Mid-september has finally brought autumn, gusty winds and sharp showers are beginning to hammer my garden, but there’s lots of lovely stuff still holding on. I’ll feature some of these for this week’s #SixOnSaturday. But first, a little advert for a lovely garden in Northumberland. I was on holiday here this last week, the ‘quarry garden’ at Belsay hall is totally amazing. here’s a couple of shots of it.

Now I’m home, here are the autumn survivors. Dahlias always surprise me, yet always do well in September. I love a pure white one, especially with interesting petals.

I am also a fan of simpler flowers, loved by insects, with vibrant colours. red dahlia has done pretty well for me this year, despite a cold spring.

A friend gave me some snap dragon seeds a few years ago. These plants don’t always make it through our harsh winters, but I’ve managed to keep a few in pots and am now well rewarded.

On the edibles side, there is lots happening. We are still drowning in apples despite drying some for apple chips, freezing, juicing every day, phew, what a year.

Tomatoes were very late in 2025. I have been careful to strip off leaves fairly early to get that lowering sun fully onto the fruit. It’s going well so far.

As ever, delicious purple grapes are ripening in the greenhouse. This year I’m drying some to make home-made raisins. yes, it’s a faff, but in mid winter, they are wonderful.

I hope you enjoyed my vibrant autumn #SixOnSaturday. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog – sorry if I don’t always get back to you on time! The blog is going well, but it would be great if more folk on Mastodon, or other parts of the Fediverse got into tooting a Six! Go on, it’s a much kinder form of social media, not controlled by crazy billionaires. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot