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(

I plough the plot and scatter.......

Just  a quick word about ground preparation.  Sadly and as with most things in life doing the boring mundane things well leads to long time joy and satisfaction.


If you haven't yet there is still time to give your garden a good dig.  (More on ways of digging in a later post),  Just turn the soil over and remove as many stones as you can.  Do it now!!  I normally pay the Junior Gardener and the Under Gardener in smarties for doing this for me.  This part does really pay dividends.  I always wonder where the heck  all the stones come from because no matter how many I dig out this year there will be more next.  Even worse if you live in a modern or new build house this is when you find out where the builders dumped all the brick rubble I'm afraid.  I helped a friend set up a new plot last year and the bricks we dug out went towards a fairly substantial wall!

The junior gardener looking for more stones

Anyway, once you have dug it over then its time to dig in some "organic material".  We produce and use masses of compost over the year and this is where it goes mostly.  I'll talk about composting sometime but thats a whole subject on its own.  If you don't have any compost you can of course buy some in in great big bags or sometime get it from your council.  If your plot is fresh you might also want to apply some manure to it.  I love a bit of shit in the garden me!  If you are digging dung in please please please make sure it is well rotted down, I get a delivery every year and it gets dumped in a dark corner of the garden for a year to rot down before use.  Also.  And this is getting more important.  Know your source.  There have been many reported cases where dung applied to a garden has actually made the garden almost infertile due to the amount of pesticides used on the farm and passed through the animal.  Disaster!  Ask the farmer or ideally get it from an organic source if you can.  My prefered shit of choice is horse but cow will do and the creme de la creme is chicken shit. It is so full on with nitrogen though it really needs proper rotting - and a whole stack of chickens!!

Fairly well dug.  (Note the surface coating of shit!)

Anyway, once you've done all this, taken paracetamol and paid the chiropractors bill its time for yet more soil prep!  Rake your soil to what the garden books call a "fine tilth".  This means get as many stones out and make it as smooth as you can be bothered with in my book.


When this is finished, on a normal cold winter I'd cover the soil with a bit of polythene to help warm it up for planting in.  I don't think you'll need to bother this year it's so warm.  It's still a bit too early for planting anything much in the ground up here so now its time to kick your wellies off, pour a cup of tea and plan what you want to grow..........

More soon!  Happy digging!