***Summer's End (not quite) down on the plot (2nd Part)***

It is interesting to see your results. I have wondered about trying to grow pulses. I threw out some chick peas once which promptly sprouted in the garden. They were quite attractive plants. Maybe I'll try again next yeer. Everything looks great on your plot.

Thank you, MM. Interesting to see they grew for you! They have a very attractive grey/green foliage & a short branching growth that's very attractive.

Not boring at all Balcony.it is nice to do a follow up,whether the harvest is good or not,and helps others to decide if they want to grow them.You have put a lot of hard work into this experiment,but it has been worthwhile..you wouldn't have known what to grow next year ,if you hadn't done this..and when you obviously love gardening,it isn't really a major disaster,just a disappointment...and you have the joy of planning all over again...bet you have started already..Lol.You have had some triumphs too,and your flower bed is lovely,and you have all the fruit,......so swings and Roundabouts,as they say..Happy gardening,:o)))

Gosh Balcony you have a lot of produce coming up Figs, beans, lovely sunflowers and cosmos too. My sunflowers have grown to six foot tall now but have dwarf heads as I collected the seeds from a dwarf sunflower last year. Thanks for sharing your pics my friend :-)

Thank you for taking time out to prepare this lovely view of your allotment. I have been following it through the year like many others and have found it very inspiring.

Great blog Balcony, I don't do veg myself, but it's fantastic looking at your patch. Well done. :o)

Glad some people don't find my blogs boring! :-) I do what I can to try to make them interesting!

Bloomer, many thanks for your comments. I'm afraid that the Garbanzo beans didn't dry out & had gone all mouldy so I threw them away this evening! :-( These have been a very mixed story as a few plants have grown very well indeed but the majority have been a waste of time & effort. Nevertheless, they are nice plants to look at & I think I will try again next year if I can get hold of some compost to work into the soil. I think both the Garbanzo beans & the Lentils need a deeper, more humus rich soil than I have been able to give them this year.

Richard. I can't take all the credit for what we have on the plot as Gerry planted the Sunflowers. He also planted the Figs last year. The Cosmos come from some seeds that I had saved from my own plants at home & which I started off on my balcony. I took them down to the allotment as I had no more room for them this year.

Thanks for following my blogs, Scotsgran & I'm really pleased you find them "inspirational"!

Well, Littlegs, I haven't done veg till this year either! I've grown a few plants of tomatoes most years but that's about the limit to my experience of growing veg! It has felt so strange having to ask about things when people have always asked ME for advice on growing flowers! Still its been fun & has helped me to get out of the house.

Fascinating, as always, Balcony. The bean, pea and lentil experiment has been very worthwhile, I think. Many Thanks for sharing this over the summer. I do like the pic comparing your homegrown ones with bought ones!!! Figs, too - marvellous! The new strawberry bed looks great - even better, planted up with your own plants. The apple puree is a great idea, too. I like the new view from the shed. :-))

Thanks, David, for your great comments & I'm very pleased that you have liked following my blogs. I agree with you that the experiments with the Pinto, Garbanzo beans & the lentils have been worthwhile. The experiment isn't over yet as there are still several "generations" of Pinto beans to evaluate. I planted about 4 more plots, after the original one I've mostly reported on, that one is over bar the actual picking of beans which I shall do tomorrow or on Tuesday at the latest, one at the very top of the plot, another at the very bottom & another two; one where the onions grew & a last row where the potatoes grew. In the old potato beds I also planted Lentils, which are coming along very nicely, as well as Garbanzo beans, a lot of these last ones haven't germinated.

I also planted a few seeds of Tom Thumb lettuces & these have now germinated. But the carrot seeds I planted on the 14th of August haven't shown any signs of life. If they need 14 days or more in which to germinate then I will have destroyed them as I was earthing up a little the Garbanzo beans a few days ago. They were sown in the same bed, in an area where few beans had germinated. But I mounded up the rows the whole length of the rows even where there were no beans.

Well done, Balcony. It has been a very interesting series of blogs and although your chickpeas etc. were not a raving success, any result at all always adds to one's knowledge and I think that it was good to try.

I like the photograph of the view from the shed/. The gladioli are lovely.
Best wishes and keep up the commentaries.

Thank you, Felinfan, for your comments. I'm glad you like the view from the shed but as the raspberries form a wall of green in front of the shed I can't show any more. I've substituted that view for a view, very colourful, of the lady across the path's plot which still looks very nice at the moment. At the moment I don't know what I shall use when I write the end of the month blog.

Even the view to the side has changed very much & is no longer colourful. :-(