Oh no! The summer is nearly over and autumn is on its way.

I don’t know about you, but we were saying that we haven’t actually seen a lot of wasps, bees and butterflies this year, although we went to Cudworth Park a couple of weeks back and there were loads of dragonflies.

I love dragonflies as they always remind me of little nymphs. I have, as always, tried to plant flowers that attract insects, but they seem to have lost their appeal this year because we have noticed the lack of our flying friends.

I don’t include wasps as my friend. To be honest I can’t see the point in them other than to annoy us humans. I mean everything has a purpose on this planet, but wasps?

And it isn’t just the lack of pollinators, my plants seem to have had a hard time. My buddleia hasn’t flowered and heaven knows what’s gone wrong with my roses, as none of them have even had buds.

Then there is my michaelmas daisies, they seem to have just disappeared completely. In fact, my lovely summer garden just seems to be one big flop this year and I am very disappointed in all of it.

However, I must admit that our Lindsey – who started growing veg last year – has had an amazing crop. She’s managed to grow squash, marrow, broad beans, carrots, beetroot and cabbage.

I had a go at growing tomatoes, oh dear! My tomatoes were like tiny ball bearings whereas hers were like tennis balls, they were lovely. I have felt really deflated with the garden this year, so to try and cheer it up I decided to paint some of my pots.

I wanted to paint the front door but I couldn’t find the right colour paint that I had fixated in my head. To be honest, the colour probably doesn’t exist, so I will have to have a go at mixing two colours together. Good job that I listened in art class, wasn’t it?

I painted a couple of pots with some blue and purple paint that I had in the shed and, yes it did cheer the garden up a bit, but it just didn’t feel right somehow. Even the lawn had more moss than grass due to all the rain that we had at the beginning of the year.

I am now planning for next year and wondering if I should just turn the garden into an orchard and vineyard as my apples and grapes appear to be the only flipping things that have grown. I could just picture Pete stood with both feet in a black bin treading the grapes.

Not sure that any of our friends would want to drink it though. I may have a go at growing blackberries. I have read that you can now buy thornless blackberry bushes, at least I won’t have to drag Lindsey down the fields with a plastic container to help me collect them just so as I can make my apple and blackberry crumbles I will have every thing at hand, in my own back garden.

Bliss. That is if I can get the buggers to grow!