Primrose genetics

Some of the primroses that I grew from seed this year are now flowering. The seeds were collected from plants with red/yellow flowers, and all the flowers on the new generation are purple/yellow as shown below...


My experience with primrose propagation is that seed from plants with yellow flowers...


grow into plants that have red/yellow flowers...


and, as discussed above, seeds from red/yellow plants give rise to purple/yellow-flowered plants. I didn't know that I would get purple/yellow flowers, I'm a little disappointed that I did because purple doesn't show up very well on gloomy days.

Anyway, next year I'll try sowing seed from the purple flowers.

BTW, because the foxes knocked over the pot in which I was growing seed from a blue-flowered primrose, I think I only have two plants from blue seed. Neither of them have flowered yet, so I'm eagerly awaiting to learn what colour they'll be.

New compost bin

My new composter was delivered today. In previous years I have stopped putting waste into the original composter in October (except for leaves which I continue to add), then turn the compost once a month so that it's ready for use in May.

I continued to put any suitable waste into a trench, covered with a sheet of plastic, until May when I empty the composter and transfer the contents of the trench into the composter.In addition to assisting the composting process, the plastic stops pieces of cardboard and paper from blowing around.

However, this year the foxes have chewed through the plastic and pulled off the wire netting which I thought would keep them off, so I decided to buy another composter.

First frost of the season

Woke up to the first frost of the Autumn today.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon

Saw a strange thing in the sky today. It was about 12:30pm, and the sky was clear apart from a couple of wispy clouds. I looked up at a plane and a little way over noticed something glinting in the sun. Whatever it was appeared to be at a high altitude so that I couldn't see any detail, just a bright point of light which I'm assuming resulted from the sun reflecting off a surface of the object. The light wasn't constant or regular, the impression I had was of an object tumbling across the sky, catching the sunlight intermittently as it went. I watched it for about 5 minutes as it slowly moved along. Then I went to get my camera, although the object appeared so small that I don't think it would register on a photo, but when I got back more cloud had appeared and I had lost the UAP.

Amphibian

I was about to plunge my spade into the compost when I spotted this amphibious intruder (not sure whether it's a frog or toad). I eventually persuaded it to leave the compost and last saw it heading into the undergrowth.

Tomato plants pulled up

Before pulling up the tomato plants I harvested the remaining fruit. The green tomatoes may ripen indoors.

New veg bed in preparation

I have uncovered a vegetable patch in the garden that had for some years been covered with black plastic sheeting, gravel and paving stones. The soil had become very compacted, but I dug it over today following yesterday's rain, and it was fairly easy to break up. I'll be digging it over some more and adding compost.

This is where I plan to grow potatoes next year.