Unbelievably beautiful weather - in September

[ideasguy]

What a summer this has been here in Ireland!
I can see everyone is out enjoying it judging by the number of members visiting

Mary's brother (Gene) was over "back home" for 3 weeks. They live 6 months in Canada and 6 months in Palm Springs and we had an unbelievable holiday in their Palm Springs home in March this year.
We returned the favour and took our guest out sightseeing and visiting every day (so not much activity here on the forum). No Las Vegas to offer    but we took him to revisit many of the tourist attractions in our region and visiting family and friends.
As a special birthday celebration, his wife organised his dream event - to go to a football match at Old Trafford to see his favourite team - Manchester United.
My son has a friend with a season ticket and he managed to get him and I two tickets. We were at the Man United -v- QPR game last Sunday.  He was delighted as they had all their new stars appearing for their home debut and they recorded their first win of the season, beating QPR 4-0. We stayed over on Sunday evening and met up with Tara (who works in Manchester) for dinner and "refreshments".

Gene had packed warm clothes for his visit. He didn't need them of course. He remarked that there wasn't one shower for the entire holiday, and it was very warm every day.
He flew home earlier today so we have been resting up - spending the afternoon in the garden soaking up the sunshine. It was like a very good midsummer day

The garden is loving this weather. Ive been spending hours watering perennials in the garden! The autumn flowering plants - Asters, Phlox, Dahlias, Anthemis etc were struggling! That is something Ive never had to do before at this time of year.

[ideasguy]

Rain! We had some welcome rain overnight and light grey skies this morning.
Google tells us its the first day of Autumn!

Heavy crops of Plums and Damsons have been harvested and now we have jam in abundance.
Now its Apple harvesting season.
Pear harvesting will not take long - I can see two on the triploid tree, none on the others. Grow Pears for your heirs seems to be correct!

[NightHawk]

Great to see you're enjoying the best of the weather at the moment George, and acting as a perfect host to Gene I'm sure 

We're having a mixed bag of weather conditions here.  The evenings are now getting darker - from about 7.30pm - and very damp overnight.

Had a fog warning this morning from 5.30am to about 9am, but it didn't affect us as we didn't have an early start arranged.

Sunny today but slightly cooler than last week.  It was the Autumnal Equinox on 21 September so we're officially in the Autumn season, although I believe for gardening purposes that term applies for later on (I'm not quite certain though  ).

The mix of sun and dewy nights are bringing up the grass and weeds for us, so have to try and keep on top of those.

We don't have any pear trees (or any other fruit trees for that matter) so we don't have any 'harvesting' to do    No doubt you've got some nice recipes planned to make the most of your pears though George - yummy!

I'm waiting for the leaves of the trees around the Forest to go through their colour changes, so I can get some beautiful photographs.  I'm currently building up a portfolio to launch my new New Forest website.  I've got the domain name registered but nothing has been uploaded to it yet.  I'll reveal that soon, hopefully 

[ideasguy]

We've also had a few foggy mornings, but the good weather continues, and we can see from the forecasts that its always a few degrees higher on the South coast where you are Laurie. The London area seems to have enjoyed the highest temperatures all summer. Bet they could do with some rain though. We actually had very little and now its dry again. The manual watering continues

RE:

I'm currently building up a portfolio to launch my new New Forest website.  I've got the domain name registered but nothing has been uploaded to it yet.  I'll reveal that soon, hopefully

I can see from your postings that that is your new passion Laurie. Looking forward to the launch.
I know you will do a good job of it

[Eric Hardy]

Here in the Chilterns we have been enjoying the sort of summer I remember as a child. I think the wet days disappear from the memory  . The only down side has been the amount of watering needed (AND we are on a water meter!). Our large patio pots and tubs have needed watering daily. The lack of rain doesn't always mean blazing sunshine all the time, today is quite overcast, but not a drop of rain in sight. The plus side has been resting our ancient limbs in the shade of an apple tree from time to time (when we should have been pulling up weeds  )

Eric H

[NightHawk]

I really like your style there Eric - just sitting in your garden enjoying the peace and tranquility surrounded by your beautiful plants.

Ignore the weeds for now Eric and pull them when you can 

[NightHawk]

Well, you put the thought of weeds into my head Eric so I've been out cutting the grass this afternoon 

Slightly overcast, but dry and quite humid - actually around 20 deg C today (and tomorrow).  Almost a heavy atmosphere indicative of thunderstorms, but although none are forecast I decided to not take the risk by putting off the task.

Still plenty of other weeds to tackle but they can wait for another day 

[Eric Hardy]

The first day of October and still no rain! A lovely day again and a very heavy dew this morning. Our Keen gardener son Adam from Wales was with us overnight and did more tasks in the garden in a couple of hours than I could manage in a week.

Eric H

[NightHawk]

Similar weather here too Eric 

Maybe you should send Adam over our way.  There's still plenty of gardening work I need to tackle, so plenty to go around 

Like you though Eric, I do my gardening work in stages.  The body's not getting any younger and needs a lot of TLC, just like the flowers.

Fortunately, we don't have a huge garden so it's not an enormous job to keep it looking tidy.

[Eric Hardy]

5th October. Gloriously sunny morning and the garden is looking beautifully refreshed after some very welcome rain yesterday morning.

Eric H

[ideasguy]

Not gloriously sunny, but a nice day here in Ireland as well Eric.
Overnight on Thursday we had wind and rain. Friday it rained on and off most of the day but calmer.
Since then its been quite pleasant.

Dug some potatoes on Saturday and the soil was nice and workable again. We are not used to hard dried up gardens over here
Enjoy that glorious weather over there folk!

[NightHawk]

Dry and sunny here today with temperatures around 14 Degrees C.

Went for a walk around the Anderwood area of the Forest, gathering more photos for my website along the way.

Weather forecast for the next few days is light to heavy rainfall    Ho-hum.

[NightHawk]

The weather forecast is correct so far today.  We've got heavy rain as I write, and is expected to last for most of the day, with a few hours respite between about 3pm and 11pm.

Much of the same for the rest of the week too, with a possibility of hail showers on Wednesday    Oh boy!

[ideasguy]

We had that storm overnight Laurie - very high winds and rain.
Today it was calm with sunshine again! MUCH colder though! Autumn has arrived 

[trishs]

hello everyone!  Yes, what a truly lovely September we had. 

We returned from three days holiday on Herm in the second week of the month and since then have been working flat out to get everything done before the first proper frosts begin.  I've just about got all the really important stuff packed into the different greenhouses but still have various bulbs to plant, mainly into containers but some in the space after the dahlias have been lifted.

[NightHawk]

It's good to see you back on the Forum again Trish - your input has been missed.

Indeed, it's that time of the gardening year again when we 'batten down the hatches' so to speak.  Get our gardens in order before the winter sets in.  Brrrr!

Apparently, we're getting the effects of the jet-stream skirting around to the south of us at the moment which is bringing in strong winds and rain.  This is making our gardening activities a tad awkward, everything is so sodden.  We don't have a greenhouse so can't do any work there.

Actually, we don't really have a lot of winter prep work to do.  Mainly weeding and tidying up.  We're surrounded by oak trees so a lot of the tidying is from the fallen leaves 

[ideasguy]

Yes, welcome back Trish

Autumn is well and truly arrived here. Its the first day in a long time that I didn't venture into the garden - cold, wet and blustery. Some very heavy showers. A good day for software development
Lots of apple windfalls to deal with. We had a lovely apple crumble after dinner this evening and a lovely apple tart put in the freezer. We have so much frozen and stewed fruit the freezer inside and out in the garage are crammed.

On Monday, Mary made soup from our abundance of tomatoes. I don't like tomato soup normally, but this was something different.
I'll raise a new topic and share the recipe.

[NightHawk]

Looking forward to your recipe George 

Weather took a turn for the worse today - gale force winds, thunder and lightning and torrential rain.   Interspersed with the odd bit of clear sky when the sun appears, but then the storm clouds roll in again.  Not cold though, which is the only positive 

[ideasguy]

Ive created a new topic and posted the recipe here Laurie:
http://www.flowergenie.co.uk/ideas/forum/index.php/topic,2207.0.html

Bright and sunny here today and not as cold as earlier in the week. I'll be out in the garden this afternoon to see if anything needs done  

[NightHawk]

Got the recipe George 

Weather here is similar to yesterday - less the strong winds, so no gardening going on here for now.
 

[trishs]

Back again folks!  Really sorry about the absence and lack of contribution, just so much stuff to do when I'm online. 

The weather here today has been unusually warm and pleasant for the time of year.  Had some help (more info asap) weeding what I refer to as the Shade Border and am amazed to find a goodly selection of epimediums and ferns still surviving beneath the encroaching ivy, Herb Robert, woundwort, geranium phaum and various other spreaders.  Hoping to get out in a few hours to pop a few new plants and bulbs in before the rains arrive.  It's ever so dry under the trees and ivy so hoping the rain will get through sufficiently to get the replanted items off to a good start.  We were also able to plant up a new asparagus bed (on the same site as the old one) on Saturday as soon as the new plants arrived, so that too will enjoy the rain.  They are also forecasting a cold night to follow it, but then back to mild again during the following days.  Just wondering when the dahlias will take a hit.....