Harvest time

I love this time of year all those days sitting in the wind and the rain cursing the English summer weather. When you want to be out tending the vegetable patch are forgotten about.

Its time to start enjoying the produces of my labour and as a bonus I get a welcome break from the long suffering. That said theirs a lot of work still to be done, all that harvesting and dead heading takes time.

The one good thing about the weather this year is that there’s a bumper crop. I’ve picked five bags full of runner beans already, the freezers stuffed full of the things, the onions are coming on a treat and I’ve never seen so many tomatoes in my life- I haven’t a clue what to do with them all.

The plums haven't turned out as nice this year as they have in previous years, but hopefully it won't affect the long sufferings plum jam she loves to make the stuff. Can't say I'm particularly fond of it but She does redeem herself with a rhubarb crumble to die for.

I won’t let her get her hands on my apples, I have a much better use for them. Me and my friend Tom make an amazing cider that’s full of flavour and will last right up until Christmas, the recipe was pasted down from my father and has been perfected over a number of years. The locals love the stuff.

What happened then?

I've been away for a week at my sister Enid's place down in Gloucestershire - I thought I'd take advantage of the summer whilst I could. My boss at Rootgrow reckoned I'd done enough to earn two days off - the cheeky so and so!

Anyway, it was a bit of a busman's holiday and I packed my spade and rake and a few sachets of Rootgrow (a staff perk!) and off we set. Now I knew that the place had some water - but my, it was heartbreaking to see the damage caused by the floods that hit the area last month. In addition to the water damage, the recent few days of summer we've had meant some of the places stunk to high heaven.

Normally at this time of year I'd be making sure that all my plants were well watered. I'd also be dead heading, making sure my canes were all supporting what they should be supporting, doing a bit of pruning and so on. In other words, August should be a time for admiring the fruits of your labours. It's a month for eating freshly baked cakes, drinking a bottle of cold beer and catching on some well earned kip.

But not this year. It was almost a military manoeuvre trying to get Enid's blessed garden looking like a garden rather than the aftermath of a shocking winter. Anyway, I think I managed to do a reasonable job - and hopefully the place will be back to its pristine best again next year.

Back home yesterday and in between showers, I just did a bit of pottering - but next weekend is a holiday weekend and I'm planning on a big blitz I can tell you. I'm looking forward to picking the first of my courgettes - they look lovely and tender - and I've another fantastic crop of plums and raspberries which are destined for the pie dish!

Now I don't know about you but I rather like having a nosey at other people's gardens and I'm usually the first in the queue when a new garden is opened up to the public. But I'll tell you one thing - I'd stay clear of this couple's garden. Apparently they like to garden in the altogether.

That's fine - it's a free country. But they also open their gardens for other nudie people to look at. And do you know what? They get 250/300 people turn up - with no clothes on looking round their garden.

What is this world coming to?

Let me tell you, the first bloke that turns up here with no clothes on asking to look round my potato patch gets a hoe where it hurts and a rake where he wishes he hadn't!

One must have standards you know.

Garden of England survives!

Being located in the Garden of England we often boast some the best weather in the country - and whilst the rest of the country was seemingly disappearing under a sea of rainwater, myself and the Long Suffering enjoyed a sunny day in the garden. Mind you such days have been as rare as rocking horse droppings of late - but we did have a cracking day yesterday and I managed to catch up with some long overdue weeding. I also collected a tray or two of cherry plums from our tree - the poor thing was almost bent double with the amount of fruit on its branches and I swear I heard it sigh with relief when I'd harvested the crop.

So, it was a nice portion of plum crumble with Sunday tea! What's more, with our Horticultural Society's Summer Show coming up on Saturday, the Long Suffering should be odds-on for the Plum Jam prize!

A day in the gaden is never enough though is it? I could have done with another six or seven hours today - but work calls and I've a week working with my friendly fungi to look forward to.

My job at Rootgrow involves working with mycorrhizal fungi - "what?" I hear you say. Well I shall explain.

Having co-evolved with plants and trees for over 500 million years, mycorrhizal fungi are widespread throughout nature and are a fundamental reason for normal plant growth and development.

Such fungi colonise plant or tree roots, extending the root system into the surrounding soil, via an extensive network of fungal filaments (up to 20 metres in a teaspoon of soil). These thread-like filaments extract nutrients and water from a large soil volume and exchange them for carbon from the plant. This secondary root system, when established, links the root systems of adjacent plants or trees and helps share, more efficiently, nutrient resources throughout the plant community.

You don't have to chang your garden methods to introduce mycorrhizal fungi - a simple application of Rootgrow to the roots of plants at planting time will suffice.

It is now recognised that the lack of the mycorrhizal relationship is a major cause of poor plant and tree establishment, and weak growth in a variety of agricultural, urban and suburban landscapes, and gardens.

So, for that perfect garden, take a look at Rootgrow.

There. That should get me an extra fiver in my Christmas bonus!