This time last week it was super hot and sunny, a bit of an extension to a summer that didn’t really happen. Then, it started raining and never stopped for the week, cold temperatures and high winds joined in. It is impossible to deny that fact that summer did finish (it did start too so I’m told) and the gloom and shadow in the garden backs that idea up. So I started to tidy things up for the winter, cutting down the tomatoes (picking off the remaining ripe tomatoes first) and taking down the beans (picking off the second, or maybe third, small harvest of french beans). One of the runner bean plants it full of flowers, they won’t come to anything but look quite nice at the moment and so I left them in.

The butternut squash plant has more room without the tomato plants, I helped it spread along a bit. Currently there is only one medium sized squash and and a number of small potential ones. I didn’t think we were going to get any so even just one will be nice.

I chopped up the plants I took out, using my knife to chop them into small pieces to add to the compost at the plot when I next go up. It would had done better if I had used the shredder but for the hassle and noise it seemed easier to a spend a little bit more time doing it manually. Cutting them up, shredding them, really does pay off when it comes to composting.