Well, I managed to tear myself away from Tiny Adventures for a little bit and spend some time in the garden this morning.

It’s been a funny summer – with the only times it’s been decent enough to spend in the garden, we’ve been away instead. As a result, everything is looking rather neglected. So today, I gave the flowerbed a good hoeing to get rid of all the weeds that have accumulated, but also had a good look around to see what’s growing well and what I want to do differently next year.

The tomatoes have done very well. This is the second year I’ve grown them (Gardener’s Delight) and although they were late starting, I seem to have a bumper crop this year – I just hope all of them will ripen in time. Their flavour is really nice – so much better than supermarket tomatoes. I will definitely be growing these again next year.

The runner beans (first attempt this year) didn’t go quite as well. These were the variety ‘Enorma’ and while we seemed to get a reasonable crop, we just didn’t enjoy eating them that much – they were too stringy and chewy.

Another failure was a pepper plant that we were kindly given by Ackers and Bealers – I feel horribly guilty that it hasn’t thrived in my care, but it hasn’t so much as flowered, let alone produced even a solitary pepper. Not quite sure what I did wrong, but might not be a good choice for next year’s produce.

On the plus side, I put in some new border plants earlier this year: a hebe, 3 lavenders and an aster. The hebe and lavenders I can all put in the “stuff that didn’t die despite having me to look after them” column of gardening, and the aster has just thrived with loads of flowers, despite Akra Jr trampling them on pursuit of a football a day after I’d planted them. Really quite miraculous.

Also, Li’l Bhaji’s sunflower seed that he brought home from nursery actually flowered which I never thought it would as all the slugs from miles around all seemed to find it very delectable.

So, plans for next year. Well we’re currently waiting for a quote to get the front garden path redone (and all the loose stones that the neighbourhood cats poo in taken away) which will also involve ripping up some of the old plants and tree that’s blocking light from our living room.

I’d like to put in a small flowerbed under the window as a replacement so always open to advice on what to put in it. There’s a very bushy clematis next to that window and I would quite like to have some small (i.e. lower than the window!) rose bushes underneath without it all looking too formal – is that unrealistic?

Fruit and vegetables-wise, I’m going to grow the tomatoes again, but also go for potatoes, carrots and strawberries all in various tubs. I need to get going on the strawberries if I want them to fruit for next summer so am planning to get them planted in the next fortnight.

I’d like to get some spring bulbs for the front garden too, but can’t really start on that until the work’s done. I suspect that might be a project for the following year, instead.