Six on Saturday | 2nd September 2023

Yikes, September! The days are definitely shortening and cooling down, but that doesn’t seem to bother the plants yet. This past week was very damp, which was great for the garden but meant that I wasn’t out there cleaning up as much as usual. This coming week is supposed to be mild and sunny, so hopefully that will all be made up.

1. Politely-sized accidental herb bed sunflowers are a cheerful sight to see from the kitchen window. I’m going to have to plant them on purpose next year. Hopefully, I’ll be able to collect seeds from these two before the birds do it for me.

2. ‘Victoria’ plums are going to be ready to pick in another week, some are ready now. It’s nice to graze as you’re wandering around the garden. Guess I’d better get the steam juicer ready.

3. Unnamed packet of bedding dahlias produces yet another keeper. Has anyone had any luck saving the tubers from these seed-started plants? I’d like to see a couple of these next year. The light purple streaking on this is prettier than some of my big named plants.

4. ‘Golden Currant’ tomatoes have produced many trusses (unlike most of my other varieties this year), but now it’s that anxious period of waiting for them to ripen. I was able to pick a couple this morning (quite tasty) so have high hopes that the rest will soon follow. Some have cracked from the rains but most of them seem to be doing pretty well since it’s been so consistently damp.

5. This is an accidental apple tree. It was a seedling when we moved onto the property and we never bothered to remove it so… now it’s a two-story tree that makes sour apples which I usually use for juice and jelly. It also drops a large load of apples all over one corner of my cutting garden. The mess isn’t pretty to look at, but the wildlife enjoy them and it keeps them distracted from the smaller trees I planted just across the swale.

6. A peek at my latest project, a new row in my veg garden! Because the more varieties I try, the more we want to keep and grow more of. Which is great for the dinner table, but really annoying when I’m trying to figure out where to put all those seedlings. Extra bonus for the husband, since there’s less lawn for him to mow.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!

16 thoughts on “Six on Saturday | 2nd September 2023”

  1. All you fruit and vegetables look very tasty. The new seed beds look good. I’m sure you will be able to lift the dahlia tubers, I’ve grown some from seed and have spotted little tubers growing.

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    1. Aww, thank you! I’m especially happy this year because my kid decided he really likes our fresh green beans and is asking me to make pickled beets! One of the reasons I started gardening at the house was to get him involved in the veggie growing (and eating!) process, so it feels so validating lol. Do you have any special techniques for overwintering dahlias? The little ones seem so fragile.

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  2. Great pics! I’ve had good results overwintering tubers of dahlias sown from seed, the tricky bit (as with all lifted dahlias is just keeping them dry enough so they don’t rot off in the winter. This year I’m going to experiment, leaving half of each clump in the ground with a heavy mulch, and lifting and storing half, to see which really does work best!

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    1. Yes, I was thinking it might have to be a multi-step process, since this has been such a damp autumn. I plan to pull my bigger dahlias at first frost, which will be easy since they are in individual pots, and take into the barn to dry out for a bit before storing in the root cellar. With the seed-grown ones, I’m going to have to dig them out more carefully, but figured I might just transfer them to pots with some soil and let them do the same thing? Because they’re younger and smaller, I’m more worried about them rotting away than the big fat ones. Do you have any special storage techniques?

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      1. No special techniques as such – I think the key thing is getting them really dry before going into storage, as the slightest bit of damp can trigger rotting (as I learned to my cost last winter). Sarah Raven recommends washing the soil off tubers before storing, but I think this is what caused mine to rot last year, so this year I’ll lift, gently brush off as much soil as I can, then hang up to dry for a bit before storing in trays of dry compost, or shredded newspaper, in the shed. Last year I dusted the tubers with sulphur as that’s meant to help with disease, but I lost most of them to rot so I can’t say I recommend it! I would imagine that if you transferred to pots soon and left the pots somewhere to dry out a bit, the results would be similar – really you just want to prevent the combination of cold + wet. Let us know how you get on!

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      2. In theory, I know that it is no different from the way I’m curing and storing potatoes and onions, but the fear comes in the fact that if a variety is lost, sometimes it’s not possible to track it down again! Note taken about not washing — I’ll use a soil hygrometer before putting them in storage to be sure!

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    1. Fingers crossed! I’ll probably transfer it to a pot with some of its soil and let it stay unwatered in the root cellar. They’re rather young, so I’m afraid of causing too much root disturbance.

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