Autumn Gardening - my, but its been a while!

Haven't blogged at all since ooooh, ages ago.  Sorry about that!

Its been a reasonable summer on the plot but the weather hasn't helped.

Successes this year have been garlic, root veg and surprisingly brussel sprouts.  Everything else has been OK.  Been a little too wet for great crops but you take the rough with the smooth..


some half decent carrots

The first new tatties of the year. Nom nom.

Garlic and onions all hung up to store.  Lovely.  :0)



The past few weeks have seen the real start of the autumn work in the garden.  Our fairly large 1/4 acre garden is surrounded on three sides by a nine foot high beech hedge.  As you can imagine that takes a bit of tidying up.  I try to wait until autumn to do this so as to give the birds a chance.  It saddens me to hear hedge trimmers going in the spring and summer when the hedges are full of nests with eggs and young chicks.  Next time you are tempted think about it - a hedge in need of a haircut isn't that bad a thing is it?

Don't burn all those lovely leafs either!  Gather them up and store them to turn into leaf mould.  If you haven't got room for a leaf mould box or a seperate composter then fill some bin bags with them, poke some holes in the bag with a fork and leave them hidden under some shrubs.  Given time and some good winter weather they will eventually turn into gorgeous crumbly leaf mould - quite simple the best thing for feeding plants in the spring.

Two big leaf mould boxes.

We also have a couple of internal ever green laurel hedges which need trimmed at this time.  Its not a good idea to compost ever greens so we shred them up and take them to the council to compost at higher tempratures than we can achieve and leave a few piled up in the "wild garden" for the hedgehogs to cosy under for their long snooze.


We dont do too drastic a tidy of our cottagy perenial borders either.  We cut back the stuff that will look truly soggy and rank but many of the big plants produce great seedheads that look glorious with frost on, give some shelter for ladybirds and quite frankly give some interest in the winter.  When people tear out all of their annuals and cut everything down in September in a mania of tidyness it really looks sad I think.  Leave the garden to be a garden and with a bit of a cut back in the spring, some mulching with lovely leaf mould and a little organic feed it'll be away again.  Embrace the scruffiness I say!

Before the dreaded winter dig in the veg plot I will need to buy a new digging fork.  My old faithful finally gave up the fight this year and the metal rotted through.  I've had that fork for over 20 years.  I was genuinely upset at its passing.  One new but used purchase (you know what I mean) was an old kelly kettle.  What a fabulous old thing for the shed.  No need to light the gas stove any more I can light some twigs in the kettle and have boiling water in no time lovely and has its own great rustic charm.

I'll be back to post more regularily now that things are slowing down.  Remember to take your time and enjoy the garden.  Even in the autumn there is plenty going on!

Ahhhh, old friend.  :0(

Go on then, lets talk gardening!!

I've been a right grumpy old bugger lately. (Sorry about that).  In fact the only thing that has made me truly happy recently is the kids and pottering in the garden. Last night a few good and trusted twitter friends suggested I write about gardening - so here we go.

Before I start writing all about it I'll tell you a bit about our plot. 

Luckily for a house in the town we have just under 1/4 of an acre of south facing garden which believe me is plenty.  It has the usual lawn and borders with some really lovely touches.  It is what estate agents refer to as mature established gardens.  In no way can I claim the credit for building this garden.  It was what contributed to selling us this house 5 years ago and I am thankful to the last 100 or so years of owners who have looked after it so well.  I hope I leave it as nice when I get carried out many years from now in my box! 

So, the garden!!  Heres the highlights.  It has an area we have christened "The secret Garden" which is a hidden away area with some lovely herbacious borders, a nice little pond, an old sundial and a lovely old sandstone patio.  This is our child-free part of the garden where us grown ups can sit, enjoy the fire in the chiminea and a glass of wine while the sun sets. 

The main part is mainly lawn with borders and some really beautiful trees and shrubs.  Its great for playing football on, for learning to ride bikes, for having a paddling pool in and for lazing on a summers day (remember them?). As well as a couple of massive fir trees, a pretty birch and a rowan we have a full size cherry, a plumb tree and a really old but productive big apple tree which much to the dissapointment of the kids produces masses of fantastic cooking apples.

Great for playing on.  An arse to cut!

Then we come to the part that I will mostly write about, my domain - the kitchen garden. 

Our permanent fruit bushes are: blackcurrants, red currants, white currants, gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries (red and gold), rhubarb and a strawberry patch.

Also within the kitchen garden of course is the veg patch.  What is in this varies depending on the fads of the time. We also grow some of our veg in bags or pots.  As standard however every year we always grow - potatoes (main crop and early), carrots, onions (red and white), garlic (yes, in Scotland!!), lettuce (various varieties), spring onions, peas, beans, leeks, brussel sprouts, squash and normally a pumpkin for halloween.  Apart from that we do whatever takes our fancy.  This year that means purple sprouting broccolli - so delicious but so expensive to buy and maybe cauliflowers if I can find a way to keep the caterpillars off!

Then there is the greenhouse.  This is used to start my veg and Mrs M's flower seeds nice and early (miles, miles cheaper than buying plants), over wintering some pots, growing some really early potatoes in, growing new potatoes for Christmas (yes you can do that) and of course in the summer growing our hot crops - Cucumbers, peppers, chillies, aubergine and of course Tomatoes.  I LOVE tomatoes.  Not the crappy tasteless, chilled to death supermarket ones.  Wait until you have grown your own italians or cherry tomatoes or lovely old UK varieties.  Honestly, there is nothing finer!!

Ready for the big sowing, nice spring day.

I'll be blogging over the next few weeks and months with some tips to get you started, the story of how we are getting on, our successes and failures with some hopefully nice photographs and fun tales from our garden.

As I get going if you have any questions please just fire in and ask on here or on twitter (@daviemartin).  Now I've started I'm excited about writing this.

To those of you who suggested I do this thanks for the tip.  It has already really fired me up.

Thanks for reading.  Watch this space!!!

Best to just drink coffee on days like this