October 2026…..what a long time into the future that once seemed, yet it is ‘just another autumn’. Yet not a usual one…I’m still able to grow some surprising crops, I think due to the warmish days and more unusually warmish nights. So here are a selection of edibles for #SixOnSaturday

Perhaps the least surprising crops still growing are in the greenhouse. In recent years I have been much more particular about cutting back the lush growth on tomatoes, allow their fruit, and others plants to enjoy more light. This has resulted in less rot, and plants fruiting for a good while longer. I reckon I still have a couple of kilos to harvest in this first week of October. This one is Audreys Love….many of the suit are heart striped, this one not-so-much, but there’s a hint of a green stripe and they have great flavour…and ideal for greenhouse bench as about 1m tall.

Lemon drop chillies are a must-have for me as a greenhouse crops these days. they fruit way into autumn if given a light and airy spot on the greenhouse bench, and produce medium-hot, lemony flavoured fruit, that also freeze well.

There’s a bit of a 2-for-1 going on here too. Some of the grapes have plumped-up — they were rather pathetic a month ago, yet next to them, and a complete surprise for early October, I still have a few cucumbers!

Moving outdoors, I have never seen a courgette plant still alive, fruiting and even flowering into October, until today. Athena is on her last legs, but has a couple more fruit to offer me.

I did plant a risky crop of little pak choi and tatsoi a couple of weeks ago. They have not been munched on my anything that slithers or flies yet, fingers crossed there will be a couple more warm weeks.

Last this week, is the visually gorgeous radicchio, loves a warm autumn, and will keep going if it has a few dry windy days to keep the rot off. Will be using these in sauces and pasta dishes.

That was a good look around the veg garden and greenhouse. A pretty good showing of home grown veg for October I feel!

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

We passed the equinox this week. A time I always find a little sad as we dip away into the darkness now. For my Six this week, I’ve found some bright pinks and reds that are dotting the garden, to cheer us all up. So here they are, a cheerful #SixOnSaturday

First up, just a few sweetpea are still in flower. This is much later than most years. I did keep up with watering in the summer. I’m fairly sure they are still going strong because the nights have been warmer than usual, and still are — we’ve only had 2 night with sub-10 degC temperatures so far. This one provides a stunning pop of colour, the last one on this plant.

Into the greenhouse, it has been a good year for peppers and chillies. This one is jalapeño , tasty and hot, reliably hot this year.

Another plant that is having a go at a second flowering are my snap-dragons. This one is a wonderful bright pink, I like it at this time of year.

More seasonally, cotoneaster is now fruiting, blackbirds are sneaking into the courtyard where this one lives to feast. I’m disturbing them every time I exit the front door. This is a different variety than the one you saw here last week.

Back into the greenhouse, I suspect the dry weather slowed down the grapes. There are more than usual this year, but they are smaller and less sweet. I’m going to try turning more of them into raisins (using an air-dryer) that will offer pops of summer sweetness on winter breakfasts.

Again and again, dahlia are delivering. It is almost time to move some of them into the greenhouse for some final flowering. For now, they are still feeding the bees as they struggle to keep warm enough in the cooler more blustery days. There seems to be a tiny shield bug (I think) enjoying this flower.

Collecting this week’s Six has cheering me up, I hope you have enjoyed viewing them too.

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

Things are getting more autumnal out there, leaves are changing colour and the local woods are full of mushrooms, like this little beauty. Can’t be part of my six, as not from the garden, but I had to show this cep off.

There are still warmish nights, so lots of veg to harvest from the garden, even courgettes, don’t remember them ever making it to mid-Sept before. Yet the seeds are setting, and the harvest is in. Here are some of mazing forms of fruit and seed in my garden this week for #SixOnSaturday.

A harvest I need to make soon are seed fennel, if I remember to get to these before they fully turn brown and fall off, they can be put into jars and last all year as a seasoning.

Hypericum have flowered and fruited, here are the ripe black berries.

Nigella are a cute little flower, but the seeds they deliver are really wonderful, smooth, yet spiky, they look engineered, not evolved.

Cotoneaster add wonderful colour to the autumn, at least for a while. Blackbirds are feasting on them when they can dash into the courtyard when I’m not looking.

Wild carrot also provides an interesting seed head. Lots of tiny seeds, all clustering up into a cup shape, where the flower once floated.

Last this week is a close-up of the seeds from a simple marigold, what wonderful detail and form, like jaws closing around a tiny mouth. These will soon be harvested to save towards a new crop of colour for the next season.

I hope you enjoyed my foray into seeds, the flowers will probably come back next week.

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

We are now into meteorological autumn, and it certainly feels like it. Again there are coolish days (16-20 deg), stiff breeze, some rain days now, and yet my end-of-season blooms are bold and full of colour. And insects are still around on sunny days, feasting on their nectar. Here are some more of my beautiful colourful blooms for this week’s #SixOnSaturday.

I will start, again, with one of my late summer favourites. A perfect rick pink dahlia. This is a lovely little plant, about 30cm high, flowering again and again with wonderful blooms.

Next, I planted some small and straggly sweetie plants very late this year, and remembered to keep them well watered. Even into September, they are delivering beautiful scented blooms. It must be time to pick another little vase full.

This year, I have a rather odd new variety of dahlia. It has grown on me over the months. It produces unique flowers every time, with seemingly random variations in the number of pink and white flowers. I like the surprise. here’s the latest bloom.

I have grown to love colchicum over the years. I manage to clear away a lot of dried out and dying foliage from several borders in the last few weeks, and look what popped up! Beautiful.

Sturdy and reliable, I’m hoping that we don’t get frosts any time soon, so that cosmos will keep going well into autumn. The rich colour of this one fills me with pleasure.

And last, a final dahlia, although one can barely see it. Yesterday there were 5 butterflies competing for the 4 blooms on this plant. Flowers are red around the edges, yellow towards the centre. The more colourful butterfly species have come very late here this year, I suspect a 2nd or 3rd generation are what we are seeing now. I managed to catch a painted lady showing off her gorgeous patterning, she is top condition still.

As the night draw in, I will continue to be looking for colour and joy around my garden, and hope you will enjoy seeing what I can find.

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

Is this really the last post of August? How did we get to the end of summer already. Still coolish days (16-20 deg), stiff breeze, a few sprinkles of rain, we are back to our traditional end of August. There are still lots of lovely things delivering colourful joy in the garden. Here are some of my beautiful colourful blooms for this week’s #SixOnSaturday.

I’m not sure how much I like this new dahlia variety, but it certainly packs in some colour, especially when it shines with newly fallen rain.

In the dry borders, buddleja have loved the warm nights and sunny days. The yellow one is always the most successful, still flowering well as the season ends.

After a long dry spell, I thought that roses had finished for the year. It seems they were just having a rest. These are back, with their gorgeous blooms and spicy scent (wish I could share that with you).

This year, Japanese anemone are early, fewer than usual, but dealing well with blustery wet days as well as sunshine.

Echinops always look lovely as the summer season ends, always one of the last plants to come into bloom, and always providing a snack bar for bees, overflies and other insects. I think this is a honey bee enjoying some nectar.

Last, pow, another dahlia, this one not so great for the insects, but it’s form is just perfect and such a rich colour, I hope my dahlias will last another month, maybe more if they go into the greenhouse.

Colour, form, in just a few short weeks it will be dark and cold as we five down into winter. At least there will be lots of colour from this year’s high season Sixes. I hope you enjoyed mine this week.

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

Mid0August and a more typical Scottish weather pattern has resumed, finally! Coolish days (16-20 deg), stiff breeze, a few sprinkles of rain. The change, and the nights drawing in, reminded me to start stripping the foliage away from my greenhouse tomatoes, to help them ripen up. And that help is now delivering.

This week, I’m staying put in the warm greenhouse, and showing off my tomatoes for my #SixOnSaturday this week.

“Imun” is sold as an ‘early’ variety — not in my experience, most of my toms have ripened late thsi year, all in the last 2-3 weeks. This is a chubby, pinkish tomato, nice and sweet.

I like to mix and match a range of different varieties, somehow I only managed to grow one yellow tomato this year. Jen’s Tangerine was a good choice, great colour, tasty, not too thick in flesh.

Mini-tomatoes are always great to have for a salad. “Red Cherry” does exactly what it’s name suggests, sweet, juicy, little toms to just pop into your mouth.

Back to my more colourful crop, this one is “Blue Fire” — they do start as blue(ish), as they ripen they turn into a dark purple and the red at the top suggests this one is nearly ready. I have not sampled this year, but I do remember that the flesh is good, the tomato looks fantastic sliced, but the skin can be a bit thick.

For some reason “Tigrella” isn’t as striped as it is some years. These mid-sized fruit have a feint vertical stripe. I wonder if this is because I’ve grown them on from last year’s seeds harvested from my own plants?

Last but not least, a now annual favourite that I collect seed from every year, “Audrey’s Love” is a sprawl bush, perfect for the greenhouse bench, and her fruits are heavy, heart-shaped and delicious.

Wow, fruiting tomatoes really does mean that summer is nearly over. Despite the very ODD year we have had so far, I will miss, as I’ll miss those light, long summer days. Time to get the food dehydrator out, so that I can dry tomatoes, apples, courgettes and so on, to jar up and get me through the rest of the year!

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

So lucky are we…..so lucky to live far enough north to have had a few mm of rain (grass in greening) and not to suffer in the UK’s 5th heat-wave of the year. It’s a scary situation, more than ever I am grateful to live in beautiful Scotland. This week, it’s been back into the high 20’s here, summer blooms are really going for it, lots and lots of flowers.

I’m sharing blooms in pink for my #SixOnSaturday this week.

Dahlia’s are loving the unusual heat. This is a new one, in a hot hot pink, wow.

Much more subtle, but flowering a lot, cosmos is enjoying growing in those warm plant pots by the greenhouse.

A perennial sweetie found its way into the garden. I have it under control this year, growing up a frame. The blooms are beautiful though have no scent at all.

Another new dahlia, pink, but with an open centre to attract bees and lots of overflies seem to love it too.

Japanese anemone are responding to warm dry weather by flowering about 3 weeks early. I’d better love them while we have them this year!

My favourite pink thing in the garden this week…..just LOOK at these luscious lilies, flowering on a 1.5m stem, so many blooms, and in the dry south-facing bed with no watering. They have done me proud.

I’ve enjoyed finding this pink selection….also makes up for me not posting last week. My birthday weekend, I was down in Yorkshire fine-dining, no gardening in sight!

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

Somehow, in the last week, we have switched from scary hot summer to ‘back to normal’. It’s warmish in the day, windy, with temperatures dropped below 10 deg C on some nights. We finally had 3 days with some rain this week, and a lot of it…it took us to about 50% of a historical rainfall total for July, the only 3 days of rain this month — a lot better than most parts of Northern Europe. I think it’s therefore time to show you some of my lovely summer veggies before the cool nights start to make them sulk.

Here’s a fruit and vegetable special for my #SixOnSaturday this week.

I will start with the promise of things to come. In the greenhouse the grape vine is producing a huge amount of fruit this year. I’m having to tie up some of the branches to stop them breaking. These will be large sweet and purple in about a month.

On the back wall of the greenhouse (south-facing), I have tried a squash that usually doesn’t make it outdoors. Trombocino — what a ridiculous plant….this fruit is about 40cm long. Perhaps time to harvest soon in the hope it’s smaller siblings may grow too.

While we are in the greenhouse, tomatoes are late this year. I may manage a tomato-special soon, but for now, here is the wonderful ‘blue fire’ ripening to blue — it will go purple later as the red pigment comes. Yummy!

In the garden. Runner beans often do well here in eastern Scotland. They are large, early and very succulent this year. It is already hard to keep on top of the harvest, picking before they become woody.

I am very proud of my outdoor courgettes this year. They may well feature again in future weeks. For now, this is a classic fruit, actually as big and strong as the supermarket delivers. but I swear these are fully organic, sweeter, tastier, and there are no food miles…..20m from plant to frying pan.

Last, a delicious pea, can’t remember the variety. The pods are a wonderful purple, but the pea just regular green. I tried a few early as mange tout, but nope, horrible and stringy. So peas do need to be podded. Ah well, at least they are easy to find.

I’ve really enjoyed growing veg this year, despite the need for very regular watering. I hope you enjoyed the view too.

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

And still the hot weather goes on. I’m only watering veg beds and pots. There’s not much left of the lawn and even big shrubs are withering a little. As the apparently endless sunshine continues, plants keep giving. I’ve gone for cool white for my #SixOnSaturday this week.

Lots of lillies, despite a major lily battle attack this year. These one are white with a touch of pink, smell Devine, and draw in dozens of hover flies. Magical.

Nigella is a newish annual for me. Some years I have tried but this year they have really taken off. I love the detail, the feathery yet well-organised leafy bits, the simple flower, the blowing beautifully in the breeze.

Another lily, this time Calla. I keep these in pots, then pull the pots into the greenhouse and keep dry for the winter. The strategy seems to have worked well over a good few years. The flowers don’t last long, but when they do, they stand proud and tall, great structure.

This year’s favourite, a dahlia that’s mostly white, but with a hint of pink as the flowers come fully out.

In contrast, ammi is doing it’s very floaty thing in the long borders, seemingly resistant to the hot sunny conditions.

Last, a cluster of really really white lillies. They look gorgeous, yet not as fragrant as the one I opened this post with. They are strutting their stuff beautifully, loving the pot that restricts their roots.

I hope some of the pure white colour has cooled you down….this year reminds me of the summer of ’76, when I was a wee young girl. I remember those endless summer days in the sunshine. When will it break?

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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

We have been so lucky here as yet another heat dome covers north-west Europe. A couple of days over 25 deg, the rest well below that with a little fog at times (known as ‘haar’ in these parts). No rain though, wildfires are breaking out in local woodlands and moors, but luckily nothing too close. As the apparently endless sunshine continues, plants that give their all in late summer are already at play. This week therefore I give you my first Dhalia-special for my #SixOnSaturday.

A new one for the garden this year, I love the form and simple colour of this pure white variety with spiked leaves.

In dramatic contrast, how about dark, rich red? And a free little golden-shouldered bee.

This next one has been in flower for a while, and you’ve seen it in earlier weeks. Just keeps delivering lots of lovely varied flowers with petals running from red into a yellow centre.

Now pink seems to be the new red in my dahlia collection for 2026. First, a very pale flower, set on deep red stems and foliage.

Just one flower has appeared on another new variety, this one with what looks like a random variation of petals, either pink or white. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next few flowers deliver.

Last, a wonderful pink-purple variety with classic ‘cactus’ petals. Rich and wonderful.

There’s summer for you! I love the sunshine, but we really could do with a few drops of rain soon — seems to be none in the forecast for the next week or so.

Do join in with your own 6 things from a garden. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. I do read them all, keep them coming. And do join in with #SixOnSaturday. 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