After 2020’s bumper harvest of apples, I have a very meagre crop this year, but the pears are looking hopeful. The seasons have been later this year: wind and rain have taken a toll.
The rain has made hoeing weeds useless and, as a result, I have been hand weeding – the compost heaps are piled high! ….until last week when the drying north wind set in.
Here are some jobs you could do:
Pumpkins and Squash be stored in a shed once they sound hollow when you tap them
Harvest: Apples and pears, onions, main crop potatoes, sweetcorn, pumpkins and squashes. All apart from sweetcorn can be stored in a dark dry place. Sweetcorn cobs freeze well.
Autumn fruiting raspberries and beans will continue to need picking or they will stop producing more.
Collect seeds to share or keep for next year; store them in labelled paper bags or envelopes somewhere cool and dry. The garden Society runs a seed swap at their Spring Show and at the trading shed later.
Plant: daffodils, crocus, hyacinth and Muscari (wait until November for tulips); start to plant overwintering onions and shallots
Divide: herbaceous perennials that are overcrowded.
Take cuttings: of tender perennials like Fuchsia, Pelargonium, Salvias and penstemons and overwinter under cover.
Cut down: fruited canes of berries and tie in the new growth.
Lawns: scarify, aerate, top-dress and feed with a low nitrogen fertiliser …. or grow a wild flower meadow instead!
Dead-heading: One wants to tidy things up at this time of year, but hydrangeas need their dead flower heads to protect next year’s buds; many other seed heads are a valuable resource for wildlife and the foliage is home for many invertebrates over winter. Wildlife does not like tidy!
Most important: Find time to enjoy your garden and perhaps visit someone else’s for ideas.
Dates for your diary
11th September Church Crookham Allotments Annual Show 12.00 – 16.00
Open gardens for NGS
12th September: Bramdean House, Alresford SO24 0JU
19th September: The Therapy Garden, Normandy, Guildford GU3 2DT