the growing season has been like for gardeners. Judging and discussing entries with other exhibitors offers a yardstick for comparison with my own harvests.
At Warkworth Show in midAugust, fellow judge Bob Stuart and I found the dahlia section was low in entries, but the quality good. Local grower Tony Cuthbert's vegetable collection was best in show, with the onions surprisingly large and ripe so early in the season. Two weeks later at Glendale Show the tables were turned. There were top-quality dahlias, with one exhibit of three vases taking best in show.
These show commitments have left us playing catch up in the garden. Weeding was the first job and that continues, followed by strimming a patch beyond the hedge that borders arable land. The field supports a crop of beans which means we’ve had pheasants, partridges and the occasional rabbit visiting the garden.
Harvesting our crops continues. Main season raspberries are spent, the old canes removed and new ones tied in. ‘Discovery’ is the first dessert apple to ripen in this garden
as Judy discovered when one fell into her hand recently! We’re harvesting a decent crop of onions.
We’ve pulled the plug on our greenhouse tomatoes to clear the border for late chrysanths in pots and winter lettuce. Remnants of the crop have been spread on newspaper and will all ripen given time. A modest collection of 20 or so streptocarpus is adding spectacular colour to the benches. I’ve recently taken leaf cuttings of each as backup in preparation for cooler nights.
Outdoors, constant deadheading of the roses has kept them in bloom, as containers of petunia and lobelia carry us through the month.