Bertie's Cottage

This blog will be a diary of what’s going on at Bertie’s Cottage: what we’re up to on the smallholding; what’s looking good or needing attention in the ornamental garden; what we’re eating; and beyond the gate, anything of interest that catches my attention in the small patch of Mid Devon that we call home.

The end of summer is usually a sad time, but after this year’s washout, we’re celebrating the arrival of autumn, especially today, since it sounds as if an unusually shower-free weekend is the start of a dryish spell – an Indian summer at last!

The garden is alive with bumblebees – I found four different species at one time on the stunning blue flowers of Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Heavenly Blue’. A three-foot tall, sun-loving shrub, with silvery leaves, its colour combines well with pink spikes of Physostegia virginiana (the obedient plant) and blonde plumes of Stipa gigantea (golden oats grass).
The veg garden continues to feed us with courgettes, sweetcorn and the bean tribe – runners that are always reliable, french beans that do less well in a wet year, and dwarf french beans, the most iffy of all, that - conveniently for slugs - fruit close to the ground. Raised beds with crops for the winter are filling up – leeks, brassicas, oriental greens and winter salads, beetroot that need to be pulled before the first frost, and parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes that are best left in the ground.