My gardening DIARY

MONDAY

To deter carrot fly, I grow carrots in windowboxes on legs, 1m (3½ft) high. It works well and this summer we’ve had a good crop.

I let some run to seed to provide clouds of white flowers for my jam jar posies. They make a pretty, lacy filler between yellow rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ and spikes of Verbascum nigrum. Carrot seed heads are also dried for winter arrangements.

I’m growing a new variety of nicotiana, ‘Starlight Dancer’, which is also good for cut flowers. It has tall, airy stems covered with tiny, white, bell-shaped flowers. A useful infill plant between cosmos, sunflowers and salvias. It blooms all summer. My sunflowers are dark burgundy ‘Black Magic’, much loved by bees, and seeds provide a feast for birds.

I like to try new plants, and I’ve been given a new floribunda

October 10 2020 rose, ‘Belle de Jour’. It’s the Rose of the Year for 2021 and was sent from Roses UK, which promotes British rose growers. Flowers start bright yellow and fade to apricot shades. There’s plenty of pollen for bees, it’s beautifully scented and leaves look healthy and disease resistant. A good choice, as I don’t use sprays.

On the vegetable plot, my mildew-resistant ‘Valido’ peas have kept cropping through to autumn, though I’m saving some dried peas to grow pea shoots in winter. An easy addition to salads, and costs nothing using saved seed. I’ll sow them 2.5cm (1in) apart in a seed tray on the kitchen windowsill and snip them off when 12cm tall (4¾in).

Autumn is a time for clearing out and a fresh start. I’ve emptied the 6m (20ft) cedar greenhouse and repainted it black. My citrus trees will go back in when they’ve been checked for scale insects and aphids. Bumblebees hibernate down the sides of my lemon tree pots, but I’m filling small plant pots with moss and dry compost to stand in the greenhouse, hoping they’ll use these instead so I don’t disturb them when I water plants and re-pot my trees in spring.

In the greenhouse, I’ve planted paperwhite narcissi for Christmas, and sown sweet peas for early flowers next year. l Read more at www. bramblegarden.com and on Instagram @karengimson1.

As we head into autumn it’s good to have a new project to keep us busy. This year it’s a wildlife pond, something we’ve been talking about for years but now it’s coming to fruition.

Our younger two (adult) children have been keen to get on with this

Rosemary has been been keeping the lawn looking neat and tidy Dahlias are dazzling on the allotment A family garden in Astley Burf, Worcestershire, with recently developed beds and borders.

Karen grows cut flowers, fruit and veg in her country wildlife garden, and makes full use of a greenhouse and polytunnel. My recipe for these chocolate pots can be found on my blog

Pots of chervil are cropping well

The greenhouse is cleaned and painted ready for winter