I feel like it’s been a slow start to the year, vegetable gardening wise. I somehow managed to start things off too soon, before all danger of frost had gone, but then also the things that I did time right have been so slow to start coming through. However, we are starting to see some greenery and things are looking more promising as the sun comes out. Radishes, meanwhile, are always a saving grace, as they grow so quickly.

If the weather is anything to go by, we’re fully into autumn now. We’re either having those glorious days where the sun is shining but the air is brisk, or it’s absolutely hammering it down giving the earth some much needed moisture. I’m seeing plenty of info out there about things you can still do in your garden, but I have to admit I’ve lost a bit of steam this year.

Like many people, I spent some of my lockdown time in the garden: digging, planting, weeding, wondering, waiting. It seemed like a sensible thing to do, we weren’t allowed to go on any grand adventures, so why not go on a bit of a journey closer to home? I’ve tried growing things before, my so-called Great Gardening Adventure that resulted in a couple of tomatoes, a withered cucumber, and some strawberries that were brought back from the brink by strong advice from my mother.

A while back, my parents introduced me to the Mimosa pudica, otherwise known as the Sensitive Plant (or my new favourite name Touch-Me-Not). It’s a cute little plant that looks perfectly normal until you touch it, when it all curls up on itself like a hedgehog. I thought it was quite cruel to prod and poke at it, but it recovers in about ten minutes and then it’s hard to resist doing it again.

The tomatoes did turn red in the end, and they were delicious.

Here we are, then, eleven weeks on, and my gardening adventure has come to its conclusion. Most of the stuff died. The lettuce seemed to expire. I cleared out the strawberry pot, and I was left with a weird Jekyll & Hyde tomato plant. The tomatoes are at least trying to turn red now. I am not sure whether I should pull them off and ripen them, or if I am supposed to leave them on there until they are red and beautiful.

I have just found out about a new park opened in New York called the High Line. I don’t ever intend on travelling to New York, but if I did I would want to go and see this. The High Line railway opened back in the 1930s, as a way to stop pedestrians getting knocked over by freight trains. The tracks ran alongside the big warehouses, allowing buildings to have openings straight onto the trains.

I appear to have grown a cucumber. I don’t quite know how this happened. One minute it was all leaves, then the yellow flower, and suddenly there’s a big, green cucumber growing. I did take some pictures last week but forgot to do anything with them, and I can tell you this vegetable has more than doubled in size over the course of a week. At either end, it looks like a cucumber should, nice and dark green, and glossy.

Today we have a new and unexpected bloom: I think this must be part of the bell pepper plant, but I can’t be 100% sure. It’s very pretty though, and so far I have spotted two of these cute little flowers. The tomatoes are coming on very well, growing nice and strong, bigger than I expected. They are still green, so I am waiting for them to turn a lighter shade of red before snapping some more photos.

I have learnt many things this week, but the most important one is regards to keeping control of the plants. Up until now, and perhaps in response to being grateful they survived at all, I had let the plants grow and grow and keep on growing. The strawberry pot was reasonably restrained. It grew to a certain size and then some fruit popped out. However, the tomatoes got taller and taller until I was seriously beginning to think I’d have to trade them in for a more manageable crop.