Gardening made up as we go along

And autumn continues

A month since the last post on the garden blog, and not much has changed. For a number of reasons I have not done very much at all in the garden, not least the continuous bleak weather: cold, rainy, and blustery. Occasionally there is a clear night and Mars, Saturn and Jupiter sail smoothly across the sky; but more usually the heavens are filled with fast-moving grey scudding clouds.

The plants are still growing, of course; or are settling down for winter. The honeysuckle’s flowers have gone, and it is covered in little dark round berries instead.

Honeysuckle berries

The nasturtiums I mentioned previously are still going strong, though, covering the back bed from top to bottom in yellow flowers and straggling halfway across the decking too. The bumblebees are still feeding from them; next year’s queen bumblebees preparing to hibernate, I presume. In this one, however, I spotted an earwig, its head down and pincers outwards.

Nasturtium and earwig

Apparently you can sex earwigs by the size and shape of their pincers. I didn’t try with this one, and left it be inside its flower.

autumn, bumblebee, nasturtium, Tropaeolum, bee, honeysuckle, Lonicera, earwig

...oooOOOooo...