Summer 2021 review
by Wendy Syddall
I’m sad to say the end of summer is here and as much as I hate the hot weather that come with it and the lack of rain I like the garden in summer. I’ve had a mixed year with seeds and my vegetable growing but a good year flower wise.
I grew Tithonia, sunflowers, poppies, sweetpea and cosmos from seed this summer. The Tithonia are lovely but only started flowering in late August, however, I will definitely grow them again as they are still flowering and we don’t have much orange in the garden.


The sunflowers have done really well and are still going at more than 6 foot tall with multiple flowers per plant.


The poppies did ok but they never last long and so I often miss them flowering and therefore have no pictures. The cosmos I sowed late and as per their usual habit haven’t even considered flowering yet. They start later every year. The sweetpeas have been lovely although eaten by the greenfly. I have a few ladybirds on the plants but they are overcome with too much food I think.
The vegetables have been interesting, I sowed carrots, courgettes and tomatoes. The carrots I harvested today and look more like radishes.

The courgettes keep flowering but don’t create any fruit and my tomatoes while very healthy plants didn’t have many fruit but were largely neglected I think. I planted them direct into ground this year for the first time and I’m not sure I’ll do it again.
However, the roses including 2 new ones have been beautiful this year. The helenium, penstamen and many other cottage garden plants have been good and are still flowering or at least they were when I last checked but today it’s been so wet I imagine they may have suffered.


Growing plants from seed is always a mixed bag at least for me. I grew a tray of zinnias and ended up with one that bloomed. I had even less luck with sweetpeas, but my Tithonia that were in full sun really put out the blooms. The plants look terrible right now, but I’ve left them so the bees can continue to enjoy the flowers. We had a terribly wet summer and various flowers and veggies responded differently. Happy fall!
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Many thanks for the summary. I agree with your evaluation of the “carrots”,
Enjoy the autumn . . . and the planning for next year.
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