Wednesday 30 September 2015

September

The thing I've been most chuffed with this month has been the Victoria plums. It's been the best year I can remember for them, no burrowing insects inside and very few have rotted on the tree. In the shops they're purple and green but growing my own means I can pick them at the peak of ripeness; they taste like they're laced with brown sugar.

Also cropping this month: runner and French beans, kale, mizuna, leaf beet, carrots, blackberries and raspberries. Nom nom.



Nectar plants in September

Flowering this month for the bees and butterflies:

Agastache foenicolium 
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) 
Aster frikartii "Monch" 
Aster cordifolius "Little Carlow"
Bladder campion
Blood Pink (Dianthus cruentus)
Borage 
Buddleia
Catmint (Nepeta mussini)
Cirsium rivulare "Atropurpureum" 
Clover - wild, white 
Comfrey
Coreopseris verticillata
Cosmos "Sensation Mixed" and "Pied Piper"
Dahlia "Redskin" 
Didiscus "Madonna Mixed"
Echinacea purpurea
Echium "Blue Bedder" Eupatorium purpurea
Evening primrose 
French beans
Golden Marguerite (Anthemis tinctoria "Sauce Hollandaise") 
Helenium "Sahin's Early Flowerer" 
Helianthus "Lemon Queen"
Marjoram (Origanum marjorana) 
Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot, bee balm)
Nicotiana "Lime Green"
Perovskia "Blue Spire" (Russian sage)
Phacelia tanacetifolia (second crop)
Potentilla atrosanguinea 
Rose Campion 
Rosebay willowherb
Rudbeckia "Marmalade"
Runner beans 
Sainfoin
Scabiosa atropurpurea "Oxford Blue" 
Scabiosa caucasia "Perfect Blue" 
Sedum
Snapdragon 
Verbena bonariensis
Veronica spicata
Wallflower "Bowles Mauve" 


 Cosmos in the meadow mix.

 Lovely light at this time of year.



 Newly emerged comma.

 Carder bee on dahlia.

 Some plants save their glory for the autumn - like this aster "Little Carlow" - just staring to flower at the end of September. (Now renamed symphyotricum but I can't pronounce that).

Little stunner more like.